Stop the World; I Wanna Get Off!

Gad, WHERE does the time go!  The fireweed has begun blooming and the old wive's tale says that when the top bloom opens (the blossoms open from the bottom up), we'll have our first frost!  Now, don't get my wrong:  right about now, a frost sounds pretty damn good!  BUT, the time can't being going by so quickly!!!  Aaaaagh, I have too much to do!

The lawn mower, which I was expecting to pick up yesterday, needed a part that won't be in until (sob!) next week!!  And, the yard is an absolute abomination.  As B said, rather seriously, when he was here on Saturday, "Oh, I thought you were letting it Go Back To Nature!"  Yup, that's what it looks like!  And, I have a friend coming to stay tomorrow night whom I haven't seen in YEARS and, of course, I'd like the place to look as good as possible for her . . . but I guess that ain't gonna happen.  I've also noticed that, with the hot & wet summer we've been having, the greenery is really starting to encroach on the house, particularly on the south side.  I need to start taking some of that down, cutting it back.  In my spare time.  (See Exhibit A, below.)  Raspberry bushes need to be trimmed around the solar panels, too, as they are beginning to shade the lower section.

Exhibit A:  The view, right now, from my seat at the dining room table.  Can't even tell there's a board walkway between the house and the trees, can you?!

I was awoken in the week hours this morning by a huge *BAM!*, and my first instinct was that a battery had exploded in the battery room of the garage.  But then I realized that we were having another of the extreme summertime storms, and it was a crack of thunder.  Besides, even an exploding battery, cushioned within the battery room inside the garage, would never have made so much noise!  Anyway, I padded downstairs after stepping on two dogs curled up against my side of the bed (Maisy is terrified of storms and she's passed that on to Tucker, although he has no idea WHY he's supposed to be afraid!).  I shut all the doors and windows that the rain was pelting through.  Then I collapsed back into bed.  I remember rolling over and opening my eyes once to see an absolutely YELLOW sky.  I'd never seen that before.  Scary-green, yes, but not yellow.  I made a quick mental scramble that included "if the garage has been struck by lightning and is on fire, would it cause the yellowing in the entire sky?"  Satisfying myself with "nope", I turned over and went back to sleep.  I finally got up when the rain, so strong it was driven through the 2" opening I'd left in the window at the head of the bed, was sprinkling my face even through the mosquito netting canopy.

Having slept through most of it, I didn't think we'd gotten much rain (unfortunately, the battery is dead in the weather station / rain gauge, and I need some brave soul to climb to the tippy-top of the house to replace it).  But, once I'd gotten my computer up and running, I found this on Facebook of town, taken this morning:

Yes, that *IS* a kayaker in the street.  Image taken by D. Simula.

 And this:

More of the streets and a parking lot.  Image taken by S.H. Photography.

And then postings began coming through the community eBulletin Board of road closures due to wash-outs!  I went outside to peek into a wheelbarrow I'd left in the front yard, and there was about 4" in it!  (Cumulative in its angled bottom, to be sure.)  Then I looked at the readings from the closest weather station (just 7 1/2 miles southeast of me), and they recorded 1.88".  Yup, another fast and furious storm, it was!  Now it's lovely and breezy and blue-skied out, but there's another system headed our way.  Bundle of Joy's mommy has her family visiting from Kansas, and they're hoping to have a beach cook-out tonight, but the weather will be the deciding factor.  We might all just be visiting in their tiny home.  :)

Okay, that's it for now.  Gotta get somethin' done around this dump!

Sleep's Over-Rated. Really.

Sleep's overrated.  Really.  At least, that's what I've been trying to tell myself!  I got in about 4 1/2 hours last night, thanks to the weather.  And, speaking of the weather, does any part of the country / world have normal weather anymore?  Is this just the 48 contiguous states?  Or North America?  Or is it more widespread?  The weather now is just a series of extremes.

Case in point, that break in the weather I wrote about a couple of days ago (oh, to think I was wearing a SWEATER!) lasted somewhere more in the vicinity of hours than days.  And then, the outdoor sauna of heat and humidity returned.  With a vengeance.  I'm HOPING we've seen the worst (i.e. hottest) of the summer weather now and that it's behind us:  it's been in the 90s with humidity readings in the 70, 80, 90 percentiles.  And, remember, BECAUSE we live in northern Minnesota, no one has air conditioning.

