Heat and Stress
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive July 2006:
Heat and Stress
So, how has everyone been coping with the heat?
I know it is pretty much over, but I don't handle it well at all. I can't believe that there are folks who LOVE this weather. I am not one of them. We don't have central air but we do have a window unit in our living room. But, it is difficult to keep cool unless I block off the kitchen and bedrooms, so I hang blankets over the doorways. Then I get the kids running in and out of the house, so they have to use the back door in the kitchen. According to the thermostat, it still gets up to 80 degrees in the living/dining area, which is still better than 90 or 95.
I take 2 showers a day, one in the morning or afternoon and one at night. I hate being sweaty after having a shower, so I like to try to keep cool as much a possible, but it never seems to work out that way.
I put fans in the windows at night, around midnight or 1 AM when the temps FINALLY fall below 80 degrees outside, and bring the cool air in. But I wake up around 6AM to take them out and shut the windows so I can crank up the air conditioner before it gets hot again. I ran all my errands (or so I thought) last Friday before the heat wave. And the BUGS! EVERYWHERE there are bugs. Mostly earwigs. In the shower, in the kitchen. UGH!
Sunday I didn't get to watch the NASCAR race because I had to settle a dispute between my son and another neighbor kid (a different kid and another long story). My son had another friend spend the night on Saturday night, and Sunday, his mom said she would be at our house at 6 PM to pick him up so I held off dinner. I still ended up having to go to the store for something I forgot for dinner, but I couldn't go to the store until she got here, and she was an hour late.
Good thing I only live a block away from Meijers. So I used one of those self-checkouts, and as I am walking away from it, I slip and fall flat on my butt. Seems there was a spill, fruit cocktail I believe, and the cashier hadn't gotten around to getting a wet floor sign yet. The spill was right in front of the other self-checkout unit, which she closed down because of it. I got up and I was fine. FURIOUS, I tell her, "You need a wet floor sign right there!" And I walked away with a wet butt. I really just wanted to get home to get dinner going, so I left. But as I kick up the oven, I am still hot over the spill, so I called the store and spoke to the manager (it couldn't have been more than 10 min after this happened.) I also told him that a deli employee actually witnessed the accident. He apologized up and down, took my name, address, and phone #, and said he would definitely address this with the cashier at once, and may have his secretary call me this week (haven't heard anything yet, but power was out Tuesday at the store, too, and so was our cordless phone.)
After my nightly shower, I very politely asked my son, who was sitting in my recliner, if I could sit there, and he gave me lip service, so I lost it with him and told him to get his butt in his room until he could treat me with some respect. My dh tried to write it off as me being cranky because of the heat, which only made me more cranky.
I ended up sleeping on the front porch, where I could get the breeze. At 1 AM. That night, it only got down to 78.
Monday, dh finally set up the new pool in the backyard. It's one of those round blob types  and holds 500 gallons. He set it up on an uneven part of the yard, and it lasted a day and a half. This morning we got up and found it deflated and empty. The plug for the inflatable top ring had popped out, and when the top ring deflated, the whole pool collapsed. 500 gallons of city water- gone. So now we can at least move it to a level part of the yard and put 500 more gallons in it.
Then Monday night was the storm. Our power was knocked out at 10:15PM, so no fans to cool the house that night. It was kind of fun- we sat out on the front porch and watched the lightening and the rain- it lasted for almost 3 hours!
Tuesday morning, I woke up at 4 AM because I was hot. I took a shower and had a bowl of cereal. I turned on my battery operated radio and found out that throughout Michigan, over 300,000 customers were without power. They said that it may take up to Thursday to get power back, Friday in rural areas. So I went to Meijers again and picked up 10 bags of ice for the food in the fridge. By 6AM I had 2 medium sized coolers and a plastic tub full of food on ice. Then I went back to bed, and woke up 4-1/2 hours later to the sound of the TV. Power was back on! Must be we are on the same circuit as Meijer, and there is a 24-hour emergency medical clinic across the street from Meijer. So, our circuit must have been on a priority list.
So Tuesday is my normal cleaning day, (Thank God it was cool that day!) and I had a lot of work to catch up on. I hadn't been keeping up because of the heat, so I spent all day on it. I also got to clean out the fridge before I put all the food back in. I only lost a partial package of deli ham, but it was almost a week old anyway.
So how about the rest of you ladies?
I live for summer, heat and all. LOL..
We have central ac, and we also have a big above ground pool in the back yard. So yes, it is hot here, but me and the kids and dogs manage to keep cool. The kids really dont want to play outside much in the heat. If they are in the pool they are fine. Normally after dinner when it is not so hot out, we take a walk, or the kids play outside in the yard.
