After trying to sleep in and failing and still being tipsy after five hours of sleep I did wrote morning pages but decided to skip yoga. I was a bit scared I’d fall over when attempting anything that would need balance.
It was pretty clear that nothing much would happen all day so I planned for it. I did tell someone, „Yeah, I’ll be doing nothing today. Just three loads of laundry, the usual dishes and such, planning the week, calling my mother on the phone, some knitting and Duolingo and watching something in the evening.”
Sure. Nothing.
Everything took much longer than usual, so I only started most of these things right around dinnertime. Lunch was something easy to make because my husband wasn’t in much better shape and wanted to make up for half a day lost to socializing and train rides:
My husband expected a friend to stop by but hadn’t checked his texts until the friend was overdue and he found the friend had canceled.
I was doing my usual impression of a limp dishrag on the kitchen bench when my husband came in with his usual, „It’s really warm outside and so cold in here you should open the windows.“ I always feel that all opening the windows achieves is to make it less comfortable and warm by introducing a draft into the room. My husband came from outside in the sun through the sun-filled very warm annex to the old part of the house that is built to be cool in summer.
So this time I decided to use the scientific method and just test our hypotheses.
I took pictures of the thermometers-cum-hygrometers in both the kitchen and the living room in 15-minute intervals.
The result?
We’re both right.
The temperature outside was around 22° C, a little warmer in the direct sun. The starting temperature inside was 21.2° C in the kitchen and 19.7° C in the living room right after opening one of the doors leading outside and partly opening both windows in the kitchen.
An hour later the temperature in the kitchen was 21.1° C in the kitchen and 20.1° C in the living room. So 0.1 degrees more in the kitchen and 0.4 in the living room.
Did it get warmer? Yes. Was it really that noticeable? Nope.
What was notable to “super-sensitive to every bit of air movement in the apartment“-me was the cross draft through the house. I’m the person who tells someone entering the kitchen to please close the door between our small hallway and the big communal one as well as the door between the kitchen and the small hall because I’m freezing.
„But I closed the door! You can’t sense the outside one, that’s just ridiculous!”
„So, why did I notice it then?” I couldn’t see the door and I did not listen for the sound of it either.
So, my husband and I were both right. For the warming up to actually have a noticeable effect the difference between the outside and the inside temperature needs to be bigger, though. And outside in the direct sun will be much warmer as will inside the annex with its huge windows that face south or to the sky.
To me the cross-draft feels worse, to him the bad air quality and coolness feel worse so we need to compromise.
After finally starting my day for real at dinnertime, just when I was about to get up and finally tackle the mountain of dishes both my husband and my son came into the kitchen to fry stuff for dinner. So I just hung up the second load of laundry for the day and went to watch something on TV.
The boy offered to do the dishes but was overwhelmed too, so I helped him dry them and put them away, we got talking and both went to bed too late.
Today will probably be another zero day because all my body and mind want is sleep. This will be fun!
Leave a Reply