Selling Out (and it feels so good)

We used to be cool. Well, actually, we used to be occasionally really hot, but we did it with style.

You see, we used to have a swamp cooler. For those of you who do not live in incredibly dry climates, you will be unfamiliar with the concept of an evaporative cooler (or, as it is generally known, a swamp cooler or "swampy").

Because it is so very dry in Utah, it is possible to cool one's house with a giant fan sitting on the top of one's house that blows air through a big pad that is consistently dampened with a small hose that runs up to the top of your roof.

Now, I know that those of you living in humid climates cannot envision a world where adding more humidity to your home in the summer actually cools it down, but the whole scheme works very well. The evaporation of the air after it goes through the wet pad is enough to cool off the house pretty effectively, except for a few weeks in the depths of summer that are simply too hot or too humid for the swamp cooler to be effective.

We've always liked having a swampy because we like having the windows and doors open and there's a certain novelty for us to use this simple, effective cooling method.

There are also downsides, such as having a hose always pumping water onto your roof (there are inevitable leaks). Plus it's loud and the constantly blowing air adds to the dust in the house (and there's already plenty of that since we live in a desert). Plus, there are times we simply had to retreat to the basement or a movie theater or pool to escape the heat when it got really bad.

So, I just wanted to let y'all know that this week we sold out and got AC. There are many reasons - primarily that if I'm working from home for most/part/heaven-knows-how-much of the summer, and if our summer activity choices are limited, then we want to ensure that our house is reasonably comfortable. Life is hard enough right now, we don't need to add sweltering indoor heat to the equation.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I miss open windows (not that we still can't open windows, but since it's been in the mid-90s for the past few days, why would we!?!?). And we all kind of freak out about how cold the air and floor is around the vents. This morning, Ben came downstairs, and remarked that it must be a cool day since it was so cool inside, and then was flummoxed that when he went outside it was hot. The transition is hard for all of us.

But I have faith that we'll all, eventually, acclimate to a cool interior no matter how hot the summer gets. We're brave like that.