It feels like the last decade has been about giving stuff up.

The recession hit us pretty hard because we have our own business in a market that took a significant hit.

Thankfully, we were able to maneuver and evolve to keep going. We’re doing well again which is nice. But, for a long time, we had to cut corners everywhere in our personal lives to help the business. There were no more fancy dinners out in lovely dining rooms with perfectly controlled HVAC comfort. Those new cars we wanted became a pipe dream. We had to make do with our old cars with the terrible gas mileage and underwhelming air conditioning. Both my wife and I cut out any semblance of a vacation for almost 10 years. However, we found a new passion for exploring our region with several long weekends. It was just one fiscal cut after another on our household budget. We even had to target my one and only love, the air conditioning. Our home is in an area which experiences a very long, hot summer. It is a swelter fest for a solid 4 months. Since our business requires a bit of field work on certain projects, it was always sweet relief to walk into my cooled home. Well, all that cooling was creating utility bills which had far too many numbers on it. My wife wanted to get radical and begin using the old evap cooler from decades past. While much more affordable to operate, swamp coolers are simply not the same as A/C. I had to fight her on that one. We finally came to a compromise. The thermostat was programed to run far less during the day. Additionally, I wasn’t allowed to crank the thing down to the super cool setting anymore.

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