One day until the kiddo leaves for France, and we leave for a short vacation in Washington. Actually, it's going to be in Tyson's Corners, Virginia. That's pretty close to a metro line into DC, and it's next to a couple of large shopping areas. And if we have to stay at a nice hotel the whole time, never budging from its air-conditioned precincts, well....
Speaking of air conditioners, we have ours cranked up way high this morning -- high enough so that I'm thinking its a bit chilly. Reason is not the heat but the humidity -- I think it rained again over night. We likely will not build a replacement house, or even buy one, but one of the criteria for either is a built in humidifier/dehumidifier system. We've already assumed that the next time we have to replace the water heater -- which could be any time now; it's not failing, but we're pretty sure that we're outside of the warranty period, and those things don't seem to last much past that -- we're going to get one of those 'tankless' systems, either as the replacement or as an auxiliary one for the showers upstairs. Can't wait to see what this would cost.
Today she and I go to a bookstore -- we promised to get her something to read on the place, so long as she swore she would not read it before the flight (about a 50% chance of that, we think). I'm going to swing by to pick up her report card, though we won't look at it until she's on her way. And we'll push her to do that last bit of packing. The cry of I can't fit that in! has already been heard. (Then don't bring five pairs of pajamas, my wife says. But I'll be gone for ten days!) Yeah, rough it, kid.
7 comments:
Two pair of jammies...maybe one hand washable. Teenagers are so insecure they want to bring their entire wardrobe just in case they get into an unexpected situation with several cute guys...or gals.
We've informed her that all of the guys in France are hostile, and better left unspoken to.
How to pack for 10 days...
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/06/business/businessspecial/20100506-pack-ss.html
I saw that article. I was pretty impressed. As for my daughter...the motivation is And you know that YOU have to carry this stuff, right?
Oh - the water heater thing... The tankless heaters can save you a lot of money! It's why I installed ours - and the difference in the last couple of months has been amazing!
Going from an electric 40-gallon thing to a propane instant heater, our electric bill has gone down a lot. And the propane bill hasn't risen anywhere near as much! (We're on a budget plan for both, so it's more "usage" than actual billing.)
I'd advise you not to do the whole "manifold" thing I did; the only reason I did that was because I was doing the work. And I uncovered one or two problems while doing the work...
Oh, I nearly forgot - the water temperature isn't quite as controllable with an instant heater. The Mrs has figured it out, but whenever I take a shower, it's either a little too hot, or the heater hasn't enough throughput to switch on.
I'm guessing the newer ones are better; the one I installed was 4 years old. That is, we bought it 4 years ago and never got around to installing it until the hot water tank failed.
But they do save a lot on the energy bills!
The manifold thing? Que?
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