Staying cool without AC

My family and I are blessed to be living in a 100+ year old house in the heart of the oldest part of town. In fact, Abraham Lincoln is said to have slept in the house across the street during a whistle-stop tour through Illinois when he ran for Senator. It's charming with lots of woodwork, plenty of high ceilings... and absolutely no air-conditioning to speak of.

Central Illinois is known for its ridiculously hot, humid summers. Today topped 95F/33C and it's only mid-June. Imagine what our Augusts are like!

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm a little on the cheap side. Okay, a lot on the cheap side, and I just can't see wasting electricity on a window air-conditioner when there are plenty of options for keeping cool that are mostly free. For example, a wet head does wonders to keep one cool, especially when stationed directly in front of a fan. (Plus, you get to make those fun motor-boat noises!)

Neat trick: if you open all of the doors in the house and put one fan in a window and two others stationed throughout the house all facing in a circle from the window fan, you get an amazing wind through the house! You have to keep rocks on any loose papers and it gets a bit noisy, but that's a small price to pay.

One of my favorite things to do in this kind of heat is to play in the hose. I'm well-aware that I'm truly into my 40s and my teenagers are embarrassed by my antics, but it's a heck of a lot of fun running through the sprinkler no matter what your age is! And if I can sneak up on them, a water balloon definitely hits the mark.

Thanks to some of our friends here, we've been doing great keeping the oven off and our bellies full, too. We've mostly been living on fruit smoothies, tortilla wraps, and sandwiches, which have the added bonus of being mostly healthy, too.

I can only hope that the weather will break soon, but I can't count on it. Instead, I have to make sure that I have enough bags of ice on hand to keep everyone in a slightly better mood than we have any right to be. That and icies. And ice cream. And a trip to the movie theater when it gets really really bad. Oy!

Homemade Mosquito Repellent

I dislike the smell of most commercial bug sprays, so I decided to make my own. This is the recipe that I use. It's 100% natural, smells lovely, and works great!

1/2 cup grape seed oil (baby oil works, too, but it should be scentless)
5 drops pennyroyal oil
3 drops eucalyptus oil
3 drops cinnamon oil (a 3" stick of cinnamon put into the oil will work, too)

Combine all of the ingredients in a small bottle with a tight-fitting lid. Shake it well before putting on.

If you dislike oil-based concoctions, you can also use a scentless lotion for a base. Since I tend to suffer from dry skin and the pennyroyal and cinnamon oils can cause some drying, I prefer the grape seed oil.

It's also incredibly important that you test the various oils on the inside of your arm before you use them. Some can cause some very uncomfortable blisters if you're sensitive to them.