Refreshing…

Posted on July 6, 2018 by TJ

This morning was cool and I actually wore a sweater when I went out to do my morning chores. It did warm up later in the day, but it did not become hellishly hot like the last several days. Our bodies feel battered by the hot days.

I don’t know how people in the south survive. EJ and I discussed today how cold is much easier to deal with than heat. If it’s cold, we can wear more clothes, cover up with more blankets, build a fire, cuddle together for shared body heat, or kill a tauntaun like Han Solo did to keep Luke from freezing to death on Hoth. But there’s only so much a person can do to survive super hot days. Plus, if the power goes out, we can keep food cool in the winter but in the heat of summer there is no way to keep the food from spoiling. Yeah, I’ll take cold over hot any day.

The heat had so drained me that I was beginning to forget what it felt like to have energy. The cooler temps today revived us so we felt a bit more motivated. I watered my garden and fruit and evergreen trees this morning, then washed some clothes and hung them on the line.

I recently read an article about Swedish Death Cleaning. It sounds morbid, but it’s actually a concept of getting rid of things you never use so your spouse or children don’t have to struggle to get rid of them after you die. That sounds really good to me. I hate clutter. So today EJ and I found a few things to donate to Goodwill. We could have probably found more things, but we still feel tired from the effects of the heat wave.

We took Hannah with us when we went to Goodwill. Afterwards, we took a drive through the beautiful countryside. We drove past miles of orchards with trees bursting with cherries. We stopped at a boat launch and got out so Hannah could see the water. The lake was a beautiful color, very gorgeous, but Hannah kept urgently sniffing and trying to pull me back towards the parking lot. I thought she would be excited about the water. It was only when we were getting back in the Xterra that I saw that she had smelled a large cookie that someone had dropped. I swear that two-thirds of my walks with Hannah involve trying to keep her from eating things she shouldn’t. Not far from the boat launch, we saw a fox trotting across the road. Cool!

The lilies in this photo were gone today.

Yesterday I took a photo of the lilies by my enchanted sign. As we drove past it on our way up the driveway, I noticed that the lilies were all gone. The deer had eaten them all. I think that is very funny. We still have several dozen lilies blooming along the driveway–at least, they are there today. They might not be there tomorrow. They are beautiful while they last.

JJ has been looking for a new job, hoping to find one that pays more. He had an interview for a security position at the Hall of Justice but he turned it down when he learned he would only be working about 27 hours a week. He needs more hours. I was sort of bummed that he wouldn’t be working at the Hall of Justice because if JJ got the job, I was going to ask him to introduce me to Superman, Wonder Woman, and the others. Ok. So the Hall of Justice is actually the name of the courthouse in Traverse City. I think it’s a totally cool name, and I can’t help imagining superheroes hanging out there.

EJ and I finished our day by sitting out on the deck and watching the stars come out. We watched Monty the bat swooping overhead. Yes, we named the bat a while back. We like bats. They eat mosquitoes.

I think tomorrow is supposed to be hot again. Ugh. But at least we had today.