~ Our Incredible and Super Cool Air Tent ~

 When I was a kid, I grew up in a large old farmhouse that didn't have air conditioning.  It was all fan power to keep cool in the summertime!  We were inventive kids and would make 'air tents' by draping a light bedsheet over top of the box fans and weighting them down with anything we could find to be sure our 'roof' didn't fly off!  It was actually a happy and fun childhood memory which I passed down to my kids a few years ago.  We have central air in our house, but honestly, I try to use it as little as possible.  They have perfected the art of building an air tent.

Whereas I used rocks, cups, knick knacks or whatever I could find around the house as a kid to weigh down my tent, my daughter came up with the ingenious idea of tying the center of a twin sized top sheet around the handle on our box fan.  Why did I never think of that for all of those years?!?  Anyway, good thinking!  She made an afternoon out of this, so she brought in the raspberry air freshener she bought for her room.  She built this in the corner of the room next to the couch, a corner curio, and a side chair.  Perfect placement, perfect construction!

She even supplied snacks while we hung out in there!  Lemonade, raisins, peanuts, and homemade granola bars and chocolate chip cookies. She also had a pitcher of water behind the chair along with the drinking cups.

 I gladly crawled in to hang out, but Dad didn't want to, so he asked my other daughter for a cookie.  She reached her hand in for the handoff.

The handoff of two chocolate chip cookies!

Our pets had to check it out too. Max, our lab/collie/shepherd mix was the only one to come all the way in and stay for awhile.  He's about 50 lbs. but thinks he's a lap dog~

Our kitty cat Emma came in but swiftly went back out.  I guess the fans made too much noise.  We were afraid that afterward she would jump onto the top of the air tent and come crashing down, claws open and all, but she didn't.  Thank goodness!

Our German Shepherd Megan, came to investigate, but decided to hang out outside instead.  She's probably too big to get in there with us anyway!   She's a good girl.

This is the ingeniousness of tying the center long end of the bed sheet to the fan handle.  There is no flying off of bed sheets, or being clunked with some heavy object that would have otherwise weighed down the tent!  And this picture is taken in 3-D...a function I didn't know existed on my camera until a couple of days ago!

Anyway, go and make an air tent and gather some snacks or a magazine or book and spend a bit of time just relaxing.  You'll be glad you did...time slows down a bit in an air tent!