My Other Best Friend Is An Air Conditioner

I have two best friends.  My human best friend, Angie, has been my best friend since we were 12-years old.  We have been through thick and thin together (both literally and figuratively).  I consider her to be my sister and I would be lost without her.

However, I have another best friend that I don't talk about much, but I would be lost without it.  My air conditioner. 

I've always been a hot-natured person.  Until I was in seventh grade, my parents were always renters.  We lived in various apartments and rental homes.  The one thing most of them had in common; no central air.  There was usually a window-unit air conditioner in the living room and sometimes my parents would have one in their bedroom.  There was never a window-unit a/c in our bedroom (my sister and I always shared a bedroom).  In an attempt to keep our bedroom cool, my parents would put a box fan in the hallway pulling air from the living room and blowing towards our bedroom.  For the most part, it was useless.  I can remember being as young as seven or eight and choosing to sleep on an uncomfortable couch or a hard floor in the living room instead of my hot bedroom. 

When I was in seventh grade, my parents purchased their house.  They didn't need all of the money they saved for the down payment, so they used some of the remaining money to purchase central air for our new home.  It was one of the happiest days of our lives.  I also got a ceiling fan in my bedroom, so I was exceptionally happy. 

From that point forward, I grew up in a very cool home (sometimes it was even downright cold).  My Dad has always had sinus issues, and as a result, he kept it pretty cool in our house at night. 

When I was 22, I moved to Arizona.  When I moved in with my fiancée, I realized pretty quickly that he was a warm-natured person.  Having grown up in Arizona, he was used to the heat.  He kept his thermostat set at about 78 degrees.  In Kentucky, I was used to about 70 degrees.  I was melting in my new apartment.

I absolutely loathe being hot.  Once I get hot, I get angry.  And I cannot sleep at all if I am hot.  I've always been that way.  That is why I spent most of my childhood sleeping on the couch where the a/c unit was. 

Cameron (my husband) and I had a constant battle with the thermostat.  I would turn it down, and he would turn it up.  We finally had a conversation about the thermostat.  I made a compromise with him.  I told him he could have as many blankets as he wanted as long as I got to control the thermostat.  He was pretty agreeable to that once he discovered how cranky I got when I was hot.

Since I have children in my home now, I keep it at a steady 73 degrees, both day and night.  For the most part, we are all pretty comfortable. 

My bedroom has an addition on it.  It is much larger than it was when the house was originally built.  My home has a brick façade.  However, the addition is not brick, it is vinyl siding.  As a result of the vinyl siding and poor insulation, my bedroom is approximately 10 degrees warmer/colder than the rest of the house depending upon the season.  Before we fostered/adopted the kids, I would crank the central air down pretty low at night.  Once we had kids in the house, I didn't want to freeze them to death, so I added a window-unit a/c to our bedroom.  My bedroom is usually about 65 degrees (or cooler) at night.

In the last year or so I've started having hot flashes.  I could be pre-menopausal or it could be a result of the PCOS.  I'm not sure which.  All I know is it SUCKS.  I'll just be sitting there and the next thing you know I'm drenched in sweat.  My husband isn't a big fan of the hot flashes either because he ends up freezing to death while I'm trying to cool myself off.

When I used to work, all of the people I worked with were always freezing.  As a result, I was always burning up.  I brought in a little fan to blow towards me so I had at least a little relief from the heat.  At one point I had my own office.  My office was next to the reception area, which had very large windows with no shades or drapes.  The heat would really build-up in the afternoon in that reception area.  As a result, my office would also get really warm.  There were times that my office was over 85 degrees.  We kept telling the building management that there was a problem with the air conditioner in our offices.  They kept telling us it was fine.  Oddly enough, my former company downsized in 2009 and moved downstairs to a smaller office area.  The building management company moved into our former offices upstairs.  Within one week of moving in, they had the A/C repairman out to fix the air conditioner.  It just goes to show how crappy most building-management companies are.  Anything to save a buck. 

I get so frustrated when I'm hot.  I won't even go outside when it gets really hot in the summer.  It's really humid in Kentucky during the summer.  Unless I'm going swimming, I don't want any part of the heat.  Most evenings, my husband is sitting under a blanket because I have the ceiling fan on high.  Most of the winter, I don't even wear a jacket.  I'm not kidding when I say I'm hot natured. 

I often wonder if being hot all of the time is part of having PCOS.  If it is, it's just another annoying symptom.

I hate being hot.