Turn Off The Heat

I hate sounding like a broken record, but this heat is getting ridiculous.  Another record breaker today.  We hit 96 degrees with a heat index of 106 degrees.  This is extreme heat.  If you are not at the beach or near a pool, you'd better be inside with the air conditioning running.  The forecast is for one more day - sort of.  Thunderstorms expected tomorrow afternoon, dropping us from the 90s to an expected 88 on Thursday.  Friday, back up to the 90s again through the weekend.  I hope we get back to the 80s and drop the humidity a bit, this is unbearable.

Little bit of good news....I lost 5 pounds during the month of May!  I started my walking program on May 1st.  I've changed what I eat.  I'm now eating mostly chicken and pork.  Any beef I eat is a lean cut and hamburger is always 93/7.  Even the hot dog I had at the cookout was Hebrew National's Fat Free.  I've also switched to whole wheat, whole grain and brown rice.  My snacks are mostly fruit or the fruit salad I make.  I drink one Brita container per day, it's two gallons.  I've given up Diet Coke.

I believe I mentioned John was off today also.  It was 84 degrees at 10am.  Guess what John spent the morning doing?

While he was doing that, I took a quick walk around the yard to see what has popped up.  Here's a couple of buds and flowers.  The Azalea in the background still has a flower on it.

I've forgotten what this is called.  When it blooms, it has a lovely purple flower on it.

This keeps getting bigger every year, I love it!!



The Stargazer Lilly will be popping any day now, I just know it!

All in all, the yard is coming along.  Thankfully with the thunderstorms expected tomorrow, we won't be hauling out the hose to water everything.  I've done that twice since the weather has warmed it, not fun.  Here's a picture from the woods looking at the back yard and house.  The hedges still need trimming, best we hold off until fall now so we don't damage the Azaleas.

We talked this morning about going to the county dump to get rid of the old grill.  John had to prep it first, make sure all the lost pieces and anything flammable was removed.  Notice the knobs have been removed and all the grates.  Basically, make sure it was stripped, of course, I helped.

Off to the dump we go.  Waiting in line, we finally make our way to the booth.  The lady informed us that as long as we are residents of the county, we could throw the grill in the metal scrap heap, no charge.  John was happy.

After adding to the pile, we headed out to Home Depot.  John keeps a couple of toilet repair kits on hand at all times.  We used our last one last week with a running toilet, we needed to restock.

We forgot to take our lawn debris to the dump.  The county picks up once a week on Wednesdays as long as the yard debris is in clear plastic bags.  Here are the grass clippings and the ripped out rose bushes that we took to the curb for tomorrow's pickup.

All in all, it was a productive day.  We forgot to get the soil for the tomatoes.  I'll run up to Lowe's this week and get a bag.  I hope to plant the tomato plants on Thursday, if it cools off.

Not exactly a thrill a minute, but that was my day in pictures.  Thanks for stopping in to visit, good to have you, hope your day was a good one too.

A Promise Is A Promise

First, Happy Memorial Day.  A day to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.  Prayers to those now serving that they are kept safe from harm and return home to their families soon.

When I last posted Saturday, I said I wouldn't post again until Monday because of company coming for a cookout.  A promise is a promise.  John wanted me to join him in front of the TV for the NCIS marathon on USA network.  To your delight (and mine right now), this will be a short post.

I was so busy with the cookout, I didn't have time to take pictures.  I did manage to get a couple of pictures yesterday and today.  Yesterday, when I checked the weather forecast, I noticed that today's forecast had a cactus in it.  We're in the Metropolitan Washington, DC area, there are no cactus here....guess that's their way of letting us know it will be hot.  Tomorrow will be hotter and no cactus in the forecast...hummm.  I hope we see the low 80s again soon, without too much humidity.

There was only one remnant of the cookout, the cupcakes, courtesy of the local grocery store.  I was able to snap this shot before they were almost gone.

