I am a single mom with three young children.
- I work a full-time job that frequently requires long hours.
Keeping up with household tasks and the many activities of my kids was extremely difficult on my own. I struggled to find time to get groceries, do the laundry, cook meals and clean the house. At the time, my mother was living alone. It made sense to ask her to move in with us. The kids love her and I needed the babysitting. We both help each other out. Initially, the transition took some getting used to. My mother does some things a little differently than I do. One of our biggest difficulties was figuring out the thermostat settings. My mom always feels a bit chilly, while I tend to run hot. I’d like to keep the house set at seventy degrees, and she’d prefer seventy-five. She was also unaccustomed to a smart thermostat. My thermostat doesn’t require adjustment. It knows when the house is empty or occupied and signals the furnace or air conditioner when to start up and shutdown. The thermostat is a touchscreen rather than the conventional buttons my mother is more familiar with. Whenever I wasn’t around, she’d start tapping on the thermostat. I once came home in the middle of the summer and the furnace was blasting. My mom had mistakenly switched the system to heating mode. She had all the windows open and was using box fans while the furnace was running. I’ve since added a security code to the thermostat that prevents anyone but me from making adjustments.