I finally moved across the country for the first time this year. It wasn’t my plan, but my husband and I were forced into a tough situation when his former employer filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. He had to look for work within his industry in any city through the United States to cast as wide of a net as humanly possible. At first we thought that we’d be forced to compromise and move someplace up north where it feels like the arctic tundra for a good part of the year, but the opposite ended up being the case. We had to relocate to an extremely hot and humid area in the south. Sadly, we don’t have the benefit of living close to the ocean and having the sea breezes to contend with as some agent against the sun’s rays. It’s downright miserable down here in July and August when temperatures reach their apex in the afternoon hours for the entire year. However, this might lead you to mistakenly assuming that we don’t have a need for indoor heating during our winter seasons. That simply isn’t true, especially this last year when temperatures got down to 30 degrees for a few days in a row during late January. We were trying to get by with the electric furnace coil in our central HVAC system, but it’s extremely inefficient and expensive to run. Getting a heat pump was a fantastic idea because now we’re getting somewhere close to 300% efficiency during the heating cycles. Since our winters never get colder than 30 degrees, there’s no need for a secondary or emergency heat source to supplement the heat pump.
I don’t put essential oils on my air filters now that I have a quality diffuser
My lady friends are always getting excited about new fads, whether it’s leggings, meal replacement shakes, or herbal supplements.
The styles and trends are always changing, sometimes throughout a single year in a dizzying manner.
But one fad that seemed to stick over the past decade was essential oils. You see essential oils in every kind of store; even my pharmacist carries them in his tiny pharmacy on Main Street. My friends started making their own lotions with various oils like tea tree, frankincense, and lavender. These oils aren’t cheap at all, sometimes forking $15 to $30 for tiny 1.5 oz bottles. In the beginning I thought that it was because the oils were expensive to make, but it’s more so because that’s the most they can charge for them while still making a healthy profit. If you’re smart about where you shop, you can often find alternatives with the same quality but at a completely different price point. I used to love putting eucalyptus oil on my HVAC filters, but my technician recommended using an essential oil diffuser instead. Since my HVAC filter sits fairly close to my evaporator coil, he said it wasn’t wise risking any of the oils getting on the fragile metal coil and corroding it in the process. On top of that, using an essential oil diffuser yields much more satisfying results with making the house smell wonderful throughout every single room. If you put your diffuser near your HVAC air return, the fan will pull the oil vapor into the ventilation system, making every room smell amazing.
Our kids have no respect for the heating and cooling system and its thermostat
For instance, I told my kids a long time ago to stop touching the HVAC thermostat because they could accidentally break the air conditioner or the furnace in the process.
I had very little experience with young children before I had my own. I was the youngest child in a family of six, and I was never keen on the idea of baby sitting when I got to high school and needed part time work to earn money. Instead, I mowed my neighbor’s lawn on and off to rake in a little bit of cash. It worked and I was able to save and buy things like trading cards, CDs, and food at restaurants with friends on the weekends. My sister was the baby sitter in the family and it’s no surprise that she was the first one of us siblings to have children of her own. I was the second sibling to have a family, but I had the least experience by far. If it wasn’t for my wife, I don’t know how my kids would be—probably some combination of screwed up and damaged from a father who has no idea what he is doing half of the time. I think that I’m doing the right thing one minute, only to realize it failed to have the intended effect. For instance, I told my kids a long time ago to stop touching the HVAC thermostat because they could accidentally break the air conditioner or the furnace in the process. Despite repeated warnings from myself and my wife, our kids keep showing a lack of respect for the thermostat and the HVAC system that it controls. I didn’t want to be the parent that put a lockbox on the thermostat, but I had no choice. I can’t afford to buy a new air conditioner or furnace just because our children don’t respect our rules.
air conditioner install
My husband says our air conditioner is too loud at night for his sleeping
My husband and I share a lot of common interests, but we also have key differences in our dispositions and mood cycles.
Although I sometimes get depressive episodes, my husband is up and down all of the time.
He was almost diagnosed with bi-polar disorder at one point, but the physician explained it would be a mild case at most. Whether or not he should take medicine for his mood cycles is dependent on his behavior towards me and others, and so far he has managed to keep himself in check and find healthy coping mechanisms to deal with his stress. This is important, because our relationship wouldn’t last if he couldn’t get this far. I’m going to therapy for my own issues out of a good faith effort to show my husband that I’m ready to meet him halfway on any issues we could be facing as a couple. One thing that I notice my husband struggling with is his sensitivity to sound. He loves music, but sudden loud noises distress him and give him severe anxiety. For instance, my husband is having a hard time sleeping right now because he says that our air conditioner is getting so loud that he can’t feel peace at night. Unfortunately, it’s only eight years old and we don’t have the money to afford another one right now. I asked my husband if there was any chance that he could sleep with ear plugs on, but he didn’t like that idea. After a few weeks of frustration, he finally followed my suggestion and is sleeping the best he has in weeks.