Reader advice for staying cool in summer
I received an email from a read who saw the excellent advice about staying warm in winter and wanted some advice on how to stay cool in summer. Here is some of her email:
"I live in Alabama where we jokingly refer to our 9 months of summer. It is hot here, and the cost of cooling down any home here is very high. I was wondering if we could get the same type of tips for staying cool during the warmer months as we did with the post about the cooler months. This would be greatly appreciated. I'm already contemplating window quilts for next year for the cold months.
Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated! "
To make lemon cordial:
Make up a simple sugar syrup. Generally, this is half sugar and half water, so if you use two cups of water, use two cups of sugar. Having said that though, when I make a syrup, I usually reduce the sugar, play around with it to see how you like it. Boil the water and sugar together, stir to dissolve the sugar and let it cool.
Add the lemon juice. Add 50% juice to 50% sugar syrup. Make this mixture up and store it in a bottle in the fridge.
To make up the drink: in a tall glass, add ¼ glass, or less, of cordial (according to your taste) and fill the glass with cold water. Add ice cubes and mint if you have it growing. The cordial will keep for about one month in the fridge.
To those people who asked about advertising on my blog, no thank you. I feel that, for the most part, advertising would be hypocritical. I do have an Amazon box up sometimes, when I remember it, but that's the only advertising I'll do here.
I said I'd post about growing tomatoes, and I will do that as soon as I can take some photos of what I'm doing. I haven't forgotten it. ;- )
I'm ashamed to admit that I've received two blog awards recently and now I can't find them. I know one was from Lightening. Lightening and the other reader, I'm sorry I've not acknowledged the awards. I do appreciate them. My only defense is that I've been unusually busy in my real life lately and I've not had a lot of time online. If you're kind enough to let me know about the awards again, I'll respond in my next post. Thank you.
As I just said, I have been very busy at work lately and catching up at home on my days off doesn't allow a lot of time to do many of the things that I want to do. I get up at 4am to do my post so it doesn't impact on my work later in the day. I know I've said this before, but simple living is not easy, the way we live it requires a lot of practical work, and getting behind creates more trouble than it's worth. When life just ambles along, the living is easy, joyous and wonderful, but there are times, I swear, when I start thinking about fast food, spray and wipe cleaning and sliced bread. Now is one of those times.
Hopefully this period of hardship is coming to an end and soon we'll be back in the gentle swing of living the kind of life we've planned for ourselves. I am grateful though - grateful for this time when things haven't been great, because I've discovered new energy and greater commitment for my life here with Hanno, and grateful too, for you. All those comments and questions I get about our lives makes me want to keep sharing what we do here which hopefully encourages others to work towards a simpler life. There is great strength to be gained when things go wrong - it's a reminder that nothing is easy all the time and that hard work and perseverance will always bring us home again.
