DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

This is a well worn description of most July days (and I probably used the same post title last year and the year before), but they are here.  Big time.  Temps in the 90's, humidity and no breeze whatsoever.  I was thinking today about how much  we talk about the weather.  Most of my posts start out that way and I think it's because I know it's going  out to all of you throughout the country that may be having the same (or not).  I have nothing to complain about during this heat wave...I go from an air conditioned home (okay, a little bit of an antiquated system), to an air conditioned car, to an air conditioned building.  Yet it's like second nature to want to vent about the heat, the rain, the snow, the cold.  It's so rare that it's just "perfect".  I wonder if we can ever just accept the highs and lows as the norm?  As I get older, I want to hold tighter to each passing day, they can run out all too soon.  I don't want to wish summer away because fall is so much cooler, I want to embrace each day and later think, "Yeah, we made it through the dreadful summer of '13 with a lot lemonade and trips to the beach!".  I'm getting Pollyann-ish again...but you bet I can get crabby when it's like this.  Today I came home mid afternoon and The Husband had turned off the air conditioning and had the doors and windows open.  Hello?  It's 94 degrees outside!  Needless to say, he may not get dinner tonight.  

These are some of my hosta's this year, I don't know if I caught them near the end of their bloom time or if it's just the heat, but they are drooping a bit.  I have a variety of them at the lake that have white flowers.  The scent is intoxicating.  I cut them and put them in vases and they perfume the air in a big way.  I don't know the name of the variety, most of my plants come from divisions from friends and family.  

The day lilies are blooming, too.  I have clumps of them everywhere.  My sister moved into a house years and years ago and the backyard was almost overgrown with these, so she was giving them away.  Every couple of years I dig some up and plant them in another spot.  They are like weeds.

The Husband was sprung from the hospital Sunday morning.  We were hoping for Friday or Saturday but he started to run a fever and was super weak and tired so they kept him.  As much as I carried on about that wretched drive downtown, when I heard he had the fever and they were doing tests, I really started to break down.  Aren't things supposed to go like clockwork?  Don't we have things down to a routine?  Sometimes I live in a delusional world.  I can be quite a worrier but most times I deny bad things are happening to buffer myself.  The glass half full sort of girl.  My daughter says that I am the only person that can tell someone to go to hell with a smile on my face.  But I digress.  I shot up to the hospital, but only  after taking two wrong turns and getting caught up in the annual Taste Of Chicago Festival.  Yeah, it only draws about 3 million people a day.  His fever had come down, he slept, I slept, and finally he was good to go on Sunday.  Since then he's been a little on the crabby side being cooped up at home.  He gets bored easily and wants to be on the go.  We have about 3-4 weeks of this to go (says the girl with the glass half empty), but I'm so grateful he is home and well (says the girl with the glass half full).

Three weeks into my healthy eating plan and doing good.  I have sneaked a few packages of M&M's in here and there, but I am sticking with the good stuff.  This is a variation of a Caprese salad with cucumbers and red onion added.  If I'm stocked up on veggies, I can come up with anything because I love them.  But it takes time to prepare, now I truly understand where the term "fast food" comes from.  I try to make meals before I'm hungry, and with all the fiber I'm getting, I stay full and rarely want to snack.  Anyway, this is how it is working for me, I just thought I'd update you because today I had an appointment with my doctor and I am down 8 pounds since my last appointment in April.  Yay!  Who knows when I lost it because my scale and I are enemies.  And on the down side, this was just a check up for her to monitor my asthma and she found that I had a few swollen lymph nodes.  She said it was most likely a low grade infection and sent me for lab work and a chest x-ray.  I will get the results tomorrow.  I feel fine, in fact I feel better than fine...we'll see (says the girl with the glass half full!).

Tomorrow is a lazy day and then Milo has a vet appointment on Thursday.  He had been wheezing a lot in his sleep and I was worried.  It has pretty much abated but I thought I needed to run it by the vet.  After that we are going to the lake, for how long, I don't know.  I don't think The Husband can go on any of the boats with his incision healing so maybe we will take some day trips to some of the quaint little towns Michigan is known for, especially along the lake.  And I have plenty of work in my garden.  I've loaded up a few great books into my Nook library and I plan to REALLY get some reading done instead of this one or two hours every night when I'm too tired to hold my eyes open!  I will be back soon! :)

XO,

Jane