/**/ The Purposeful Wife: Beat the Heat {A Survival Plan for Those Lacking Central Air}

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Beat the Heat {A Survival Plan for Those Lacking Central Air}

Photo By Paul Black Photography
Yesterday was an extremely hot day. Fortunately, I had the car, and we ran errands and managed to keep cool.

Today is an extremely hot day. I do not have the car. And my kitchen is an utter train wreck (read- yesterday I ran a lot of errands and managed to keep cool).

Our home has one window air conditioning unit, which we've placed in our bedroom window. We run the ceiling fan and another big fan in front of the door to blow air through the house. My living room is decently comfortable, since it is right off of the bedroom, but my kitchen sits on the back of the house and swelters.

Most days it is tolerable, but today is just one of those hot days. Not even nine o'clock, and it is 80 degrees. Inside my house.

For those of you who have centralized air conditioning, give thanks and rejoice, and skip over this post :). For those of you who don't, here's my survival plan for the day:

Photo Credit

Do the hot but necessary tasks first. I have got to clean my kitchen today. It is seriously a disaster! It will certainly be a hot and unpleasant task, so I will be eating my frog and tackling it first. To keep my mind off the heat, I'll be picking up where I left off in listening to Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton. As soon as I finish, I'll be rewarding myself with a cold shower (there is certainly no point in showering before I sweat away over the sink!).

Skip the hot but unnecessary tasks all together.  I will not be doing laundry and running my drier today (fortunately my laundry is pretty much caught up!). I will not be ironing. I will not be running my oven. I will not be going for a walk or exercising. End of story. Give yourself grace to let go of these things for just one day!

Focus on cooler jobs. Once my kitchen is tidy, I'll be sitting in my air conditioned bedroom with the babe. Probably all day :). We will fold laundry, play and read together, and maybe even deep clean and organize my bedroom while we're in there. My goal is to be productive without breaking a sweat!

Keep dinner easy. Hamburgers anyone? Make a plan that requires no oven usage! Slow cooked pulled pork sandwiches are another great option.

Drink lots of water. All day! Guzzle it!

Photo By Chris Runoff

Reward yourself with tasty cool drinks. Iced tea is my one weakness ;). You can bet that I will be downing a lot of it today. Make homemade iced coffee, or lemonade, or whatever suits your fancy. Kick your feet back for a couple of minutes and enjoy!

Count your blessings. Really, today may be hot, but things could be much worse. I am thankful that I have a lovely home to live in, cool and clean summer clothes to wear, clean water to drink, and nourishing food to eat. I am thankful that I am not a slave from one hundred years ago working on a cotton plantation in Georgia. That would be hot!!! Considering worse alternatives to my present situation always helps to pull things into perspective.

This is the day that the Lord has made! We will rejoice and be glad in it! :)

How do you make hot summer days more enjoyable in your home? 

Linked with: Hearts 4 Home and Beautiful Thursdays.

6 comments:

  1. We live outside Dallas and after babying it for the last year the main house a/c unit completely died this spring. Between the time it took to get a repair guy out there, then getting quotes for a replacement and then my husband took a last-minute business trip (I don't like having major work like that done when I'm obviously home alone with my kids) we went five weeks without air conditioning. In Texas! Thankfully it wasn't a terribly hot spring but some of that time was downright uncomfortable, and like you we did a lot of "living" in our bedroom (which is on a separate unit). I second what you said about cooking and the oven--that is a surefire way to make the entire house go up ten degrees!

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    1. Yes! Yikes, 5 weeks in Texas! That is rough. Sometimes you just have to make do I guess. Wow, glad it got fixed in time for summer :).

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  2. I hear ya over here! It's in the 90's and I was just out for 30 minutes & got burned! We don't have central air, but we have 3 window units and they keep the house comfortable. Hope your plan works!

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    1. Thanks Mandy :). It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! I was able to get much more done, more comfortably, than I thought. What a blessing!

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  3. It really has been very hot these past few days! I can't imagine how you're managing without one! Kudos to you for finding great ways to beat the heat! Have you considered buying another AC unit? There are some inexpensive AC units that still get the job done very well. Some manufacturers are making smaller, but no less powerful units as well, that are hopefully more budget-friendly. Maybe you can invest in one unit that has a timer function. That way, the AC is running for only the specified time that you set, so it's not taking up too much energy.

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    1. Haha thank you! :) By God's grace, we are doing much better than we deserve, amd are keeping relatively cool. We have talked about getting another unit... at least borrowing one, as next week my family is coming to visit! But for the most part as long as we let the cool early morning air in, and keep the shades drawn all day, it stays pretty comfortable. Thank you for the suggestions! I'll mention them to my hubby :).

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