Today is indeed a scorcher.  I went out to the back deck to check the thermostat, can you believe it 99 degrees!  They said it was a heat index of 109 degrees, way too hot to be outside today.  Again, they are saying tomorrow is suppose to be hotter.  Forty percent chance of rain doesn't arrive until Wednesday to cool things down to the low 90s, it is brutal.

John has been putting in some long days at work.  We have plans to take the old grill to the dump and get the newly purchased tomatoes planted.  John thought we still had planting soil for the tomatoes, apparently we don't.  We have to make a trip back to Lowe's again.  Rather than go anywhere today, which is complete insanity, we succumb to the heat and had our lazy day indoors, playing on the computer and watching TV.  These are are Early Girl tomatoes, they are suppose to take 50 days to bloom.  If they're right, I should see tomatoes by the end of July.

Hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day holiday.  Off I go to see the end of the NCIS marathon on the couch.  At 9pm tonight on the History Channel we're anxious to see Gettysburg, produced by Ridley Scott.  Tomorrow's heat and tomato planting will be here soon enough.

Grill Practice

John wanted to head back to Lowe's this morning to pick up a couple of things.  I got some tomato plants for the garden.  John helped clear out the rose bushes, finally....they're gone, yay!

One of the things that needed replacing on the back deck was our outdoor clock.  We changed batteries a couple of times, never could get it working.  Two nasty winters in a row did it in.  Here's the replacement, almost the same, just a bit smaller.

John is off Tuesday also.  Since tomorrow is the cookout on the new grill, he wanted to get everything ready.  John got the umbrellas out and set up, then brought out the new grill.  He made sure the propane tank was hooked up correctly.  "We should give the grill a practice run, use it for dinner tonight, make sure nothing goes wrong" I said.  "That's probably not a bad idea" John responded.  I had some steaks in the freezer, pulled them out and put them on the counter to defrost.  John did a great job in setting up the deck.  We have a patio umbrella that came with our patio set.  We kept the  umbrella we used for our (donated last March) hot tub.

As you can see in the background, the new grill is complete and ready to go.  We spent most of the afternoon outside on the back deck after getting the rose bushes ripped out.  It was hot and humid again, we were already sweating anyway.  Ladies and Gentlemen....may I present, Grill Master!  Notice the roses hanging growing over the ledge, they no longer exist.



Sadly, the old CharBroil grill is headed to the dump on Tuesday.  John said he thinks the gas connector leaks.  I guess he'd know, personally I don't think there is anything wrong with it.  Does this look like an 11 year old grill?

The steaks were almost defrosted by 5pm with a little help from the microwave defrost setting for a few extra minutes.  Those babies are headed for Grill Master....the anticipation of waiting for these luscious steaks, yum!

Ahhh, finally....ready!  Glass of wine, a steak and some fries on the back deck.  It doesn't get any better!!

Hope I haven't made you hungry.  It's good to know the Grill Master will be fully functional for the cookout tomorrow.  The test run was a success!

Bless those who lost their lives for our freedom, we are grateful, they will always be remembered for their sacrifice.  Bless those who serve today, who are not with their families, keep them safe.

I am taking tomorrow off from Blogging World, I will post on Monday evening with an update of the cookout.  Hope you have a safe and Happy Memorial Day weekend. 

TGIF

Yay, Happy Friday!!  This morning I grabbed some coffee, watched some news and weather, took a shower and headed to the grocery store to stock up for the cookout we're hosting on Sunday.

Can you tell I made it before the crowds came?  We're all set and ready!  I picked up hamburgers, hot dogs, all the fixins, corn on the cob, baked beans, chips & dip and salsa, potato salad, macaroni salad and....cupcakes ~ red, white and blue!

It was another hot one here today, 92 degrees.  So, wouldn't it just figure that the grocery bag would break on me?  Not only am I sweating enough to fill a swimming pool, the bag with the wine breaks and hits the driveway!  I thought it was adios to that bottle.  I thought I'd be sweeping up glass and hosing the wine off the driveway....it's a miracle!!  These are the only items that fell out of the bag.

