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!

DIY Lip Balm

• 1 cup vaseline (or other non-petroleum vaseline-like substance*)
• 2 packets unsweetened cherry Kool-Aid (r)
• 2 single-serving packets Stevia (r)

In a glass 2-cup measuring cup, heat vaseline in one-minute increments in the microwave, stirring between each minute. When it's fully melted, add Kool-Aid and Stevia, stirring until thoroughly dissolved. (If the vaseline starts to thicken, put back in the microwave for 30 seconds or so until well-melted again.) When the Kool-Aid is completely dissolved, pour into individual containers.

You can use any flavor of Kool-Aid that you want to achieve the color you want. Mix and match until you get the right hue, and the more you add to the vaseline, the deeper the color will be.

I would love to see pictures of some of you wearing your new lip balm! I plan to make some for my daughter and will post pics when I convince her to try it.

A friend of mine passed this recipe on to me today at work. (Thanks, TheVillageBeader!) It sounds incredibly simple and fun to do, so I thought I'd pass this on to all of you. She's planning to make it as gifts, which is brilliant! With the end-of-year stuff at school, this might not be a bad idea to add to gift bags for the female teachers.

* A quick, non-petroleum vaseline is to melt 2-3 ounces of beeswax then combine with 1 cup of vegetable oil. Mix well and let cool to make sure it's the right consistency. If too thin, add more beeswax. If too thick, add more oil.

Natural Weed Killer

Just saw this recipe at www.buildinghomegarden.com and thought I would pass it along. I'm going to try it on my brick patio tonight to get rid of the weeds before my darling husband's birthday party on Saturday.

Natural Weed Killer

I use a natural weed killer on my brick walkway. It effectively prevents weeds from growing between the bricks. This safe weed killer is cheap and easy to make at home. What's not to like?

The recipe for natural weed killer is simple. Combine 1 gallon of white vinegar with 1 cup of salt and a tablespoon of liquid dish soap. The soap is a wetting agent that helps the vinegar and salt mix. Stir it all up and pour or spray on the weeds.

Use this and you won't have weeds for 3 to 6 months. Don't get this natural weed killer on any plants you want to keep because it's actually a soil sterilizer. It isn't selective and could harm shrubs.

I've also seen another recipe for a natural weed killer. This one mixes one gallon of 10% vinegar with an ounce of orange oil and a teaspoon of liquid soap. Spray or pour it on the weeds on a hot an sunny day. I haven't tried this one but it sounds good.

Special thanks to Mindy at Brooks Hobby Farm for bringing this up. She'd tried pure vinegar, something I'd heard of before, with no luck. One of her Facebook friends linked the above. I'll let you know how it works once I give it a shot myself.