Wednesday
After another two-hour night of sleep, the day has been difficult. No amount of sleep hygiene will keep me asleep some nights. I don't ingest anything that could cause a rebound effect and keep me up. I will spare recounting my good habits to you.
Tommy was horrified at his electric bill, almost twice the amount for June last year. He resists any effort to lessen the bill. Long ago, he stripped his yard of shrubs and heat mitigating growth. He insists the St Augustine grass be mowed to a nub. His brick home absorbs all the heat! Window coverings are flimsy. The front storm door sits 1/2" from the door frame allowing hot air and cold air easy access to the house. I can see a quarter inch crack all the way around the wooden door, same with the back door. He would rather pay for electricity and discomfort than a few minor cost home improvement items.
I did not bake the blueberry cobbler last night. I did not freeze all the meat today. I did nothing all day, it seems!
We have not seen or heard a dog all Wednesday, even during my nap. Lynda suggested they might dog sit for people as that would explain the different dogs, the varying numbers and the dogs being outside during different times of the day. It makes sense to me. I just don't know. Tommy said friends/family come just to visit and bring their dogs. He sees them arrive with dogs and leave with dogs.
Tuesday night, I went into the kitchen when Tommy was cleaning the small pot. He said it did not look quite clean, so he was doing it again. As I stood there, he put about a cup of vinegar in it. I was quite shocked but holding it in. A quarter cup would have been excessive, but I just kept my mouth shut. I will casually mention the correct amount later. The pot shone like new! I would have used a Tablespoon in the two-quart pot of water. Or less.
Thursday
Have I mentioned that Tommy loves the third hour of the Today Show with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager? He does and laughs often. I guess I broke him.
A friend sent me another box of books. I read one, forgot the title. Thanks! Right now, I am in the midst of reading Beowulf. It is a wonderful read, my beach read, I suppose. lol I am having regrets that I never read Beowulf to my children. They enjoyed Kubla Khan by Coleridge and The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, so I think they would enjoy Beowulf. When my daughter was ten-years-old, she came running out of the movie Xanadu with Olivia Newton John exclaiming that they had the poem I read in the movie. I was so proud of my daughter! My son is an English teacher, so I suppose I did something right!
They understood enough to ask intelligent questions and learned lots of new words. Of course, I did stop and explain the action. It felt good to introduce them to important literary works. My son's first book he read was The Call of the Wild. He was only seven when he read this, breathless and excited when he recounted what he had just read. Even the four-year-old enjoyed the poems. And, we did discuss all this later just as part of our conversations.
If feels like 100F out at noon, so it will be worse later this afternoon. I feel for people who must work in this heat. The temperature is only 90F, but the humidity is brutal.
Is your electric bill higher from June? How do you mitigate the heat in the house?
Do you like Hoda and Jenna or any of the Today Show?
Did your children enjoy heavier literature when they were 11-, 9-, and 4-years-old?
We are experiencing higher than normal temps in Central Florida this month. I dread the next electric bill. We have enrolled in the average billing plan. Each month is a set amount, our usage is evaluated every quarter and the set amount is adjusted as needed.
ReplyDeleteLisa,
DeleteI thought about the averaging route. But, never did. Tommy is absolutely against it. It does seem like a good plan. In Florida and Alabama the temperatures are nothing to play with, so ac is really necessary, especially as I get older.
I bet you energy company would do a free energy audit if asked.
ReplyDeleteKim,
DeleteHe refuses!
I am sure mine is higher on usage as it is much hotter this year so far. My cost is always the same - on a budget/monthly payment plan all year - so I haven't really looked. It is worth it to be cool.
ReplyDeleteYou would have thought they would have mentioned if the dogs weren't theirs! I sure hope they didn't get rid of pets for the kids sake. Pets are family.
Never have watched the Today show - ever that I can remember.
The Call of the Wild was a wonderful book!
Cheryl,
DeleteBeing cool reigns supreme in my hierarchy of needs.
Who knows? I doubt they got rid of pets. However, I never see anyone interacting with the dogs. Well, the two younger children dragged out two puppies to show me. But, the mother dog is still there.
I still read The Call of the Wild occasionally.
It has been reaching close to 100 degrees or sometimes up to 101 degrees this summer. We have cloud cover right now so I know it must be only in the 90's. It stays real hot and humid all through the night, too. No relief for anyone here in St Louis on these days. Our eletric usually stays the same month to month, and year to year. In our state there are lower prices for electric if you use it during non peak hours. We, just by our night owl nature, run the washer and dryer at about 130 or 2 am so that is definitely off peak hours. Our air conditioning has been running almost continuously except when I adjust the thermostat to give it a little break. We are comfortable with it set at 79 to 80 degrees in here. We just dress in very light clothes.
ReplyDeleteMy son had an incident when he was in about 2nd grade when they were supposed to do a book report. The book report he did was from a book about WW2 called the Battle of the Bulge which he had been reading for quite sometime. It took him a while to get through it. He was always interested in any kind of war stuff. He took his book report to school and the teacher rejected his book report because I don't know if she didn't believe that is what he was actually reading at that level or if she really thought that he would get more out a bokk (I don't remember the title) about a cartoon drawn chimp and all that he did. Tommy said he hated all of those stupid kinds of books about chimps and he didn't like reading them. Well he had to anyway for his book report so he did, not enjoying it a bit. He has been in the Air Force since shortly after he graduated high school. He first studied and got his BA degree, and then he started studying a Military curriculum and received a Masters Degree in Diplomacy and other Military subjects that I don't remember now. And then he decided that he would get a Masters degree in Human Resources just in case he needed it when he retired from the Air Force. Uncle Sam was quite generous with the college benefits. Now our son is serving overseas at the Hague inThe Netherlands. It's a good position. Now I know what he did with the degree in Diplomacy and other military subjects. It qualified him into that job. He had to learn excellent Dutch at special classes in Washington DC before he went. to this position in the Hague. He didn't know why they were strict about that, he says most of the younger people in the Netherlands speak English and a lot of other languages, too. He seems to have been naturally drawn to his lifelong interests when he was reading about the Battle of the Buldge, instead of the Cheesy Chimp from a very young age. At about 15 years old , he was fixing up a car for himself, even though he was not allowed to drive yet. There was some kind of electronics problem, so he borrowed money from his dad to buy a laptop computer so he could run some diagnostics on the car so he knew what to fix. When he got his car all fixed up, he turned around and sold the laptop computer he had used at a good profit and was able to pay his Dad back, and Tommy then kept the profit.