I guess there's a reward for sweating to death unloading and unpacking groceries, I'm grateful!  Again, no walk today, except around the grocery store, which DOES count.  Again, I made sure I went up and down aisles where I didn't need anything, just to get in extra steps.  I was in the grocery store for an hour and a half, yikes!  I kept forgetting something and having to go back to the other end.

I always worry about clogging the blog with pictures.  I was advised you can't have too many pictures on your blog...thank you!!  Once I got the groceries unpacked and put away.  I got myself cooled down and had a salad for lunch and started watching some TV.  It wasn't long and John was home.  Friday is pizza night at home, we like Newman's Own.  John came in the door "I need your help" he says.  "Everything okay?" I asked.  "Yes, I need help unloading."  Forgetting what he mentioned earlier in the week, I followed John back out the door to his pickup truck in the driveway....Grill Master has arrived (new grill).

He stopped by Lowe's on his way home.  He picked a grill out all by himself, how about that, I'm proud!  He got the kind he wanted with the gauge on the hood that will give him the temperature, does it get any better than this? :)  We got the box into the garage and it was assembly time.  It was also 5:30pm.  I asked him about the pizza.  "I'll start to put it together, you get the pizza in the oven, let me know when it's ready" he said.  I left him to his tools and the unassembled grill, which he had started to unpack.  He had parts that he'd unpacked from the box and laid out all over the the garage.  He'd placed the major portion of the grill on his work bench. 

I got the pizza sprinkled with low fat mozzarella (extra added ingredient) and put it in the oven for 12 minutes.  We had our delicious thin and crispy Newman's cheese pizza and returned to the project at hand....the Grill Master.  As the "lovely assistant" it is my job to read the instructions out loud and point to the diagrams in the instructions, explaining the best I can.  Tough job, someone has to do it.  An hour and a half later, we have....the Grill Master (somewhat) assembled!

The gas still has to be added and the side burner needs to be connected.  There also needs to be some cooking oil added to the cooking grates to keep food from sticking when cooked.  I was informed this evening during assembly of the Grill Master this procedure was not followed on our previous grill.  Well I thought, that explains why the pork chops cooked on the grill last weekend stuck to the cooking grates...I didn't say a word.  I know what we will be doing tomorrow.

As we finished up the assembly, John putting away his tools, a huge downpour of rain started.  About ten minutes earlier, I saw the sky darkening from inside the garage.  I took my camera out to capture how dark the sky had become.

All was put away for the night.  I uncorked my saved bottle of wine, poured a glass, John got a beer and we tuned on the TV.  We're immersed in the movie National Treasure.  Hope you have a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend!

It's Hot & Humid

According to our indoor weather station....

- at 4:25PM today, it was 79 degrees inside my house with 57% humidity.
- there was a low chance of showers.
- it was 92 degrees outside with 51% humidity.

This translates that it is Hot & Humid!!!  Our forecast is like the for the next week.  What happened to Spring?  I remember Memorials Days gone past where we were hoping for warm weather as we drove three hours to Ocean City, Maryland.  Most of the time it was cool and rainy....yeah, right, global warming.

Needless to say, I didn't get my walk in.  It was too darn hot by the time I got moving.  I'm still stepping though.  My pedometer goes on first thing in the morning and comes off as I get into bed.  Of course, I'm trying to catch as many steps as I can.  My highest steps this week was 5508 on Tuesday.  Yesterday, I got in a 20 minute walk and my steps were 3520, I think the pedometer must have got stuck, lol.  John gave me cash for a manicure and pedicure, which is where I went today.  My claws have been cut back.

