it's too hot to think of a clever title.

I know everyone is sick to death of the heatwave, but humor me just for a second - it's 11:00 pm and the heat index is 95. Which just means that it's actually only 85, but there's 80% humidity.

It makes you want to sit in the dark buck naked.

And where do you think the other three members of my family are right now? All asleep in the one non-air conditioned room in the house. I don't know what their deal is.

So, anyways.

Last night we had a dinner picnic at a local lake and it was so noticeably cooler out there. I always forget how much heat radiates off the asphalt in the city.

That was the last mention of the weather, I promise.

The entire family is now slightly afraid of the garden. I so deeply underestimated how much things would grow this summer. My planting strategy was based on last summer's crappy weather. At this point I'm needing to tear some stuff out in order access all the plants. When I'm standing between the two raised beds you can't remotely see me from the house. The kids get scared when I'm on the other side of the bed. I don't think they would do well in a jungle. However, I do have green tomatoes by the bushel. I've counted my tomatoes before they've ripened before, so I'm hiding my crossed fingers so as not to tempt fate, but (said in a whisper) I think it's going to be a good harvest. And the green peppers are rocking this year. I've got a good dozen close to harvest. I'm not sure though how you tell when a green pepper is done though - any helpful hints?

On the less jungley side of the garden the sunflowers are in full bloom and just so cheerful! This is the first successful year for sunflowers for me and I'm so happy. Maybe a sunflower house is really a possibility next year.

The inside of the house hasn't changed much, except that we've removed the vanity in the bathroom and torn out a good portion of the floor. In the interest of saving costs we are demo-ing the bathroom ourselves as much as we can.

Can we talk for the moment about how not awesome it is to have the only working toilet be on the third floor. And how equally not awesome it is to not have a sink anywhere near the changing table? It is awesome though that the shower is still somewhat accessible by the adults. The kids are getting spoiled in the jacuzzi tub upstairs - which is pretty much a swimming pool for them. I, however, am not up for a long bath in this weather.

I did like seeing the history of the bathroom as we pried and ripped away. Layers of flooring and wondering who put it there - who is doing what we're doing and picked it out. I wish we knew more of the history of this house.

And then there was that 3/4 inch layer of particle board. Maybe I'm out of turn here, but my gut says it's a bad idea to use my old ikea bookcase as subflooring next to a toilet, even if I am desperate. Call me crazy. So after that we dig around some more and John takes a break and then hears me say - oooh shit. huh. . . He yells - what was that about? Me - well, you should probably just come see this. Apparently like 80 years ago someone needed to access the pipe next to the toilet. Hmm, maybe it was to put in indoor plumbing? And so cut a 6 x 10 inch hole in the original flooring. And then didn't put anything over it. It's likely this was the true cause of the catastrophic leak. Everything gets wonky and leaky and, you know, soaks through the stellar barrier that is particle board, and woosh, and yay there's a hole! The path of least resistance! That's just my guess though. It's also likely that the hole meant that the damage was not as bad upstairs as it could have been.

Give it up for home ownership! Whoop whoop! John and I now feel like we really own this home. You know, because three years of mortgage payments didn't make it sink in.

We've got guys coming - tomorrow the floors, Friday the kitchen ceiling. Both with excellent recommendations, so that helps with the anxiety of all this. It is stressful though. Mostly I want my dining room back. It's our biggest multipurpose room and now it's also full of kitchen stuff - at least until we know when the ceiling will be going in. I realized that I need to be canning soon, so that means hopefully a ceiling between peaches and tomatoes, but no flooring until this is done with. At least on the kitchen end. Crossing my fingers the bathroom will be done soon. I can see why our backyard neighbor took to peeing out his window last winter- it does indeed suck to have to climb stairs in the middle of the night when you need to go - let alone when your kid needs to go too. But, rest assured L & J of next door, we will be done with this project before winter- so you won't be seeing any yellow icicles from our house. (yeah, the backyard guy made some amazing yellow icicles last winter.)

And as a side note, we have homeowners insurance from Travelers and they have been just *awesome* to work with. In fact, except for reimbursements that will have to come at a later date, our case is pretty much closed. Less than 2 weeks from when I called. Pretty darned impressive if you ask me. So very thankful for a good experience with them.

Man, this has been one long - winded post. Yikes.

I know I said I wouldn't talk about the weather, but the heat index is now 89. It's going in the right direction at least. Slowly. . .