Summer's In the Air Now

Sunday night, our air conditioning died.  It was the worst possible thing that could ever happen.  Okay, so I'm exaggerating a lot.  Monday morning, I talked to my friend whose husband is a heating and air conditioning guy.  He told her to call him directly and we arranged for him to come later in his shift if he could get to us.  He told me to call him at four if he hadn't gotten to me yet to remind him.  4:30 came and he hadn't gotten away, yet so I called.  He told me he had one more person and barring no emergency calls, he could get to me.  6:30 came and my friend called me.  She tells me he can either come right then and charge me the after hours fee, or come at 8 or 9 and he'd do it for free.  Well, I think free is always way better than not free, so I asked Kurtis what he wanted me to say and he said free.  What's another couple hours, right?  I felt kind of bad at the same time, though because I didn't want him to feel like we were taking advantage of him or weren't grateful for his help.  It was really, really hot inside my house, though.  The temperature got up to 94 degrees.  I drank a lot of water that day.  He came, he almost lit the house on fire, he and Kurtis ran to the hardware store, he fixed it.  I could have cried.  My friend came with her husband and when she came inside, she said, "It's cooler outside than it is in here!"  It really was.  I had the windows open all day, too.  

It seems to be running so much better than it has in a couple of years, now.  He also told me a few things about maintenance that I didn't know I was supposed to do, too.  Like did you know you are supposed to spray off your air conditioner at the beginning of each season? I didn't.  My parents didn't get air conditioning in our house growing up until after I moved out, so I guess I don't have much experience in that area.  I remember asking Kurtis what we should do to it when we first moved in and he had no idea either and the idea of spraying an electrical device off sounded like a bad idea. Considering that water and electricity don't really mix well with each other.

Any way, I asked my friend what his favorite treat is and she told me he likes lime Popsicles.  Well, that's cool.  I was expecting to make him a cheesecake or something.  Yesterday, I took them over to him and he told me that we are blessed because it was such an easy fix.  He went to a home the night before and they had a much worse and more costly fix.  I said, "Yes, we are.  We are very lucky."  "No." He said, "You are blessed."  Too true.  Blessed is a much better word.  So many times.  Our roof didn't get nearly as much damage as many of the other homes in our neighborhood during the horrible windstorm in December.  We have ugly patches on our roof, but we'll get to the new roof next year (I hope).  Our water heater still works, and we haven't needed to replace our heater, yet (knock on wood!).  These things are little and minor, but I do feel like we are being watched over and that we are truly blessed.  My heart is full of gratitude to God and our friends and family.  We certainly seem to have the best ones.

I took a picture of the thermostat in my front room at about 5:30 Monday afternoon (the time stamp is wrong).  My thermostat doesn't tell me how hot it is outside.  That's how hot it was inside my home that day.  I checked it a few minutes later and it was up to 94!  Yikes!  So grateful to be much more comfortable now.  Especially since the last two days have been in the triple digits.  That doesn't happen here very often.  :)