Granted, the weather has been very cooperative with us. No 90 degree days - well, I take that back we a couple back in April (?) - and we have not had much humidity. That is the key for us...no HUMIDITY! We have been in the 80's.
What have we done to keep ourselves comfortable you may ask?
1st off, I must let you know that our house is pretty well shaded by trees...about the only house in this neighborhood that still has shade trees. *nodding* I know one family cut down their 40 + year old Oak because the acorns were denting their car. HUH? I am not sure why others have cut their trees. Some, I know, where diseased & others had branches that were dangerously close to their homes - a good thunderstorm with high winds may have brought branches thru their roof...understandable.
So, we close all windows in the house by 10:30 AM as to not let the hot air into the house thru the windows.
We reopen windows when it is a little cooler outside than it is inside...time of day is different depending on temp for that day.
We are using window fans to suck that cooler air into the house as well. We close the bedroom doors while this is happening & the boys go to bed and actually are wrapped in their blanket when I check on them before I go to bed at night. The bedrooms are that cool!
I went out to get this "appliance" for us after Christmas. It is just a fancy teflon electric fry pan. My mom had gotten one for our beloved Richard (may he be resting in peace). I was immediately in love with it! Did we really need it? Probably not. One can get the same effect using a fry pan on the stove. My thoughts were it looks like it is fun to use and if my the boys think it is fun, they will use it by themselves. Was I correct in this thinking? YUP YUP YUP! Chalk one up for the Mom *wink wink*. (BTW....And who doesn't like a little Ribbon Candy during the Holidays? hehehe)
Cooking - I have 3 teenage boys to feed - We have been using the crockpot, stove & microwave. Unfortunately, our Propane gas grill no longer works. Salads, sandwiches, cereal have been on our menu as well. When we do use the stove, we have a fan set up in the dining room to blow the hot air out our back door. I cook up ground burger on cool days & throw it in the freezer. That way I dont have to cook it and then keep the stove on to cook the burger in whatever dish it is being used in...pasta dishes mostly. Rice is cooked in microwave.
This is an example of one of the many things we have "cooked" in our Christmas Appliance. A wrap, scrambled eggs, crumbled up Maple Flavored Sauage links, and cheese. We have also made pizzas, some kind of "sandwich" with SteakUms, Shredded Buffalo Chicken cooked in crockpot with cheese, ground beef, etc., etc. One is only limited by their imagination.We have also been keeping no more than 4 of us in the house at one time. This is kind of unintentional, but it has made a difference. My oldest son works til 3:30 PM. My middle son has been going to the pool about 2:30. By the time the middle son gets home from the pool, the oldest one (the one that works til 3:30) has made plans to go out for the evening. The youngest boy & I have been having Rummikub Marathons outside in the front yard on a cardtable til dark, so our bodies are not in the house heating it up when "Pool Guy" and hubby are home.
So by the time all of us are back in the house, usually 10:00 PM the house is reasonably cooled down again.
We take WARM showers, not steaming HOT showers. The steam warms our house, as we live in a Ranch style home. A cold shower is no good for cooling...my thoughts on cold showers are that they actually make you feel hotter when you get out...your body has to work harder to get back up to it's normal temp (98.6 per "The Professionals" aka Doctors) and therefore you are expending energy which will in turn make you feel hotter. Expending Engery = Heat - if I recall my Chemistry lessons from High School. *shrugging shoulders* Like I said that just seems logical to me.
We also wear very little clothing. Boys are in boxers with no shirt. Hubby in shirt & shorts. Me - I am in skirt, a shirt, sandals, shorts, hair in pony tail, wicking shirts, shirts that "fit" but not alot of material - hubby seems to be enjoying these very much as I am usually known to show no skin at all in public...just ask anyone in town...LOL. I purchased a pair of knock off "crocs" back in the fall. I noticed every time I wore them my feet were cold. I wore them with socks all winter. I am now wearing them without socks and they seem to make me feel cooler - all in my head? who's to know, but it seems to be working so I am not complaining!
I have also come to freezing a Sunny D bottle with water in it and then putting it front of a fan and letting the condensation spray on those in front of the fan which cools us off as we walk by that particular fan.
I belong to a group on http://www.ravelry.com/ called Living Simply. I must admit some of the things we are doing came from that group. I found a great link(http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/summer2007.pdf) to a PDF file put out by our Government that was full of great advice. But the thing that impressed me the most about this particular file was that it was easy to read for all! As a matter of fact, I printed it out and am making my boys outline it for practice this summer (there is some cash incentive involved in this project...LOL).
I think I am going to try planting Morning Glory flowers next year near some of our windows. Beneficial to keeping sun out of windows. Will have to do some research on this idea as, we have shade on some of our windows for parts of the day. Critterliz planted some last year and had them running up and around her mailbox...what a lovely sight to the eyes when one drove by her house! Why not have them running up my house as well?
Should you have any advice for us, please post in the comment section. We just looked at the weather forecast, 74 tomorrow with rain, then 4 days of humid weather heading our way. We'll probably survive the first 2 days of the humid weather, but if the nights don't cool off...we are sunk and the Air Conditioners will go into our windows.
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