Pages

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Update on the heat issue

Andrew came home from work around 2:15 today. I wasn't expecting him home that early and so he walked in on me reading Harry Potter 5 in my recliner with my poor swollen feet propped up on the ottoman and two cushions. I had a big glass of cold water on my right, the box fan blowing faithfully, my feet covered in a wet cloth, and was eating a freezie.

The temperature? 88 degrees (31 C).


I was not very comfortable. So, we went to Costco to get some staples (Cheerios, bread, cheese, and milk). There was a nice display of air conditioning units and fans right at the entry of Costco. Andrew had some time pulling me away from them. I am not even a real fan of icy cold conditioned air, and yet found great pleasure in putting my face right up to a machine blasting out frigid air, trying to cool the whole warehouse down to 62 degrees, a quite impossible task.

After walking around Costco and being relatively cool for a little while, we had to head home. Rather unfortunate.

Our house is still 88 degrees and something now smells funny (it didn't at 2:15). We aren't sure what it is.

Karen called around and found some appliance guy to come and look at our air conditioning unit today (hurrah!) but he won't be here for another half hour or so--what a good landlord/mom! Hopefully he'll know just how to fix the air conditioning unit--and maybe he'll be able to pin his nose on the funny smell, too...



By the time the AC guy showed up, our house had reached 90 degrees (32 C)! Yikes!


I was so worried that perhaps the air conditioner was not broken and it was all my imagination and I was enduring the heat for nothing.

Not only was I enduring the heat, but I was enduring an extraordinary amount of contractions--I was quite afraid that we might actually have the baby early. They were just "practice" contractions though and I quelled them by drinking a million gallons of water! I really can't tell you how much water I drank, but just at dinner Karen filled up the water pitcher around 4 times (and I was the only one refilling my glass).

Well, the AC was broken--it was very broken. It was missing a fuse, so it had only been running on half the power up to this point. And then the "kick start" box had broken so the engine wasn't starting up anymore. And then the wires were frayed on the roof, and down by our furnace. So, the guy fixed all of that and, miracle of miracles, cold air started coming through the vents rather than 103 degree air. It was marvelous. The house dropped to 88 before he even left. For some reason that felt a whole lot better than 90.

Andrew and I went to dinner at his parent's house. As we were driving there in our wonderful air conditioned car, Andrew made the following observation:

"We could have played in the sprinklers in our house all day!"

I gave him one of those "I think you're completely crazy" looks so that he would explain his reasoning.

"80 degrees was the rule growing up. At 70 we could wear shorts and at 80 we could play in the sprinkler! We could have played in the sprinkler in our house at 7 in the morning!"

True enough, it was pretty nice sprinkler weather in our house all day.

Anyway, Andrew's parents had invited us to their ward pot luck last week and I really was planning on making something...but we ended up going empty handed. I could not fathom preparing anything in my kitchen. Fresh stuff would have wilted and I didn't even want to boil water, let alone cook anything. No one minded, and the food was great! I was so happy to not have to cook...and to get to cool off a little bit.

We went grocery shopping on our way home and by the time we got home our house was 84 degrees. We watched Harry Potter 4 and by the time we went to bed, it was 82 degrees.

We set up two box fans on chairs at the foot of our bed (one is my mom's, the other is ours), turned the ceiling fan up the highest, and had the air conditioning going. It was a marvelous feeling!

When I woke up this morning the house was 74 degrees--right where I like it. I think we'll keep it there for a while.

7 comments:

  1. Ooh eight months and no air. That is just not good. I hope you guys get the air conditioning fixed soon. The feet swelling thing is the worst. With Ezra my feet got so huge during the last month that I stretched out my favorite pair of shoes. It isn't a for sure thing though. With Grace my feet only got swollen on that one day when my sister got married and I was on my feet for 12 hours. Otherwise I was good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am so glad that you got you air fixed. 90 degrees is way to hot!

    Andrew could only wear shorts if it was 70 degress? I heard some families do it at 60. We didn't have a set temp. It was just whenever I thought it warm enough. Maybe families have set temps because there are children who would wear shorts in the middle winter....hmm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who would wear shorts in the middle of winter? Not Andrew, surely!

    ReplyDelete
  4. And yes, the AC is working and my feet have stopped swelling now. It is nice :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. HI Nan-- good to read all the updates. We are enjoying Australia. We just sleep in and then go out for a bit. We have a wonderful hostess. It is winter here, so the sun goes to bed around 6 pm and I start getting tired soon after. I am catching up on a lot of missed sleep.
    Love Mom

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm SO glad you're comfortable now. Yay for AC repairmen. Did you figure out the smell?

    Once the baby comes, you should be fine - my overwhelming, number one feeling after giving birth (and losing like 30 pounds in a few days) was being freezing cold all the time. And that was in Tucson in September.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We didn't figure out the smell, but it's gone now, so I think we're okay... :)

    It's kind of nice not being freezing all the time--but I'm kind of looking forward to being back to normal. I used to wear a sweater in the summers, no problem. Not anymore!

    ReplyDelete