The awesome season

As if by magic, today brought the perfect weather that makes up half the year in Orange County. Starting in late May, we start to sweat our balls off, typically through September. I don't think it's horrible, but the electric bills (even with solar) got to be a little extreme with all of that air conditioning. Even when it's 90+, I like being outside on the patio, at the theme parks or even doing a lap around Lake Eola downtown. But when it's not that hot, it's awesome.

Fall brings highs around 80, and for us at least, that's only 5 degrees higher than what we typically set the AC for. The high today was about 80, with a nice breeze all day, so we opened all of the windows and the three-section patio door to let the fresh air in. It has been glorious. I'm sure that this was the first day we generated more electricity than we used (45 kWh, if we're counting).

Last winter was pretty weird, because we had a weird cold snap in December and January, and we actually started using the heat. That's when I learned that we had a heat pump system, which is a little slower to heat because it efficiently sucks heat from the outside instead of using resistance coils, though we have those too. We seemed to not have the ideal temperature range for open windows very long, so hopefully we do this year. The forecast for the next 10 days sure looks great.

But the other thing that makes this the awesome season is Christmas. It's a glorious thing down here, and I'm already over not having snow. There's nothing more lovely than walking around the decorated downtown areas or the theme parks this time of year, and it lasts a full two months. Last year, Diana put up lights and trees in early November, and I loved it. It didn't feel too early. We only got to see the lighting at Cinderella Castle once last year, and I'm sad about the loss of the Osborne Family lights they used to have at Disney's Hollywood Studios. SeaWorld has a nice display as well.

Growing up in Ohio, fall meant jacket weather, and that was nice, but it wasn't indicative of impending gloom. Here, it means several months of jacket weather, no more daily afternoon thunderstorms and insane amounts of sun. I'll take it.