Memorial Day weekend has come and gone and now Recycla is facing summer full-on. Her daughters have only a week left of school, which is great, but the temperatures are creeping upwards, which is not so great.

Recycla is not going to lie — she really, really, really dislikes the heat. If she did not love her hometown in Virginia as much as she does, she’d be actively searching for a cooler climate in which to live. Summers in Virginia are hot and humid and the heat arrives in June and lingers until well past the autumnal equinox in September.

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Because of her aversion to heat, Recycla has numerous coping strategies to keep herself cool. Today, she wants to share two in particular with you:

First of all, want your home to be cooler during the dog days of summer?  Close your curtains.  Just by blocking out the light on the east and west sides of your house, you can keep the sun’s hot rays out and keep your house cooler.  Recycla angles the blinds on the east side of her house downward in the morning and opens them completely after lunch.  At the same time, she angles the blinds on the west side of her house until late in the day. If this sounds like a lot of work, it’s not.  It takes just a few minutes and Recycla’s house feels cooler, plus her air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard.

Next, when it’s hot out and you’re out and about in your car, park in the shade whenever possible, which not only helps your car stay cooler, it helps decrease fuel lost to evaporation. Gas evaporates quickly and even escapes from closed tanks, and this process is hastened by summer’s heat. Another way to help keep the interior of your car cool is to use one of those folding shades to cover your windshield when you’re not driving. Keeping your vehicle cooler also means that you’ll also run your air conditioner less, which also saves on fuel.

Just those two actions help make summer’s heat a teeny tiny bit more bearable for Recycla. (Okay, and making big batches of iced coffee too.)