Medifast Status: Day 296, Down ~76.5lbs (23.5lbs to go)
Today is dad’s first full day in Texas for 2012. Now he gets the full Miller children experience.
I stayed home from work today so that I could hang out with dad and the family. I ended up having a really busy day so did not have as much time to hang out as I had wanted but really dad is here to see the girls and Liesl absolutely demands all of his available time.
Dad helped to measure and look into options for blinds for our front living room windows. We have three large, oddly shaped living room windows that face both the street and to the south meaning that they are our primary compromise for privacy as well as being our primary windows for daylight. When we first moved into the house there were ugly, broken vertical blinds hanging there but when we painted we just ripped those down knowing that under no conditions were we going to be happy putting those back up again.
So today we looked at several options and finally decided on getting custom double cell blinds for those windows. We really want to get cell blinds to help with the insulation because the house just gets crazy hot in the summers and anything that we can do to improve that is going to make a really big difference for the quality of living in our home. Last summer the house could not keep itself cool even with the house air conditioner running effectively around the clock and the portable air conditioner in the play room keeping it cooler right where people were sitting.
We already replaced the window in Dominica and my bedroom which was a big point of heat entry during the summer (also southern exposure) so we hope that that will help. Getting good insulating blinds up in the living room and play room, we hope, will make a massive difference there. None of our windows are well insulated at all and last summer we had no means of directly blocking the sunlight entering the house either. The attic insulation is a tiny bit better this year too. Fingers crossed.
We will be doing a few additional heat-handling projects before the Texas summer hits but the blinds are the big ticket item for this year. We really need them to make a big difference. Last summer was insane.