Quick 5

Notice the 93.2 degrees.  That is the temperature inside, not outside, our house on Monday.

I suppose summer is here to stay, so we might as well suck it up and get used to it.  Here are the things I do to keep my family cool:

1.  I give myself a huge pep talk: my sister's house doesn't even have air conditioning, so why I am so cranky that mine is broken?  Her family survives just fine.  And this is Colorado, not the midwest.  It WILL get below 70 degrees each night and the air is dry, so I can rest assured that once the sun goes down it WILL get cooler.  I need to learn to harness the power of the night coolness.

*Side note: there is someone coming to fix the A/C on Monday.  We're now trying to decide how much to use it, though, since we are functioning okay without it.  Do we turn it on only on days the temp goes over 95?  Do we turn it on only at 4:00pm when I'm getting ready to cook dinner in our hot, West-facing kitchen?  Do we set it to come on only if the temp inside reaches 85 degrees?  This luxury is a huge responsibility.

2.  Each night I give the girls a cool bath.  They love playing in the water, and I stick my feet in and let them wash my legs.  For some reason that is great fun for them. 

3.  I think about our trip to Alaska that we're taking in a few weeks.  Lee's best buddy, and the best man from our wedding, Joe is getting married.  He moved up there a few years ago and his bride was born and raised there.  And we get to go to the wedding.  Just me and Lee, sans kids.  I've been doing a little research and the average temperature in Alaska in the middle of July is 65 degrees.  It will be a wonderful respite from this heat.

4.  Each night before I go to bed, I wash my feet in cold water.  I remember my mom telling us to do this during the summers when I was younger and our house didn't have A/C.  It was probably to wash all the summer dirt off our feet so we didn't get our sheets so dirty, but I love the way it cools me down before I go to sleep.

5.  I'm thumbing my nose at all the anti-sugar articles that abound today and giving my girls popsicles for snack every day.  And Joya seems to think this is a nice way to cool down:

Can you also see the peanut butter Hitler moustache?

I do keep the grapes in the fridge, so they are nice and cool.  I suppose in theory putting them directly on your body might be a way to cool down.  (This was completely unprompted, by the way.  I just looked over at her and there she was, grape on the forehead.)

It's going to be a long summer, folks.  Lord, send rain.