I haven’t slept in my bedroom since last Thursday. In fact, all three bedrooms in this house have gone un-used and virtually un-inhabited for the past 4 days, with no end in sight. We’ve all been sleeping on the floor in the office. That’s where the Air Conditioner is. The rest of the house doesn’t have A/C, just a swamp cooler (Evaporative Cooler) The swamp cooler was working pretty good up until this month, when the humidity started to rise. What we consider humidity here is anything above 20% – which normally would be bearable, but without an A/C it is proving to be quite miserable, as the Evap. Coolers don’t work when the water can’t evaporate.
July and August are called “Monsoon Season” in phoenix, because the humidity and dew point rise and there is a chance of thunderstorms. Sometimes these storms can be severe, but we haven’t seen anything like that yet… just sweltering heat in the triple digits.
The office, a small room in the back of the house with a large wall unit A/C has turned into our sanctuary. Thankfully, this is the room with a couch, a tv, and the computer.
Last night I woke up to a rumbling sound. At first I thought it must be someone’s loud engine running somewhere down the street. But as I lay there, the room brightened with a brief flash of light and then another rumble was heard. Thunder. I got up and walked into the hot part of the house, to the front door. I could smell the rain before I opened the door. It was still warm, but the rain was cooling the air a bit, and it was slightly cooler outside than it was inside my house. So I opened the front and back doors, and moved the fans in front of them. It was 2:30 am, and here in South West Phoenix I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to bed with the doors wide open. So I stayed up for an hour, letting the fans move the cooler air into the house, pushing out some of the stuffy air that had been accumulating in the kitchen and front entrance. I stood in the rain in my pajamas and felt relieved. I knew the relief wouldn’t last long. Eventually, around 3:30, I reluctantly closed the doors and went back into the air-conditioned office and tried to get some more sleep. My back and hips are starting to complain from sleeping on the floor for 4 nights, but it feels so much cooler in here that I really don’t care.
Now it’s 11:00 am. The sun is shining and the temperature has already risen to 100 degrees, with the humidity at 32%. I don’t know if having the doors opened last night helped the temperature in the rest of the house – it’s still too hot to comfortably make use of any room other than this one. The rain we had was much needed, and I am thankful for it, but the light sprinkle in the middle of the night won’t do much other than make it more muggy and humid the rest of the week.
I just wish we would have some of those insane torrential thunderstorms and then have this monsoon season pass us by. If the humidity clears out, I may be able to use the rest of my house. For now, it’s a matter of staying in this room as long as possible, and if I must go in the other rooms to clean or cook, I will wear wet clothes, wet hair, and try not to work for longer than 15 minutes at a time.
July and August are called “Monsoon Season” in phoenix, because the humidity and dew point rise and there is a chance of thunderstorms. Sometimes these storms can be severe, but we haven’t seen anything like that yet… just sweltering heat in the triple digits.
The office, a small room in the back of the house with a large wall unit A/C has turned into our sanctuary. Thankfully, this is the room with a couch, a tv, and the computer.
Last night I woke up to a rumbling sound. At first I thought it must be someone’s loud engine running somewhere down the street. But as I lay there, the room brightened with a brief flash of light and then another rumble was heard. Thunder. I got up and walked into the hot part of the house, to the front door. I could smell the rain before I opened the door. It was still warm, but the rain was cooling the air a bit, and it was slightly cooler outside than it was inside my house. So I opened the front and back doors, and moved the fans in front of them. It was 2:30 am, and here in South West Phoenix I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to bed with the doors wide open. So I stayed up for an hour, letting the fans move the cooler air into the house, pushing out some of the stuffy air that had been accumulating in the kitchen and front entrance. I stood in the rain in my pajamas and felt relieved. I knew the relief wouldn’t last long. Eventually, around 3:30, I reluctantly closed the doors and went back into the air-conditioned office and tried to get some more sleep. My back and hips are starting to complain from sleeping on the floor for 4 nights, but it feels so much cooler in here that I really don’t care.
Now it’s 11:00 am. The sun is shining and the temperature has already risen to 100 degrees, with the humidity at 32%. I don’t know if having the doors opened last night helped the temperature in the rest of the house – it’s still too hot to comfortably make use of any room other than this one. The rain we had was much needed, and I am thankful for it, but the light sprinkle in the middle of the night won’t do much other than make it more muggy and humid the rest of the week.
I just wish we would have some of those insane torrential thunderstorms and then have this monsoon season pass us by. If the humidity clears out, I may be able to use the rest of my house. For now, it’s a matter of staying in this room as long as possible, and if I must go in the other rooms to clean or cook, I will wear wet clothes, wet hair, and try not to work for longer than 15 minutes at a time.
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