Where I lived, a heat pump was all you needed in the winter, so I had an idealized mindset about the season. It was like it was in those Christmas cartoons I watched as a kid, with fluffy snow and sledding and so forth. The realities of temperature changes had no bearing on how I viewed northern winters, but that’s changed, and it’s been quite a wake-up call for me! My wife’s mother lives in the North, and is getting to where she needs more care, so staying in the South wasn’t an option. When my wife had the chance to take a job promotion less than an hour from her mother, it was an easy decision. I support her on this, and I work from home, so I can work from anywhere. Living up here is temporary, so in the future we’ll be back to our heat pump, and air conditioning in the summer, but until then, I’ve had to figure out how to heat the house without spending a ton of money. With the help of our great neighbors, I found the answer – making sure the house is well-insulated! With no drafts, it’s easy to control the temperature settings. This is our third winter in the North and I have an HVAC contractor to help us out.