When John arrived home, he decided he HAD to cut the grass.  I tried to convince him that it was too hot outside.  He said that we're only headed for hotter weather and the chance of thunderstorms are increasing each day.  He asked I bring him the bottle of Gatorade from the refrigerator about every ten minutes for him to gulp, of course I did, poor guy out there sweating.  The in-laws are coming again for a cookout Sunday, he wants to make sure the lawn looks good.   The first picture is the before the lawn has been touched.  I say it doesn't look bad at all.

Here's John as he passes by with the mower.

Oh, and he recycles the clippings.  The county picks up all yard debris weekly.

Here's the after picture of the lawn, is there REALLY a difference?  I don't see it, except for the mower tracks.



Pretty boring day today in my world, thanks for stopping by anyway.  How was your Thursday?  Hope it is cooler where you are.

Get 'er Done

Pretty boring day, I start off with that warning.  I got some things done, my hair, a walk, bedding washed, and dinner cooked...it was a get 'er done day.

I know, as a female, we're not suppose to discuss our secrets...so what.  Here's one of mine, and believe me, it's no big deal.  I color my hair.  I've been coloring it myself for about 15 years now.  Today, I colored it again.  Last time I colored it, I tried the new Nice and Easy foam.  It smells like beer!!  I don't know if it is suppose to smell like beer, it isn't advertised on the box that it smells like beer.  Maybe the beer smell is a marketing tool?  Shortly after I colored it last time, I went to Hair Cuttery to get my hair trimmed.  I had to warn the stylist that when shampooed, my hair smells like beer from the coloring.  She looked at me like I was crazy, she was Asian.  I thought maybe she didn't understand what I was saying.  Whatever shampoo the stylist used didn't trigger the smell of the beer in the coloring, oh well.  I tried something new today.  Same foam idea, this one is from Loreal, called Sublime Mousse.  It didn't smell like beer, whew.  Normally after I color my hair, it feel soft and smooth.  Not this time, it tangled very easy, even after I used their condition.  I ended up using some Pantene (my normal hair condition) too.  I'm not happy with this product either.  The foam idea hasn't been perfected yet in my opinion.  I'll just go back to the Nice and Easy with Technicolor Highlights.

I also got my walk in this morning, only 20 minutes again for what use to take me 30.  It was very humid and somewhat warm at 10:30am, pushing 80 degrees.

It was a beautiful party cloudy day with the sun shining, thankfully.

I saw a couple of interesting flower and planting beds along the way.  These two are in the same yard, difference places in the yard.  Someone has the green thumb here.

Having walked this route before, I never noticed these footsteps in the concrete.  These footsteps are not sunk in the concrete.  It looks like someone painted the bottom of their shoes and walked on the concrete.

Time for American Idol, see who this season's winner is.  I hope the humidity leaves us, it is too soon to be this hot and sweaty.  Sadly, it seems the humidity is forecasted to be with us through the weekend.  Hope we can stay clear of thunderstorms too.

Thanks for joining me today.  I had a better day than yesterday, hope you did too.

Murphy's Law

Everyone has a bad day, what I refer to as a "Murphy's Law Day" where nothing seems to go right.  It continued as I tried to log on to Blogger tonight to write and post this blog.  I checked the Blogger Status, which reflects a statement that they are looking into issues and concerns about log in and posting comments.

Let me back up a little bit.  My best friend, Colleen, who lives in Annapolis, Maryland (about an hour and half away) has been on vacation for two weeks.  I didn't know she was on vacation, she was no longer responding to my emails.  After about a week, I called her home and got her machine and left a message.  I was able to reach her sister last Sunday who told me she was on vacation, which was a huge relief.  You know how we always think the worst when we don't know?  Colleen returned home yesterday and got my message and called.  Her and her husband had a wonderful time driving the East Coast from Maryland to Florida.  I was happy she was safe and had a great time.

