Summer, where have you gone?

So we got home on Monday the 30th from our vacation to Denver and everything since then has just been a blur.

Funny picture from a truck we saw on the way home ncpvideo.com:


We've been very busy. With what I'm not really certain, but I know we've been busy. It's been incredibly hot. The temperatures haven't been too bad - near 90° usually, but the humidity just won't go away. Yesterday for example the high temperature was 88° and at 10 pm it was 88% humidity. It's just unbearable, the minute you walk outside you're sweating and like I said it just doesn't go away. It's like this day and night. You can't get up early to avoid the humidity, the temperature's just a little lower but it's hard to tell because the humidity is so repressive.

Now I grew up in Oklahoma and it's REALLY hot there in August. I thought I was moving away from all of that when I moved back up to Chicago here. And it's been raining like crazy lately. We got about 2½ in. over the weekend which is no big deal. I'm thinking I won't have to water the grass this week. Then I think it was Monday night we got another 3 inches which overflowed my rain gauge. Then it rained this afternoon a little (nothing really to measure) and the radar shows more rain heading right for us for overnight again.

The big problem with this is that I can't get the grass mowed because it's never dry enough to cut, plus the whole heat/humidity issue where you don't want to even be outside. So I finally gave in last night just before it got dark and mowed the front yard so we don't look like hillbillies in our neighborhood, but the back yard is worse and it's soggy. Like your shoes make squishy sounds when you're walking through the low parts. Our sump pump has been working overtime since the weekend.

Oh and speaking of the sump pump, our dog Rosco has apparently found a critter outside to stalk and try to kill. It apparently was holed up under the patio (cement slab) right next to where the sump pump puts the water it pumps out into a pipe that drains near the back of our yard. He dug this massive (ok fairly large) hole there in a desperate attempt to get the animal so there is dirt and gravel everywhere and a big hole and he doesn't want to come in because he's watching vigil over the hole waiting for any sign of life and preferably for the pesky varmint to come out so he can "play" with it. I swear he was a cat in a former life with some of the things he does.

So anyway I discover this hole Rosco has created and since it's hot and humid and I don't want to be outside, plus it's wet and muddy, I just throw some bricks into the hole and tell him to come back inside. This was Sunday night and then Monday we got all that rain. I looked out there the next morning, and it's completely submerged, bricks and all. So if the pesky varmint was in the hole and trapped by the bricks, it may have met its maker. Or it just got away and probably won't be back. Either way he's not spending as much time standing watch over the hole anymore and has rejoined the family inside.

I've been working diligently on fixing up the house too. I've gotten all the tile and the underlayment removed from the entryway. We're just waiting for the tile guy to come over and put in the new tile. I just finished painting the first coat of paint on the built-in bookcase I made down here in the office. So they need a second coat and they're done!!! Except for the shelves. I have painted six of the 24 shelves so far. I primed six more today and need to paint them next. I really only have room to do six at a time. With the high humidity I couldn't really paint them in the garage anyway - even if their weren't two Mustangs® out there.

Here is the entryway without tile:


New tile awaiting installation:


Oh and then theres the new car! We finally got it on Friday the 3rd. Now we of course are having troubles getting a check from our credit union for the financing. I tell ya it's just one thing after another with this car. I hope God isn't trying to tell us that we weren't supposed to buy it because so far I love this thing! It's really cool. After I pull off the main roads and into our subdivision it runs solely on electric power. I've wondered what it sounds like to people as I drive by because the engine isn't on. It's really quiet, especially at stop lights because the engine turns off when you don't need it. I've had it up to about 28 or 29 with the engine off but you have to really baby it or else the engine turns on thinking you need more power. It's nice to be able to listen to my iPod in the car again since I have a hookup on the lower dash like we had on the first loaner car, the Edge.

New car when I picked it up:


And the navigation has Grace thinking that if we aren't using it we don't know where we're going. She was like "Dad where's the map?" I said we don't need it. "But how will we know where we're going?" I said we're just going home and I know how to get there. "But the map isn't on - we NEED the map!" Kids sure are silly.

I have to say that the lady that reads the navigation to us is quite polite. We had our first experience in a Volvo that was from Hertz and it used their NeverLost navigation system. She was actually quite rude! She would get mad if you went off course. Then recently we've been using our cell phones as we have Verizon and since our phones have built-in GPS we can download a program (and pay a fee) and have the same features as an in-car navigation system. The lady on there isn't so nice either. She just kept saying "Make the next legal u-turn" whenever you missed a turn that she wanted you to make. It was quite annoying. So now this Ford navigation system is quite polite really and doesn't seem to get mad or "make" you take any particular route. We'll have to see how she is on a regular trip. Which was our original objective to have this car for our trip to Denver, but NO - Mayor Bloomberg had to go and order all those Escape Hybrid's for the NYC taxi fleet.

Here is my setup/assembly line for painting the shelves:



Enough of that. I'd better try and upload some pictures for this post. I'll stop for now and continue updating you tomorrow.