Muggy Summer Days

We've been so fortunate lately. It's the doldrums of summer now with highs ranging from the mid to the high 90's (actually hit 100 early last week) but we've gotten fairly frequent rains that off set the temperature quite a bit. One evening last week I went out to the front porch to sit and watch it rain and had to go in and put on a long sleeved shirt just to sit out there. The temp. dropped from the 90's to the 70's in a matter of moments! It was lovely! But, being the Deep South, after the rain the temp. goes up and the humidity becomes thick enough to slice! The plants seem to love it, I think they think they're in a green house!

Last Monday I went to see Mother after work. Bert pulled up right before I did and we went in together. Mother asked me who was driving. When I told her that Bert was driving his car and I was driving my car she said "Well, I guess I just drive mine, too!". I told her that was fine with me and she said "Well, we better get going, I don't want to make that little boy wait too long!". It seems she thought we were going to Gainesville. I never could find out why or who the "little boy" was. I didn't stay very long, she really does better one on one and I sorta infringed on Bert's visit. This week I go on my regular day of Tuesday.

Picked Nancy up at her house a little before 7 this morning and we went to Village Inn for breakfast. Boy, do they ever do a bang up job of breakfast. It's almost 1 in the afternoon now and I'm still so full that I really feel like a nap! and, I'm not that much of a napper!

On my way home I stopped and took a look at my 4 dogwoods at work. You know, sometimes it rains at my house and not at the nursery. It looked like there was a good rain there late yesterday as there were still puddles everywhere and my dogwoods were quite wet. Thursday I fertilized the various trees (maples, crape myrtles, birches, eucalyptus and some others) that have been planted around the office and I wanted to be sure they got rain, too. They did.

I'm in the midst of a rather nasty job. I'm ripping out the wall to wall carpet in my dining room. It's awfully nasty (puppies, etc.)...actually it was puddle stained when I moved in a little over 3 years ago and has just gone from bad to worse! I'm finding it a tedious job. In the doorway to the back hall there were two tack strips...one was metal and nailed down with what looks like long roofing nails. I popped the heads off of several of them and just hammered the shanks on down. The other tack strip was wooden...very old and broke into small pieces as I used the pry bar and hammer to get them up. Then the padding for the carpet was stapled down. I'm having a very hard time getting the staples out, they're long and rusty and very little of them stick up enough to get the pliers underneath. So far I've only gotten a 3x3 foot section out, but it looks much better already. Don't know how I'll handle the corner china cabinet as Prentice secured it to the wall so it wouldn't tip over...and it's heavy and akward to handle. I guess I'll figure something out. The floor underneath looks like an old porch floor that had been painted gray and then looks like someone tried to strip it or sand it or something. Rather an interesting look. Will probably leave it as is for a while (if I ever finish). I'm thinking I may paint it at some point...I'll see...

Just made some ice tea...think I'll go out to the front porch and watch traffic and read the newspaper and sip tea.