Sentimental Sunday The Hero and A Life Lesson

This is the time of year that many of us are wondering why we bought certain toys for our children.  The Hero's mom told me of one such year. They had bought him a garden set and told him it was for outdoor playing.  Mom said in her incredulous voice when I was visiting with her a year after the hero and I were married. "I gave him this garden rake with a stern warning.  Do not play with it in the house!  What happened?  Look at my Secretary (a beautiful piece of furniture), you will see a scar on the front where he ran through the living room waving the rake and banging as he went.  Don't let your children play with outside toys in the house!"  Looking at his picture from that time period, I would have thought he would have stolen the heart and got away with anything.  BUT apparently not. 

The Hero was shocked that she still remembered and held the action against him.  I took a life lesson from it.  Don't have outside toys in the house.  Forget it if you child breaks something.  Bringing up an old action years later does not help relationships.  I have a wall that the children used to mark their heights.  (This reminds me, I need to take a picture of it before my son tears it down.)  I treasure the silly wall because I remember their sense of excitement as to who was going to be the tallest 'this time'.
The Hero was such an active and alert little boy.  I can imagine, if it was today, he would have spent a lot of time in 'time out'.  Don't give your adult child pain by bringing up something in a hurtful manner from their youth. 

Life Lessons Of How to Live With Your Environment

I have recently been in discussions
about how to handle the heat.
This in part to the rising cost of cooling,
"green" thinking, and in part to loss
of air conditioning due to need for repairs.
My Dad had been an AC engineer
at the local college in the town I grew up in.
We did not have AC at home.
My mom would always say
'we are like the plumber's family
that has to call a plumber.'
I just made sure I had a fan in my
bedroom at night. Of course in earlier years,
houses were made to exist without air conditioning.
Windows were situated for cross ventilation.
There were attic fans to pull the heat up and out of the house.
There were vents to pull heat from the house.

Looking at the pictures of my dad and his family here,
you can tell, they knew heat. They farmed,
would help harvest crops for friends, and lived in old farm houses.
When I would talk with my dad
in later years about air conditioning he would tell me.
"Always keep the thermostat 2 degrees above where
you want the temperature and it will always cut off there."
Then he would admonish me saying keep it as high as you can if you are working outside,
because you will need to sweat for natural cooling.
If you are in too much air conditioning or too cool of air conditioning, it impairs your ability to sweat.
This became evident to my daughter when we were working in the garden. She says, "Hey, mom, it is cool out here today." I said, "You just haven't been inside yet."
(She had driven over early in the morning.) We continued working
and finally went inside at lunch. After lunch, she opened the door
and said, "oh my, it is hot outside."
Houses today are not built with screens so you can open the windows. Neither do they have attic fans to cool the attic and pull out top heat...heat rises. We have ceiling fans, but, as most southerners who have gone through electricity loss in storms, without the ability to open windows and doors, the heat inside is just stirred around. Plan your home and life so
that a sudden change will not be overwhelming. I love living with open doors and windows. The air conditioning is best for sleeping.
Any one agree?