“What brings you joy?”

That question has popped up in my life quite a few times in the last few weeks.

I think part of it has to do with the new year, new mottos, and new resolutions, but on at least two occasions, the question was posed directly to me, and I did not have a ready answer.

In the past, the answer was always my family.

Sure, they were also my single largest source of stress, but when I thought of the word joy, I immediately pictured the five of us, together.

Now, when I picture our family, I can take pride in accomplishments, I can be happy in the moment, but joy, in that regard, is gone.

I realized that I was probably going to have to answer the question with something semi-legitimate at some point, so I got to work thinking about when, if at all, I’ve felt any joy in the last year or so.

And, I finally hit on it: the thermostat.

I felt joy when I made it to the last week of November before I turned the heat on, and then, it was only for a few hours, not even the whole day, and it was only once, and I didn’t turn it on again until December.

And, then, I realized that I’m officially old. I can’t remember a single time in the first 49 years that I cared at all about the thermostat settings.

Honestly, until I was maybe 35, I don’t even know that I could tell you where they were in the house. Once I hit 50, though, boy oh boy, I can tell you what every single one is set at, what rooms are included in what zones, what doors have to be opened or closed to contain and spread the heat most effectively, and probably a dozen more things that I didn’t even know where things a few years ago.

I’ve also become obsessed with the wood stove.

I should issue the disclaimer, that while I didn’t touch the thermostats until November, I have had a fire going in the wood stove most days since October.

I’ve also gotten to be pretty good at playing with the drafts on the wood stove. Maybe a little too good. The other night G summoned me to show me that the stove pipe was starting to glow red. I was momentarily distracted by how toasty the room was, even though the thermostat hadn’t budged.

“Mom, focus! I don’t think this is good,” he said, snapping his fingers in my face.

Personally, I think the Boy Scout was just intimidated by my fire building skills, but I did open the draft a little and pretty soon, the glow disappeared.

I’ve even gotten better at banking the fire so that it’s still glowing in the morning and easier to start. Sadly, though, I do have to let it go out every few days so I can clean out the ashes.

Who am I and when did these become my goals in life?

I have plenty of coal, and plenty of firewood.

There’s no reason for me to turn into the Heat Miser and make the kids run around the house in layers to keep warm, and yet, beating that thermostat does in fact bring me joy.

I keep waiting for some of this thrifty zeal to spill over into other areas of my life, like grocery shopping, or laundry.

I swear the washing machine runs 24/7 in our house. At least it does during swim season, when three swimmers use a pile of towels every single day. Obviously, I wash everything on cold, because the coal stove also heats our water, and that would jeopardize the coal consumption minimization project.

It would also be great to be able to be that person who buys one whole chicken and makes a week’s worth of meals out of it, consuming everything from skin to bones. I am not likely to be that person, for the simple fact that G has, on occasion, consumed the majority of a rotisserie chicken “as a snack.”

Even if that weren’t the case, by the second day of eating chicken, I don’t think I could scrape the bottom of my vocabulary and find the word joy there.

A friend of mine, who is close to my age, has been experiencing the same phenomenon. She can’t tell me what her schedule is like for the rest of the week, or what she’s making for dinner, but she can recite the setting of every thermostat in her house to the degree.

I don’t think it’s the gray hair, or the invitations to join the AARP that are starting to show up in my mailbox that are signaling my entry into old age.

It’s my obsession with that little round gadget on the wall.

As I’ve been doing home renovation work, I’ve been tempted to start swapping them out for smart thermostats, but somehow I don’t think I’d get the same satisfaction with that much programming available. There’s also a good chance that my tech smart kids would figure out a way to hack into them and turn them on, instead of just putting on an extra sweatshirt.

Next thing you know, I’ll be standing on the lawn, shaking my fist at them. As much as I’d like to think I’m young at heart, I’m definitely old at the thermostat.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing columnist who appears weekly in the Times News.