I can't tie such obvious early connections to my daughter's favorite books The Baby Sitters Club to her future in Nursing graduation from nursing school Summa Cum Laude. But she never liked the overly easy books they assigned for book reports in grade school either. I think that for some kids reading about cartoon chimps and such simpleton stories is actually a waste of their time if they like reading more advanced books.
Stay cool and have a real nice day.
susie,
ReplyDeleteIf the washer and dryer were in the house, I would do laundry at night even though we don't have that program here. However, I cannot get up into the carport even in daylight!
That is so interesting about your son and his success. My son hated reading! Then, the summer after after second grade is when I required him to read Call of the Wild because I knew he would like it. He did and loved reading from then on. I think that is why more children don't like to read--books they supply in school are dumb or boring. I hope the second-grade teacher knows of his success.
Tell Tommy that Jenna is my 8th cousin via one of my maternal grandfather's line(through Jenna's mother's ancestors.) 8-)
ReplyDeleteslugmama,
DeleteHe said "Thank you," that he had not had an email or any message in a long time.
Very hot here in Texas, I went out to get loss leaders today. Felt fine but hot the whole time. Got home and was sick at my stomach, you know what follows, Guess I just got overheated. Was find after that.
ReplyDeleteI like you can't take the heat. I keep the thermostat about 80 during the day with a ceiling fan on in the den. Then I can use it more when I am trying to sleep. I have to have it cooler to sleep. It makes no sense to me that Tommy does not want to make the house airtight in both summer and winter. The winter is not bad for me but of course I like the cold. I have to turn up the heat if I have company,
I use stream energy as my electric company. I have had them about 20 years, I have found them to have the lowest kwh in my area. I do a contract price every two years. That has been really been helping recently with rising cost, I am locked in to a lower rate right now. They also send me a email about once a week showing my usage so I can tighten up if needed.
I was a big reader and my son also loved to read. There was never a problem with getting him to read. If a child has a love of reading I think they can do anything. It opens their mind up to all other learning.
I do or did enjoy the Today show but since I have had a change in my sleeping schedule I have not been able to watch.
I hate that the dogs are still an issue. I don't think they are running a doggie day care as that would require someone to be there all the time with the animals. It could be possible that they are breeding puppies for sale. The pups and mother dogs inside. The others outside. That is all I can think of for that unusual situation.
We had some people invite us to dinner when I was in my early twenties. I think i had a baby. Their kitchen was so tiny and they had no ac. Of course, she had the oven on and the living room was tiny, too. I got so overheated and sick at my stomach. I spent most of the time in the bathroom after getting so ill from the heat. I was embarrassed for me and
Deleteher. Needless to say, we had to leave, me barely able to talk.
If there were ceiling fans, it would be more comfortable. But, the heat will still cause me to feel like I am suffocating. There is so much dust in here that a fan would just blow it around. I had ceiling fans and loved them, not so much box fans although I did have one that I pointed to whichever room I wanted the large window ac to blow air. It worked...lol.
When my son was refusing to learn to read, I told him he could not get a driver's license if he did not learn to read. That got his attention. But, he could call words. They way he strung them together was not reading. I spent a summer reading with him, close to him on the couch. He responded. Then, as we talked about reading, he said he hated the books. So, that was when I told him he had to read Call of the Wild. I knew he would love it and he did. So, with that book he became an avid reader.
I told everyone, my children and other children that reading is the most important thing we will learn in our lives.
There are days I don't get up in time to watch the Today Show. I miss it then.
If it is a doggie day care, it is just friends, not licensed or anything. Tommy only saw the two large dogs today. They are about 45 lb dogs, not really big, but the largest of dogs there. They could be breeding dogs, not sure. But, we will watch and see if there is a pregnant one from now on.
It would be interesting for you to talk with your adult children and share with us their memories of you reading to them. I know I have talked with mine about some of their memories of being read to and it is fun to hear as adults their takes on it.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
DeleteI have talked with them about my reading poetry to them. What did your children say about their memories.
I'm sure our next energy bill will be pretty high because were are in the non-stop AC part of summer, I'm not looking forward to that bill! I'm not sure exactly here you live but this article says there is money available for senior home weatherization projects in many places in Alabama which Tommy may be able to access (https://adeca.alabama.gov/2021/06/17/gov-ivey-awards-additional-2-9-million-for-weatherization-projects-in-alabama/). We used this free service when we moved into our house and they added weather stripping, low flow faucets and low flow showerheads which was a good money saver!
ReplyDeleteCOL,
DeleteOur ac has run nonstop since May. So, it is horrifying to me.
I was eligible by income for projects for weatherization and other things, but not in the city, only in the county. I asked him about this latest and he said he did not want to bother. However, I will follow up on this link and see what the details are. Thanks.