Spring! {Or Is It Summer?}

Here in the southeast, we used to enjoy four pretty well-defined seasons.  Three or four weeks of springtime, a month or so of autumn, with a nice, well-tempered transition between each season. That hasn't seemed to be the case in the past few years.  Seems like we go from running the furnace straight into cranking up the AC.  Spring and autumn are my favorite times of the year, because I truly love throwing open all the windows in the house and letting the fresh air circulate.  I like the crisp cool evenings with the windows open, snuggled under the covers and falling asleep to the sounds of the night.  A hot cup of coffee in the morning helps to chase away the chill bumps while waiting for the day to warm up.  I suppose it is reminescent of growing up back in the days when we didn't have air conditioning in our house, and we pretty much lived with the windows up from springtime till the next frost.  Or whenever mama got cold and said it was time to put them down.  I honestly don't know how we survived the hot summers without AC.  I think surely we must have higher temperatures nowadays than we did back then.  I do remember when I would visit people who did have AC, I would get cold before time to go home.  I used to stay at my cousin's house in Atlanta for a week or so in the summertime and babysit their kids.  Jim would fuss at me nearly every day because I'd turn off the AC and open up the sliding doors. It just felt like I was cooped up inside a cold cave.  (Now that I am the happy recipient of electric bills, I can understand why he got so upset!)  My mom and dad enjoyed the freshness of having the windows open as well, and I think we resisted getting AC for as long as we could stand it.  I'm not sure I remember exactly when we finally gave in, but my dad was a heating/AC man, and he got this huge unit that was capable of making it cold enough to hang meat in our house.  I do remember that we would hold off as long as possible about turning it on every year.

Old habits die hard, I suppose, because I'm still the same way.  One of my FB friends posted something to the effect that "What ever happened to having some time between the heater and the AC?".  I can say amen to that!!  For the past few days I've had my windows open (resulting in a lovely yellow coating on everything in my room) and my ceiling fans whirring.  It is fabulous!  The weather outside is ridiculously gorgeous, and if I can't be outside in it, then I'll just bring it inside with me through the windows.  Pollen and all.  Saturday was the absolute most perfect day (weather-wise) ever, and if it never got any hotter than it did then, I'd be delighted.  It was getting pretty close to the point of having to turn on the AC, because it does get warm inside, but we toughed it out.  Ditto for yesterday.  I was working at my desk, fortunately being sedentary, and there were a couple of hours that were borderline uncomfortable heat-wise.  As the afternoon began to drift away, it started cooling down and became very pleasant again.  However, it looks like we're in for warmer temps this week.  I looked at the forecast, and we're supposed to hit the mid 80s this week.  Oh dear.  I'm not so sure I'll make it through another day without the AC.  Looks like we're jumping right from winter into summer again this year, with very little open-window weather to enjoy.  This might be my last day of working beside an open window, at least until autumn, when perhaps I'll have a few days to enjoy it then.  Hello/Goodbye spring!  Looks like summer is upon us!