The Power of Turning It All Off

I got to thinking about this after posting a comment to Robotnik's blog earlier today. He had a power outage, and was commenting on what he & his family did after the power went out. Granted, my situation isn't quite the same because I did have power, but not having the constant "white noise" of an AC unit was almost as big of a change for me.

A while back, as I posted to his comments, our air conditioner went on the fritz while Andrew was out of town and contact. The AC repair guy I spoke to said I needed an all new AC-- and, at something like 1000 bucks it was not a decision I was prepared to make all by myself. So I went AC-less for about two weeks.*

It wasn't the hottest part of the year in Texas-- I opened all the windows in the house, turned on some oscillating fans, and sweated a little. But in the meantime, I also noticed the birds. This was when one night I discovered we have an owl that sometimes nests in one of our trees. And that mockingbirds, the state bird of Texas, also sing at night.

The greens of the yard seemed greener. I could hear the buzz of neighbor's AC units click on, but mostly I heard other things. Dogs barking. People walking by and talking.

I saw more lizards in the yard because while I was sitting on my couch reading, the silence would often distract me and I'd gaze out at the yard. We had, then, a horned lizard living in our front yard, and I saw him on the tree with the hummingbird feeder.

It definitely was a bit on the hot side. When I had to study (this was when I was taking my Spanish class) I went down to the Starbuck's down the street to borrow their AC cause it was too hard to concentrate with no AC.

I did a remodeling project in the living room that I still love, complete with a big lovely bookshelf that I finished in a natural glaze finish.

It was, in all, a really interesting, learning experience. In early spring, I always try to repeat it by spending some time with the AC still off, and all the windows open. It makes me a little nervous at night because with the windows wide open, any old ax murderer could get in the front and be to my room without me hearing anything, but really, if an ax murderer makes it to my block in my little quiet suburban neighborhood, odds are a broken window won't make nearly as much difference as one would like to think.

We aren't really big TV watchers, so often when it's quiet like this, time is spent in conversation, or reading, or just quiet still watching out the window. I recommend this if you can do it. There's a lot of hidden power in not having any power.

*and, incidentally, we did NOT need a new AC. When Andrew got back and called our regular AC guy, it just needed the coils cleaned and stuff. Damned crooked sales people taking advantage of the whole "it's a woman" thing.