08 June 2008

If everyone were happy all the time life would be wonderful. You have to find your happiness where you can, right? I'm finding my happiness with my fan blowing on me right now while I write. My house is SO hot. You walk up my stairs and feel like you've entered a different climate zone. I know heat rises, but in my house it rises too much. I wonder if some kind of HVAC inspection would be worthwhile. Brad? I shut the vents in the room we don't use and close the door. I keep the blinds closed. I can't really have a window air conditioner up here because it's not allowed in the community. The portable fans do help a lot, and I have a few of them. It's really not as terrible as I'm making it sound, and we don't spend a lot of our waking hours upstairs. It would just be a lot more comfortable if it were cooler here. My neighbor Steve has his windows open. It's in the mid-70's right now with the humidity in the 80's. It's going to be in the upper 90's today. Yuck! We had a violent storm pass through last night, but no damage or loss of electricity, and we really needed the rain.

Today is my book club meeting. I finished the book; most of it I listened to and then read the rest. I'd highly recommend it...Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I have to go out and get the ingredients for the dessert I'll be bringing: cracker candy. I'll have to post the recipe. Another one of those desserts that I'll leave the leftovers behind.

Thanks for all comments about the scooter incident. I'm going to call around to find a place that can test the battery. Great idea. I did check into renting a scooter at the beach, but it was expensive, so if this battery is no good we will buy another one. Also, at Macy's...the place was almost deserted. We didn't pass by anyone who could help us. I'm sure someone would have offered if they had seen us. People are usually very considerate.

Enjoy your Sunday. Stay cool.

13 comments:

Lena said...

Stinking hot here, too. Coats on Friday it was so cold and heat wave by noon on Sat.

It is about 10 degrees cooler downstairs in our house than upstairs. I know exactly what you mean.

Enjoy your bookclub, what a nice way to spend a Sunday.

Jay said...

I had some friends when I lived in San Antonio who had the same problem. They solved it by having a second air conditioning unit strictly for the upstairs installed. It worked perfectly.

The programmed the upstairs thermostat to go from 76 down to 72 at about 9 pm at night so it would be cool when they went to bed. Then it would go back to 76 at about 3 am. The downstairs thermostat was the opposite. Programmed to lower the temp during the day and raise it at night.

Anonymous said...

The heat is stifling here too (Oklahoma). I can imagine the heat there, espcially since you can't use a window unit. This is my first time on you site. I will be back. Hope it cools off for you! Annie

Brad said...

Hey Sweets - One of the best things you can do is shade any window that gets sun from the outside. You wanna cut out the sun before it hits the glass of the window - the most heat induction is from the glass of your home. Once the sun heats the glass it's in your space. We buy bamboo blinds from Home Depot - their about $20. If you don't have an attic fan that's another really good way to cool off the house and it's not too spendy.

Short of that I can make Jay sell you A/C at cost cuz I love ya.

Brad said...

Keep all vents and doors open and set your t-stat to fan w/ no heat and keep the air moving - that will help too

Brad said...

inside doors is what I meant

Happyone said...

That's why I love my window air conditioning units. One downstairs and one upstairs keeps my house really cool.
I know I will miss that when we move to the town house.
I remember when I was a kid no one had AC - we were just HOT all the time.

Ruth Hull Chatlien said...

I read that book for a book club too. It was a good one, wasn't it? But sad. I hope your discussion goes well.

fiwa said...

Can you believe it's still cold here? I'm sitting here in sweat pants and a big sweater.

I'm interested in what Brad said about shading the outside of the window - I'm going to try that on my bedroom this year. It gets full afternoon sun and it gets so HOT in the summer.

Hope you find some way to cool off. I'm addicted to popsicles. Even the NON sugar free ones are only 45 calories each. Scrum!

lovins,
fiwa

Gin said...

Cheryl, I don't know what we'd do without our window AC's. We have two and that's all we need in our house. I keep the door closed on the west side of the house. Brad's so right about the windows...that's where the heat comes into my split foyer when the sun is setting. We use fans to move the air around if necessary. We only use the bedroom AC at night. Our little AC unit in the dining room keeps us pretty cool.

Hey speaking of books, I just finished (finally!!!!) Duma Key. Whoa! SK is back to writing some pretty funky stuff!! I liked it tho.

Rick Rockhill said...

Cheryl- I also recommend homemade popsicals. Orange or any fruit juice really is a perfect cool-me-down treat without all the bad sugar and much cheaper!

Mary said...

Golly, I'm sorry you're having problems with heat in your upstairs. We have a one story house but it's in an L configuration so circulation was a problem. My solution was a unit that is like a small central unit. One part sits outside just like the big unit, a vent comes into the sunroom(an addition) which provides both heat and cool. It was a little on the expensive side 4 years ago but I think they are fairly reasonable now. Lots of folks here are using them. I'm sure Brad would know what I'm talking about. All I know is that it works.

With a total of 400+ gallons of reefs in our house and the ungodly humidity here my problem is humidity. I'm awaiting a return call for someone to do an analysis to decide if it's practical to install a dehumidifier to help the regular units.

SOUL said...

i hope it's cooled off for you by now-- brad had good suggestions--of course :))
i wonder if maybe you need to just change the filter? or something simple like that ??
hopefully nothing expensive.

i wish i read more.. i make up for it in moves i guess. just never been much for reading, but when i do i like it. i'm just slow, and now half blind, so it's not much fun.

never heard of cracker candy--but it doesn't sound too appetizing-- are you gonna post a pic?
have a good night.

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