For some strange reason, I was smacked upside the head by a massive tear-everything-apart cleaning bug over the weekend and tore into the master bath upstairs and the library (of course, nearly giving myself heat stroke in the process).  Neither are finished, but I've made good progress - especially in the bathroom.  Because the walls surrounding the tub & shower are still 2x4s with insulation, the walls are covered in top-of-the-line / super-classy clear plastic.  Over time, the plastic gets all gunky and gross near the bottom.  So, this particular cleaning even included cutting the bottom 1/3 of "the walls" off and re-plastic-ing them.  Nuthin' but class around here, nuthin' but class!  ;)

The heat was so bad on Saturday, the day the guys made all the progress on P-Diddy & C's cabin, that I couldn't even hug her brother B when he came for dinner that night.  NO ONE wanted to be touched, and we all had sweat running down our faces.  And, me not hugging him was HUGE since it was the first real time I'd had with him since he and his bride had returned from their home in (are you ready?) Honduras!  (Actually, an insanely beautiful island off the northern coast in the Caribbean.)  But, my point is . . . wait, what was it?!  Oh, I guess that it was . . . hot.

So, yesterday about noon, I got a call from Bundle of Joy's mama.  It was so miserable out (or, to her, "fantastically beautiful" - weirdo!) that they were going to head up to the big lake north of me for a couple of hours.  Did I want to meet them?  Now, normally (and this is not a good thing - I need to learn to relax more) I'd beg off, citing my To Do list.  Yesterday, I replied, "Well, I have taxes to work on and finishing the deep cleaning of the bathroom . . . but twist my arm."  She did, and I started throwing things together.

On a day so hot, we couldn't be so lucky as to have the small beach to ourselves, but, after a few groups left after the first hour or so, we had the place to just ourselves and the family of one of our chiropractors in town.


I have such fond memories of that lake from being a wee lass.  ;)  This is the same infamous lake over which Mama and Papa Pea and I and the family we shared so many holidays with skied over that one bitterly cold Thanksgiving . . . when I fell out of the sled and was unknowingly left on the lake for the polar bears.  (Okay, okay, no polar bears.)  Here's the link to that story.

Then, in the summers, a particular local ('local' in the perspective of the few, widely-dispersed families living in the area at the time) mom would bring us kids (her two plus the two from the family mentioned above and me) up to this lake to go swimming.  It probably only happened a handful of times, but those lake visits really stuck for me . . . in no small amount thanks to Dr. Pepper!  Yep, Dr. Pepper.  And a little Sunkist.  All in the ice-cold, condensation-covered glass bottles of yore (geez, I wish pop was still bottled that way!).  


See, I wasn't allowed pop growing up.  Only on the most very special of occasions.  And Mrs. H ALWAYS had pop in their cooler:  and plenty to share!  And, it was almost always Dr. Pepper.  So, I can't remember this lake without thinking of those wonderful wintertime getaways to S's cabin nor the summertime visits with Dr. Pepper, courtesy of Mrs. H!

But, now here's the funny part (and Mom, can you confirm this?):  I remember the lake being shallow at the beach until a VERY serious drop-off, not too far out, that we were all (of course) warned of.  Here's the other funny thing (although I'm almost embarrassed to admit it):  I hadn't been back to swim in that lake until . . . yesterday!  25?  30 years?!  And not once in the 10 1/2 years of living back here!  And the shallow water?  Oh, my gosh:  it extends out for MILES!!!!  Okay, not miles, but WAY out!!!  It couldn't be more perfect for families and kids!  Case in point, it's shallow enough far enough out that pontoon boats were coming in, anchoring, and then 18-month olds getting into water that was only chest-high on them (knee-high on the rest of us)!  Could it BE a more perfect swimming beach??  (But, shhhh, it's a WELL-KEPT secret!!)

Anyway, it was a GLORIOUS afternoon, and I was hard-pressed to leave the comfort of lolling on the bottom on the lake with only my head and shoulders above water . . . half a football field's distance from shore!  Granted, having great friends with their 19-month old Bundle of Joy to play with made it 100% more appealing than had I been by myself.  ;)  I'd left the dogs at home because it WAS so hot, and I figured there'd be people there that I didn't want wet dogs bothering, but the next hot day (ha - today!) that I think it will be empty, the dogs and I will head on up:  it's fewer than 10 miles from the house (closer than my nearest year-round neighbor)!!


I came home with a sunburn and sand in my belly-button.  And, today I'm gonna go online to actually find a (gasp!) swimsuit:  I haven't owned one in YEARS!  So, see?  I can take summer just fine:  if I'm wallowing in warm water with minnows skittering around my toes!


And . . . hours later . . . I can't seem to upload photos this morning, so I will give up and post this much.  Photos to come later, I guess.