I don't mind the heat at all, as long as I can keep cool
It's been very hot (not unexpected though)and humid here also. We couldn't live without central air in southeast Louisiana. I was born and raised here and STILL hate the humidity and heat. The kids have been hanging inside more than they should but we try to get out in the afternoons and a couple of hours during the day. Ds's birthday is Aug. 28 and we always have trouble planning a party because it's either 98 degrees with 90% humidity or hurricane winds are blowing! We try to make the best of it - it's home. I was laughing the other day thinking about how different things were when I was young. We didn't know many people with pools. When there was the threat of a hurricane everyone used to fill their tubs up with water in case it hit and there was no drinking water for a while. We LOVED to splash around in that cool water after the threat of the hurricane had passed! Sometimes there would be five kids in the tub with our bathing suits on splashing around. I shake my head and laugh thinking about how easily we were entertained.
Jeane, what part of Louisiana do you live in?
Lisa, I hope the rest of your week is better than the past few days!
As for the heat, it's a killer. We were in a drought, and now it won't stop raining. Some days it rains *just* enough to turn everything into steam. My poor AC is working overtime. LOL
We have the AC on most of the time. I like not having to wear a jacket everytime I go outside, but the humidity about kills me. I wouldn't say I live for summer weather, but I like fall weather a lot better.
My best friend and her DH LIVE for summer weather though. THey live in an older house, with radiator heat and NO air conditioning at all! I don't know how they stand it!
Living in Massachusetts we only get the heat and humidity in July and August (usually anyways). I would escape with the kids to the beach. We had central air put in a couple of years ago and it's been great, but before that we had a big window unit in the living room and a smaller one in our bedroom. During a heatwave, the kids would "camp out" either in our room or the living room. I would get another one for your bedroom. I also would not shut it off at night if you know it's going to be hot the next day. As far as dinner goes, when it's that hot I either cook in the morning and just reheat, or we get takeout or sometimes, for a special treat we will just have ice cream for dinner. I am thankful that yesterday and today it is beautiful out, but I see we have a tropical storm coming for the weekend so that will make everything humid again. I hope you get your pool set up and things stay cool for you!
Lisa, my mom only lives about 1/2 hour from you (she works at the Cascade Meijer) and she had central AC put in about 5 years ago when she had her furnace replaced. Before that she had a window unit in her bedroom and one in the dining room. As she's gotten older, she just can't tolerate the heat and humidity. It literally makes her sick.
We get the heat here, but not so much humidity. When we do get anything over about 30% BOY do we notice! lol We do have central AC and avoid going outside in the afternoons when it's over about 85. Here, though, the sun is extremely hot and you can get a nasty sunburn in about 10 minutes (we're at about 6000 feet). We go through a lot of sunscreen.
Enojy the heat! It'll be VERY cold very soon. Personally, I look cooler weather, but the heat's nice for a while (summers here are just long enough).
Cat - you mentioned your Mom...I don't know why it is, but we DO develop an intolerance to the heat as we get older. It makes me sick to my stomach, too. I LOVE your part of the country. You're right. The summers are just long enough. I LOVE that cool mountain air.
We have window AC units, too, one at each end of the house and they do a real good job.. We looked into adding central air, too, when we replaced our furnace, but in New England we only use AC about 2 months, so I couldn't justify the cost.
I am so ready for Fall/winter it don't matter just as long as it is cooler. By 11 yesterday it was already 103 and went on to be 110. TO HOT. We bought our house about 4 years ago and one of the stipulations is it had to have central heat and air. We would be lost without it. Hate the high electric bills but we don't suffer.
ITs almost 11 here now and its almost 100.
We have window units but will be getting central A/C installed soon. The heat & I do not get along.
We've been over 100 for a couple of weeks now (114 is the forecasted high for Saturday) but the humidity stays right around 30-40%, so that's not unbearable. Really, we just expect that kind of heatwave a couple of times each summer and just spend a lot of time indoors (EVERYONE has central A/C) or in the pool. If we've really gotten hot and irritable, we'll head to the theater to see a movie. I don't love the heat but I tolerate it pretty well and it's just a fact of life in this area. Our air quality is the real kicker when it gets hot. We're in a valley and all the smog from San Francisco Bay Area commuters gets trapped in this valley. Yuck!
I guess it's not the heat, it's the humidity combined with the heat. Our weather gal called it "Air you can wear!" But it was almost 85 degrees here Tuesday, and without the humidity it didn't bother me that much.
Things have been going better, but I still feel stressed out. I can't relax, I can't sit still, I can't focus. Maybe I am tired, cuz now I wake up automatically every morning between 5 and 6 AM. Too early for me when I am up with dh after he gets home from work, around 2 or 3 AM. Ds sleeps until about 11 AM, so I go back to bed.
We probably should just break down and get central air, but we need new windows.
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