100ºF in the Shade

That's what the local headlines say. Great. My livingroom is 85ºF, and that's only because I've barely opened my front door today. It was 86ºF when I went to bed last night, around midnight. And the kicker was it was still hotter outside. At midnight. The AC unit we have in the kitchen window keeps blowing the circuit. Michael and I have been sleeping in our room, the only room with an air conditioner that works, and the kids have mostly been sleeping in the basement. And then today we decided that smell that we'd noticed down there that could be just a basement smell or could be a gas smell actually was a gas smell. The gas man came and, after some sleuthing, discovered our neighbor had a very leaky meter. Thank goodness it wasn't ours, but still. We've spent so much time down there in the past few days, it's a wonder we don't all have headaches and stomachaches.

The kids are napping. Nighttimes have been a disaster. Elias fell asleep within a reasonable time last night but Kindred wasn't about to close his eyes. We tried to sleep them in their room with fans but it didn't really work. Kindred woke Elias a few times and eventually we all ended up downstairs to watch the NBA finals from about 11-12am. They slept in the basement again, and then they woke up at 8am. Today I decided to screw the schedule and took them to the store instead of napping them, but when we got home, E was melting down so I put him to bed. Then Kindred asked me, "Mama, where am I going to sleep?" I told him to choose, so he chose his room, and there he has been for the past 1.5 hours.

Me? I'm sitting here wishing clothes were optional in our culture, and waiting for the boys to stir so we can go to our friend's house to swim instead of sit here and bake for the afternoon.

(I'm still not officially back online, so I will post pictures from the past few weeks and more stories as soon as I have power.) (Literally.)