Air

Oh, thank goodness. Dad helped me get the air conditioners in the windows in the living room and in my bedroom. (reminder to self: need to clean filters later) The original plan was to put the old air conditioner in Mark's room and get a new one for the living room, and hopefully also one for Kira's room, but we had to make some choices today, and my choice was to have the living area where we spend the most time, as a livable space. The air conditioner that was in Mark's room last year is pretty close to unusable. About three or four years ago the knob came off, but it was okay because I could still turn it on and off with pliers, and I figured that would discourage Mark from messing with it if he couldn't work the buttons. Well, last year he gave it a shot with the pliers and snapped the stem right off, so the rest of the summer you could only turn it on or off by plugging or unplugging the whole unit. So I think that one has finally bit the dust.

Kira's room gets *very* hot and stuffy, but where Mark's room is physically bigger, I can always put her to sleep in his room, whereas I cannot put him in her room. So the priority is to have one in Mark's room.

But anyway. Now the living room is nice and cool, and my bedroom is set to 70 degrees (until I can get window units for the kids' rooms, in desperation they can both camp out with me), which will be glorious. This is only the third summer that I've had air in my bedroom. As I absolutely MELT in anything much over 75 degrees, I was not a happy camper in the summer. My bedroom gets pretty much no breeze at all (it probably would if I could get a screen door made for the balcony door, but that is going to be a custom size and I just don't even know where to start for measuring or anything), so it was not pleasant. Now it's niiiiiiiiiiice and cool, and the air conditioner has a remote, even, which makes me feel so spoiled. And because my bedroom window is tiny, the unit itself is tiny, which meant that it was not expensive. I have already gotten more than the price of the unit's worth out of better sleep at night.

Now to start measuring and pricing for two new units. Well, Kira's room is small, also, so that one shouldn't be *too* horrible. I hope. Sigh. mk