Hot, hot, hot

I know we're not alone, there are many people across the country suffering in the heat. Our outdoor thermometer recorded just how hot it got yesterday. The top one is a reading on the back patio, which is somewhat shaded. The one below it was the max temperature in the house yesterday. I like the way it thinks we’re having rain. As if. It won’t rain here until October. No we don't have a/c.

We don't have a/c because usually it cools down in the evening. We like to have the windows open to hear the pond, the birds, our neighbor’s dogs… However, this was the temperature at 8:38 pm:

We have a whole-house fan, which is a monstrously loud beast of a fan mounted in the hallway ceiling. It draws air into the house and up into the attic and out the vents. In the course of our remodelling work my husband has to do a lot of work up in the attic to do wiring and stuff. He knew it got hot up there even on a mild day, so he put another thermometer up there just to see. Yikes!

Suffice it to say that we were not very productive this weekend. We stayed pretty motionless in front of fans. I read magazines and started the book French Women Don't Get Fat, watched movies: Finding Neverland (wonderful), War of the Worlds (dumb but good effects), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (silly but entertaining). My husband camped out in the family room and played X-box. I will say that the heat is a great diet aid. I had absolutely no appetite this weekend. Hopefully I lost a few pounds and not just through sweat. Incidentally, a/c is something the author of French Women Don't Get Fat says is one reason Americans eat more than the French. They don't have much air conditioning in France. I can attest to this as it was in the 90s while we were in Paris and not many stores had a/c. I made sure to book a hotel room that did and we were very glad!

I started to work on our vacation photos but it was just too hot, even sitting in front of the fan. There are only about 1200 of them (!!!). Of course there's a lot of editing to do because many of those photos are duplicates. And unfortunately there's a speck of dust in my camera somewhere that shows up on every picture as a black, spherical UFO in the sky. But not to worry, Photoshop will come to the rescue. I love digital.

We had a simply wonderful vacation. I have lots to write about but want to wait until I can show some pictures to go with my narration. It's supposed to cool down by the end of the week so hopefully I'll be able to work on the pictures soon.

Oh and we've decided that perhaps we should get air conditioning installed.