It has been unbearably hot. Humid, too. I am literally melting. We are all walking around in a state of constant icky-ness, and cold showers are required for all every night. (Yesterday I found both rats sleeping on their backs with their feet up--I thought they'd died of heat stroke!) Last Tuesday we spent about 4 hours at a local library--Lil'Nathan and I read books, Mary and Joseph did puzzles. Wednesday we spent all morning and afternoon at the beach... and got fried,but at least there was a breeze. :) We had high hopes for Hurricane Bill, but nothing came of it. The weather channel promises a cold front mid-week next week, but they've lied to me before, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up. If it would only cool off at night, I could handle the days, but the nights are just as hot, so we aren't sleeping. Hot + sticky + tired = really, really crabby!

But in other news....

We replaced our shelving downstairs yesterday. Nathan is the distributor for a distant cousin's genealogy book and we were using her boxes of books to support boards and built a beautiful bookshelf out of them. Well, all the humidity in the basement... and maybe the ton of weight from our hundreds of books... was causing the boxes to smoosh and the shelves to lean. Not good. So, yesterday we bought some cinder blocks to replace the boxes and now we have nice, stable bookshelves. And the added bonus of underneath storage. :) We also turned on the de-humidifier the landlord left in the basement. It's much hotter down there now, but it's also much drier.

In preparation for school starting next week, we cleaned up all the spiders, too.

Maeser, our giant stuffed whale, had bugs. It was very sad--something had infested his outer shell--it looked like cocoons or something. I had the choice of throwing him out or gutting him and washing him. I've had him for more than 10 years... I gutted him. First we vacuumed him, then I unstuffed him. All the stuffing, although it looked okay and bug free, was tossed. Maeser was washed twice. I'll fill him up again when I get more stuffing. But he won't be going back in the basement when he's done!

We are going to be babysitting! Twice a month, on alternating Mondays. He is 3 months old and his mom is our Primary President. We are very excited--he is adorable! We start in 3 weeks.

We are going peach picking on Wednesday. I found a place about 45 mi away that offers a discount for bushels--80 cents a pound if we pick 3 bushels. Oh, YAY!! Some friends from church are coming, and maybe some friends from the homeschool groups. We are planning to pick and can two bushels. Geez, I hope it cools off before Wed night! (That cold front is expected on Thursday.)

Oh! And how did I forget?! Our pumpkin plant has had a growth explosion. It has four major vines, each easily 10+ feet long, complete with female flowers! If you look at the picture below, you can see it, next to the last sunflower. Not too impressive, huh? Well, now the sunflowers are all gone and pumpkin plant spreads out past the beans with it's big, beautiful leaves. The other side goes up and over the fence! It's gorgeous! Don't know if we'll actually get a pumpkin out of it, but considering I never thought it would survive...!

And as a side note, if you want some inspiration, look at my friend Becca's Magic Treehouse. It is awesome! (She's linked on the side.) (You should look at her cakes, too.)