The weekend passed and brought with it a brought with it a broken air conditioner. I’m still a little unclear as to what has happened – it was working just fine on Friday night and Saturday morning. When I returned to the house around 3:30 on Saturday, though, I was informed that not only had the air conditioner stopped cooling the house (the motor seems to still be working), but turning the thermostat off also kicks off the lights in the dining room and kitchen, and re-sets the microwave clock. In the 2.5 hours I was gone, the inside of the house had already grown stuffy and hot. We opened the windows (I’m still not sure whether that was an improvement or not) and I toddled out to Target to get some more fans so we could, at the very least, circulate the hot air.

As anyone who has helped to maintain a house can tell you, it’s always stressful when things break down. Naturally, these things happen to need fixing when its most inconvenient: the furnace breaks on the coldest nights of winter, a pipe will burst or leak when there’s no one home to monitor said leak, and the AC will conk out at the height of summer. Sadly, my primary de-stress activity is to work on a sewing project, and my current sewing project should NOT be attempted in the summer without the presence of air conditioning. So, I had to re-direct my worries about whether it would be an easy and affordable fix into another area of productivity. I made a call to our usual AC/heating/plumbing people, AA-Annandale, but knew the return call would have to wait until Monday morning. In the meantime, I knew I needed to clear out at least a portion of the basement, so that repair people could get in and out to fix things.

The basement (and, really, the whole house) has been in need of a serious cleaning/de-cluttering/renovation for some time. Maggie, Robert and I have done our best at getting the ball rolling with the renovation of the downstairs bathroom (with its as-yet-unfinished shower) and the installation of a door on my bedroom, but there is still a long way to go.

I have plans for the downstairs living area. Plans that may or may not include paint (not boring white, either), nice curtains, funky area rugs, and looking for a couch that won’t deform my spine like the current futon does. For the time being, though, the work in the basement is centered on clearing out junk. Sadly, my efforts last night mainly consisted of relocating materials from one corner of the basement to another, so the electrician can come in and actually access the fuse box (that’s right, kiddos. My house has a fuse box) and the AC people can get to the compressor and fan.

With luck, we’ll get the air conditioner back up and running soon and my dedication to clearing out and sprucing up the basement will not stagnate when I’m able to do something in the house other than sit in a pool of my own sweat (a lovely image, I know. I’m telling you, it’s hot!).