Sunday, June 7, 2009

Underoos, Ice Cream and Saving Money

One mildly, cool winter day because that's really all we ever get here in Texas I read an article that explained "tips and tricks" on lowering your electricity bill. JACKPOT! I thought; I've hit the jackpot now! Saving money is right up my alley.

The tips included the normal items you would expect like:

1. Energy efficient doors and windows including good, tight seals (hence the door project)
2. Proper window coverings and all of the "right" times of the day to open and close them to maximize efficiencies
3. A/C maintenance and programmable thermostat

and the kicker

4. the average "comfortable" home temperature is 77'F.

um...excuse me? of course, I say this now.

I vowed to try it at the time I read this article. Promised to get my "cool air" habits under control.

You may be wondering what my "cool air" habits are exactly. However, if you have lived in SE Texas for any amount of time, you probably have a good idea of what they are.

For as long as I can remember, way back into my childhood even, the A/C temp was on 69'F at night and did not budge over 73'F during the day and that was probably before my mother's hot flashes had really set in to stay. So, for the better part of my life I have lived in what some may call, frigid temperatures.

To bring you up to date on this journey, let me begin by saying that at this current time the temperatures outside are upward of 87'F which are some of our milder summer temps. I'm sweating gang. All of the time. Not just a little. My arm pits stink, my thighs stick together and to every seat in the house, I kick the covers off completely at night, I can't get my makeup on in the morning because I am fighting to keep my face dry enough for the stuff to stick. My thermostat is currently on 75'F and it's killing me.

What I do to accommodate these sweltering temps in the house is strip down. Tank tops and shorts for now but this ain't going to cut the mustard when the 90 degree weather is here to stay. It's all fine for now when I am home alone and can get down to the underwear stage of cooling off, but Griffin may not care to have me parading through the house in nothing but my underoo's wonder woman of course!


So, I'm stuck. I'm not sure I can stick this thing out. I miss the days of having to pull a little blanket over my legs while curled up on the sofa watching a movie or when I had to put the ice cream in the microwave for a few seconds for it to thaw enough to get the spoon in it after it had set out for 20 minutes and made no progress in the melting stage.

What's your homes average temps? Have I lost my mind for giving up my cooler temps? I'm going with a VERY STRONG YES here. Or should I just pack my bags and head for Alaska now before it gets worse???

I think I'll go fix myself some ice cream now and try and scarf it down before it becomes completely liquid in the next 2 minutes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hahaha, you are hilarious!! It hit 90 yesterday and I about died. I hate heat. We are just like you though, trying to keep the bill low. At night when we go to bed its cranked down anywhere from 69-71. thats from like 10 pm-7am. But when I get home from work I try to stick it out with just the fans going but if I turn it on I usually do about 74. But other than that we have ours shut off all together. Our electric bill has been about $50. Not bad!! Hope this helps!!