In our conversation last night, Colleen mentioned that they were bringing their car to my area to get some maintenance work done.  Apparently, they bought the car here and get a discount for bringing it back to this dealership for repairs.  I asked her to give me a call after they got to the dealership and we could meet up.  I knew they would be at the dealership early, 7am she said.  It was raining most of the morning here.  In this area where there are almost 6 million people, this area is #2 in the country for bad traffic (LA is #1).  Add rain to that mix and you've got a whole lot of frustrated people.

Initially, I planned to shower first thing and get online to do more job hunting.  I don't normally set the clock these days unless I have an interview.  I woke up at 7am.  I figured Colleen was probably at the dealership, I would hear from her soon.  Fearing I would be in the shower if she called, I decided to wait to shower until I heard from her.  I made some coffee, turned on the computer and printer and proceeded with my job hunting.  Good news, I applied to six more jobs today!

The coffee pot beeped for it's auto shutoff after 4 hours, yikes, it was 11:15am!!  Where did the morning go?  I'm still sitting in my nightgown too.  I normally take my walk in the mornings.  I hadn't heard from Colleen yet.  I decided I needed to defrost something for dinner, something easy - tacos!  Looking for ground beef, I had forgotten the beef at the grocery store last week was all more that 93% fat.  All I buy is 93/7 ground beef, nothing else.  Another trip to the grocery store.  I had changed into clothes, brushed my teeth and put my hair in its daily ponytail.  Still no call from Colleen.  She had just got her first cellphone, present from her hubby, she didn't know the number she said the night before (hence, we set it up for her to call me).  I called her home and got her machine.  I told her that I hoped everything was okay.  I was a bit worried since I hadn't heard from her.  I let her know I was running some errands and to leave a message on my home phone or try me on my cell.  When I returned home, the message light was blinking, it was Colleen.

I could tell from her voice, she was having a Murphy's Law morning too.  Her message said that they were delayed getting to the dealership in traffic with it raining this morning.  There were some problems with the repair and by the time they finally got their car back, they just wanted to head home, they were tired and frustrated.  I certainly understood.  She apologized for not calling, she said she had forgot, getting caught up in the problems with the car repair. 

It was 1:15pm when I got home from my errands, including 93% ground beef!  It was 85 degrees and humid, forget the walk.  I checked my pedometer, I had steps that would add up to what my day would be if I had a 15 minute walk.  Vee, you asked about my steps.  I put the pedometer on in the morning and keep it attached to my waist all day (it has a clip to attach to waistband).  The pedometer measures how many steps I take each day, no matter what I do. 

I had some fruit salad for lunch, and I put some things away from shopping, then took a shower.  I checked the TV to see what was on and caught a daughter's drug intervention on Dr. Phil.  That was kinda interesting (Part 2 tomorrow :)  I also caught the 2nd day of Oprah's farewell show, I just cried.

I did manage to take a picture of the bird in the nest.

When John came home, he wanted to check the nest.  He grabbed a ladder and has one of those mirrors like dentist do, a flip type mirror.  John discovered there were no eggs in the nest.  That explains why I just noticed the nest yesterday.  I was wondering why I hadn't noticed it sooner.  John wanted the nest removed since there were no eggs.  He didn't want bird poop all over the front porch, not to mention the inconvenience of not using the porch fan this summer for little birdies.  He had me hold a trash bag close to the fan while he used a paint scraper to scrape the nest off the fan and into the bag, plop it went into the bag.  To keep the bird from returning, he turned on the fan so it would spin.  See, no more nest.

Since I was out, I took a quick walk around the yard.  The Peonies are not popping like they usually do.  I'm disappointed they didn't flower better this year.  Some appear to be dying before they bloom.

The Lillies look like they are starting to bud.  Looks like I'll get some flowers out of them in the next few weeks.  Woohoo, some good news today!

I don't have a Murphy's Law day often, but when it happens, sometimes it can really play havoc.  All in all, today wasn't that bad.  I hope you've had yours.  Thanks for joining me, look forward to seeing you again soon.