In which there was no mention at all of the heat. Not one little bit.

Well, it's been a good day. That always reminds me of the John Denver song where he sings,"I have to say it now, it's been a good life all in all, it's really fine to have a chance to hang around." Except that we did much more than just hang around today.

I will spare you the complaining about the heat. Unless you live in Monterey, California, where it's 70 and sunny every day, and you write home to ask your mother to send you jeans and sweatshirts, you were probably miserable today too. (But just in case you were wondering, it was 101 in Northern Virginia today, with a heat index of 117. But I'm not complaining. No sireee. Not me. I am being EVER SO THANKFUL for my air conditioning, even though I got my $250 electric bill on THIS VERY DAY. Does God have a sense of humor, or what?)

Anyway, Ben slept in this morning. Until 4:45. Did his reading, and by 7 am was chomping at the bit to get outside and get the work done before the heat hit. HA. At 7 am it was already 90. At 7:30 he couldn't wait any longer, and despite the fact that the entire neighborhood was still asleep, he fired up the wood splitter. Can you imagine? Cutting firewood when it's over 100 degrees? But boy, next winter when our neighbors are paying their $400 heat bills, I will be toasty warm by the FREE fire. I can't even make my brain go there right now.

At 9:30 I dragged my sorry self out to the garden to pick beans, and shortly after that Ben started picking tomatoes. He brought laundry baskets of them in to Abbie, who was in the kitchen washing them. She stopped counting at 220, not including the 2 gallons of grape tomatoes. We were in the house by 11:30 to ride out the heat wave.

While I ironed shirts, Ben blanched all the tomatoes, then he and I slipped the skins and cut them up into pots, which are now sitting in the refrigerator, waiting to be canned. While we were doing that, Abbie was making angeled eggs (sanctified deviled eggs) for our picnic tonight, and somewhere in there I also made a pan of blonde brownies and worked for an  hour.

Then Ben and I went to our church's leadership picnic (many thanks to the guys who stood outside in the blazing heat and cooked burgers!), where we ate in the basement because it was the coolest place in the house, even with the A/C going like gangbusters.

Now we are home and enjoying the ceiling fans and did I mention THANKING GOD for the invention of air conditioning?

Tomorrow we get a break from the heat. It's only going to be 100.

Be thankful ~

Karen