How We've Been Coping

The weather around here has been very uncharacteristic of late. I do not do well in temperatures exceeding 75 degrees. That's why I live in the Pacific Northwest. Now, I like a challenge. Doing things that are hard can be really satisfying, and as long as no one is clutching my leg and whining I actually really enjoy manual labor, but once it gets hot out I wilt like a delicate flower. Aaron once remarked "You sure get funny when it's hot out." That was a nice way of saying "grumpy as hell."

To cope, we've been getting old-school with a fan and a block of ice.

Driving with the windows down.

Eating hummus. And napping in a dark, shady room while a nearby fan blows a breeze across a hot little body. Tonight, Aaron is taking me to dinner in an air-conditioned restaurant. As opposed to doing what we've been doing all week, which is eating dinner in the basement.

So darn freakin' hot...

...in the words of Jack, and I agree. The above picture is from a few days ago when it didn't hit 90 degrees, so Matteas was not roasting in his sweatpants. I took them off of him right after he dripped popsicle everywhere. Today it got so hot that we ended up camping down in the basement. Aaron picked up some takeout, we spread our picnic blanket on the floor and watched a movie. I checked my instant-read thermometer earlier, and it said it was 92 degrees in the kitchen. It is now almost eleven o'clock at night and the thermometer reads 84 degrees. We have fans in the bedroom windows and it's helping, but it's still pretty hot even outside. My eyelids are sweating. It's supposed to get up to 101 on Wednesday. What are you thinking, Seattle?! This is so not your style.

Coming Along

Our patio, August 2007

Our patio, July 2009.

While our backyard is not yet the lovely landscaped haven we eventually hope to make it, it has come a long way. For instance, there are no longer 9-foot long blackberry branches dominating the concrete. Look at the first two pictures. See the blackberries behind Jack's head? There's concrete under there. The week after we moved in I was having signs of imminent labor, but then nothing happened. To hasten things along, I got an axe and chopped down two of the painted tree stumps. Then I took clippers and cut down all the grass and bramble, which revealed piles and piles of spider-infested bricks and rocks painted with garish-looking farm animals. There wasn't a single room in our house that didn't need lots of work. The whole house smelled weird. Not just like someone else's house, but like old, damp, warm garbage and cigarette smoke. It still needs work. We've done bits and pieces, but there's still a lot left to do. The smell is gone. The rat-infested room in the back of the garage is gone. Lots of the gross aluminum single-pane windows are gone. The purple kitchen cabinets are gone. The ugly stainless steel sink is gone. Most of the ugly sun room is gone, and along the south side of the house where there used to be a tangle of weeds we have a jungle of tomatoes, cucumbers, acorn squash and sugar pie pumpkins. Yes, we are coming along.