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Shopping, lots of shopping this weekend

June 27th, 2005 · 6 Comments · Shopping

The GirlChild returned from camp with a minimum of muss and fuss. There were, as I expected, tears upon my arrival. I felt a little better that several of the girls were crying. I think it was the “we’re gonna have to say good-bye” sort of crying.

Saturday she copped an attitude and wouldn’t do her Kumon. On one she missed 18 and took 45 minutes and on the other she missed 23 and took nearly an hour. By comparision on Sunday, when she was motivated, she can did them in 6-8 minutes and missed 0 and 1. Today was the same.

Sunday was a better day. We did the SuperTarget run and went to Office Depot for some things I needed at work.

The Husband and I went to Ace and bought a new window unit for our bedroom. It was apparently a successful purchase because you could hang meat in there now. We live in an 80 year old house. The heat works well but the central air leaves something to be desired. Specifically, my bedroom, which has no less than 11 windows, swelters in the summer.

The AC guys who have looked at it have said the problem is there is no air return upstairs. This is apparently a necessary ingredient to good air conditioning.

It had a window unit in it when we moved in. A big honking machine that took up most of the window but kept us cool in the summer. It went out summer before last toward the end of the summer. Last summer it wasn’t too hot and we didn’t ever replace it.

This summer has been HOT.HOT.HOT. If we turned the AC down so that it cooled our room, the downstair was almost unbearablely cold. I finally broke down and told the Husband we had to get another. I guess I’ve avoided it because the Husband and I disagree about what is a reasonable temperature. I think hanging meat cold is too cold and he thinks hanging meat cold is just the right temperature to sleep. I usually just put on clothes and lots of covers. Not really sexy but it makes him happy and I don’t have to listen to him toss and turn all night.

The recommendation from the AC guys is that we duct the upstairs and put a central heat and air unit up there, maybe a heat pump. Not zoning it exactly. If (and that’s a big if) I understand them correctly if we zone it, we’d replace the duct work upstairs and downstairs with the downstairs ductwork on one unit and the upstairs ductwork on another unit. What they are recommending, is putting on one new set of duct work and leaving the other in place and putting the ductwork in the attic for the upstairs as a sort of booster.

None of this will occur until after I get a new roof. So I don’t have to figure any of it out anytime soon. Hence the window air conditioner.

While we were out buying the new window AC the window on my Ecological Disaster went out. Oh God. SHOOT ME NOW! Did I mention it is HOT.HOT.HOT? As in sear the skin off bones, hot? The Husband and I took it to the shop today. It is back and working and only cost $33 for an oil change cause the window was still under warranty. Ppphhhheeewww.

After all the shopping was finished yesterday we went to Baba and GranMa’s to swim.

I’ve been wanting the Husband to go to the KofC to check on a swimming pool pass. It’s much closer to our house than Baba and GranMa’s so we could run over there for 30 minutes to an hour after dinner, it’s open until 8:00 p.m. and it’s much less expensive than WhiteWater.

I ordered last week and received today this. Shipping was really fast, I think I ordered it on Thursday, they shipped it on Friday and it came today.

It actually appears to work at making the BoyChild work for his treats and keeps him from slinging them all over the room when he decides to wave whatever he’s got in his hands.

I also ordered this and this. I’m not so impressed with the bottle toppers. I only had one bottled water that one actually fit on and a bottle of gatorade and that gatorade flavored water that they didn’t fit on. We drink a lot of Gatorade at our house. It’s cheaper than Pedialyte and when the BoyChid was on the antiobotics for so long this spring we were fighting a lot of diarraha and dehydration.

The Husband thinks they might fit on the “regular” sized bottles of gatorade. I bought some small, 12 oz bottles, that were on sale at SuperTarget this weekend. I guess we’ll see.

Ciao,

M&Co.

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6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 ieatcrayonz // Nov 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    GirlChild was probably just daydreaming of all the fun times she had at camp. At least it only took one day to get back into the routine.

    I have some energy management experience with commercial and industrial HVAC. It kind of struck me as odd at first when the HVAC guys suggested you retain the current unit for the upstairs and supplement it. Most two story homes have separate zones for each floor because forced air is just plain expensive. You should scale your unit to the square footage you want to heat and cool. Everyone’s first instinct is to buy oversize, but the truth is that motors operate most efficiently when running near full load. A supplemental unit tells me that it will be more expensive to maintain and that the downstairs unit will still have to work just as hard because the thermostat is most likely downstairs as well, i.e. not zoned. I think your pocketbook will feel it.

    It’s tough to say not knowing your individual situation, but you might want to get a second opinion from another HVAC company. I’m not an expert by any means, but the HVAC guy’s suggestion just sounds like it will make operating costs more expensive than they need to be.

    Oh, and I gotta get me one of those giraffe snack traps. :P

  • 2 Susan // Nov 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    I hear you about the hot hot HOT. I’m so hot I can’t even think straight. And our AC runs ALL THE DAMN TIME. Last night it shut off for a few minutes and Henry said, ‘What’s that noise?’ We said, it’s the sound of the air conditioner NOT running. And he said, ‘Oh. Sounds wierd.’

    But then it came on again, and all was well.

    Thank god for SuperTarget . . .

  • 3 Homestead // Nov 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    You said “hang meat” hee-hee.

    Well, it is COLD, COLD, COLD here…. I wore fleece to work today…. and sent Sweet Boy to daycare in lots of layers.

    We have a portable AC….. it was a worthy investment…. I can put it in Sweet Boy’s room early in the evening and get it cool & then put it in our room for the night.

    And what IS IT about men and meat-locker sleeping? We have the exact same issues at our house

  • 4 Erin // Nov 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    OK, at the risk of sounding like a (gasp) single person with no kids…what is a kumon???

  • 5 M&Co. // Nov 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Erin, Kumon is a math tutoring system. Basically she does 100 math problems every day and goes to tutoring. They are working toward speed and accuracy and I think preparing them for standardized tests like the ACT and SAT.

  • 6 Erin // Feb 28, 2010 at 12:00 am

    Oh, OK. Thanks. And here I was thinking it was a religious thing! LOL!