Weather, an anniversary, and time to relax

The storms that blew through and around us on Sunday and cooled the temperatures down in the early part of the week. We were able to open windows at night, allowing the house to cool off. In fact, on Tuesday morning my daughter was considering whether to turn on the furnace. NO!!!

Swim lessons continued for the week, at 8:15 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Eli also had day camp on Tuesday, though Thursday's session was cancelled. I went with them on Tuesday, and D and I visited Value Village, Walmart and a used book store before returning to the school. We sat outside in the car, windows open as no a/c was required, and read. At V.V. I picked up a small bookcase and found it fits perfectly behind my bedroom door. I've been gathering books at garage sales and picked up a couple more at the used bookstore. There is room enough on the shelves for a couple dozen books, though I'll like swap them out before it is full.

The heat returned on Wednesday and has stayed with us. I ought to have been outdoors in the morning working in the yard, but the mosquitos are wicked bad. Normally, they don't bother me much, preferring other, younger subjects but there are so many of them, they're not fussy. Instead, I stayed in the house, read blogs, played Mahjonng on-line, did some knitting, and binge-watched NCIS. Oh, I read too, finising James Patterson's NYPD Red2, one of the two books I picked up at the used book store on Tuesday.

Thursday was the 10th anniversary of the death my aunt, my mother's youngest sister. I shared this photo on FB, taken when my mom was about 14-15 years old.

From left to right, my Aunt Ann, Aunt Enid, Mom (Betty) and Uncle Bob. He passed away at the young age of 45 of lung cancer. Mom also passed away of cancer, just over 20 years ago, just 9 days prior to her 75th birthday. Aunt Ann died about 3 months later - I'm not certain what caused her death; she had just turned 73. Aunt Enid had several strokes and was living in the nursing home when she passed away at the age of 80.

We woke to the haze of forest fires on Friday morning. The sun was red and there was a hint of smoke in the air. It didn't help keep the heat at bay but did cool it slightly by a degree. I did get outdoors for 20 minutes or so to bag weeds I'd picked up earlier, and pulling more of the darned things. By the time I game indoors I was soaking wet. Normally we have dry heat, that day the humidity was nearly 50%. Again, I realize this is lower than what many of you experience, but we're not accustomed to it. 

It was Eli's final day of swimming lessons, so I went along for the evening lesson. To celebrate we went to the local ice cream shop for a treat too. Then there was football to watch. Good news all around as the coach of the Edmonton Elks was fired (not my team but I disliked the guy from the time he was here), and our Saskatchewan Roughriders won. It was an ugly game with more defence than offence and some questionable calls by the refs - one of which likely won the game for us. It ended with an ugly take down by one of the opposing team on our running back. Needless as there was no time on the clock at that point. The television coverage ended and I haven't heard if there will be consequences.

We ran out of water in the rain barrel on Thursday, but the garden needed watering, so early this morning I put out the hose to give it a good soaking. D mowed most of the back yard about 8 a.m. We're back in the house now, the a/c has been cutting in regularly and I suspect we may head to the pool this afternoon. Otherwise it will be a quiet day, with baseball and football to watch, and I'll keep working on the mittens.

Have a great week ahead everyone!