Here in Texas, summer weather has already arrived. With temperatures reaching into the 90’s, our glorious springtime is fading into distant memory. We’ve turned on the air conditioning and the ceiling fans, lowered the blinds and taken on the siege mentality that gets southerners through the sticky hot months of summer. Break out the sweet tea and lemonade, honey, this is going to be a long one.
You can imagine our unhappy discovery the other night, that our upstairs air conditioning unit (30 years old) finally kicked the bucket. We awoke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat.
Ugh.
That was last Thursday. It will take another 10 days for the new unit to be installed. Ten days, people! Mercy.
The first two nights, our son and I stuck it out upstairs with the fans on. My husband took the downstairs couch. It was not a good solution. So we took the mattress off the guest bed and put it on the floor in our home office and our son took the couch. Better, but we tossed and turned – we could not get comfortable or cool. The season finale of a major TV show replayed in my mind every time I turned over.
“Wait, did that guy die, or . . . “
It became a nightmare of insomnia and perspiration.
Last night, we considered muscling our king sized mattress down the stairs, but gave up at the thought. So we brought down our son’s mattress and tried a different combination of sleeping arrangements. It all begs the question:
“How DID people live in the south before A/C??”
Priscilla wrote that the thought of snakes was keeping her awake. Faith in the God who takes care of the “what ifs” helped her fall back asleep, and I loved that. My problem is much less spiritual: I’m just trying to get comfortable for the next ten nights and need a plan of action in case of insomnia.
What do you do when you can’t sleep? Do you have a trick or tip to make your eyelids close? Warm milk, counting sheep, prayer . . . I welcome your help.
Please.
Rachel
