Beautiful, Lovely Freedom!

I have this week off, which means four (4) days free for me (about 28 hours).  This is  my first time to have a real day off where I don't have to be anywhere or get some project done (and with toddler in day care!) in over three years.  Well, actually, since I was also in grad school before that, probably since 2001.  (I wish I was kidding or exaggerating.)

 

I made a list last week of things I've been considering doing "on my week off." I included time estimates, which it turns out added up to about 96 hours.  So I guess I won't be doing all the things I imagined.

 

While blogging is one of the things I wish I had more time to do, I've been staying away from the computer for the most part, because I know I could all too easily get sucked into surfing away all 28 of those beautiful, lovely hours.  (I currently have a timer on for 10 minutes to write this!)  I have so many IRL things I want to do that I will feel terrible if the week is over and I haven't done them.

 

However, I may do a bit more blogging or at least emailing later this week.

 

Happy New Year!

Neologism of the Day - Practiculous

We have had to move all the festive bits to the top 1/3 of our Christmas tree because Limelet insists on pulling off every glass ball he can and dragging them around the house.  So we have a very well-decorated (or should I say highly decorated?) tree top, and then the bottom 2/3 of the tree is minimalist.  This is a look I call "practiculous" -- practical, but ridiculous.  

It is a very familiar style to me, as it has been my fashion byword for decades.  However, I can't think of specific examples right now. Perhaps you have some of your own.

Happy Winter Solstice!

stonehenge winter solstice 2008
Originally uploaded by zombizi

I've never been here, but I hear it's madness at any solstice anyway.

Snuggle up and have cocoa and something fire-like.

Explaining Parental Activity Trauma, Plus Some Saved-Up Randomness

We finally all seem to be getting over our marathon illness that spanned most of October and November. It didn't seem as severe as flu I've had in the past, but cold viruses don't last longer than 10 days, right? Anyway, it really put a damper on our lives and we were all bloody well sick of it (metaphorically speaking) by the time it was over.

I think all the time in blogoform, but rarely actually sit down to execute it. I forget that in pre-motherhood days I would not have known or possibly even believed how many parts of my life would be restricted or curtailed by having a little person around, including just sending emails or blogging.

A long time ago (but possibly just this past year) I was reminded of this by an exchange I had with a child-free relative who had posted some interesting things online. I hope that person will forgive me for using this email publicly (but it's not like it's something terrible). It's just such a good opportunity to explain this phenomenon.

ME: I want to see them both [interesting items], but can't do it at work and it's very hard to do so at home (mainly for Limelet reasons, of course)

CHILDFREE RELATIVE: Perhaps you should put "headphones" on your Amazon Christmas wish list this year!

ME: Oh [Childfree Relative]. If only it were that simple. I have headphones; it's that I can't be on the computer at ALL if Limelet is awake. And he sleeps precious little other than when we're also asleep. By the time he finally goes to sleep, we're both exhausted and I still have to shower and pack my lunch for the next day. When I do steal some computer time, it's usually doing something I can only do from the home computer (like uploading the obligatory birthday pix).

CF: Obviously I am ignorant about the whole havin' a kid thing. The phrase "I can't be on the computer at ALL if Limelet is awake" baffles me, quite honestly.
...

So, perhaps you are as baffled as CF was. And as I said I think it would have baffled me, too. But perhaps a thought experiment will help, at least it will if you're from a large family.

Okay, imagine the sibling you had who was most annoyingly clingy* and who just had to do everything you did, usually a younger sibling ("Jimmy" or "Janie"). Now imagine yourself as you are now, sitting down at your computer. Imagine that sibling standing right next to you, trying the entire time to grab the mouse, hit the keyboard, and begging loudly (okay then, shouting!) to view his or her favorite sites instead of your Gmail or Youtube or bank account.

Now in the old days, when you were fed up with this kind of thing, eventually you might shout "Mo-o-o-mmmm! Jimmy or Janie won't let me check my email!" and Mom might come in and take the now-crying Jimmy or Janie away. Depending on your mom. At any rate, there was probably some point of time in your day during which you were away from Jimmy or Janie.

But today, you're the grown-up. You are Mom! Allow the ramifications of this to sink in. No one will come to take Jimmy or Janie away no matter what he or she does. In fact, unless you have something arranged with someone else, you may not have any time that is not Jimmy or Janie-filled, at least if Jimmy or Janie sleeps as little as Limelet does.

Forget those ads you've seen (at least I've seen them) in which a nicely dressed woman sits at her easel painting in a spotless home while her baby sits on the carpet near her playing with blocks. I still laugh about that ad. The baby would play with those blocks for about 20 seconds, given Mama's super-intriguing activity so close at hand. That kid isn't even trying to eat her paints, let alone smear her canvas! Also, how on earth did she get a shower that early in the day, and have time to do her hair and makeup? Who cleaned her house?

This morning I washed my face and brushed my teeth and put on my pants as hurriedly as possible with the bathroom door open, while Limelet cried and shrieked horribly and writhed in TheLimey's arms nearby, because he wanted me to hold him, not Daddy. I daily put my lipstick on and brush my hair at work for more or less that reason.

So I hope the non-computer time thing makes more sense now. In fact, I am writing this on my work computer at lunchtime, though I usually go home just to get out of the (garden-level) office.

Anyhoo.

Today it is spring for some reason, but we did have snow the week before Thanksgiving. And it turns out that Pennsylvanians do the same thing that Michiganians do, which is to criticize one another's snow driving as soon as snow threatens. Naturally, the criticism is for opposite types of driving. It starts like this: "Around here, as soon as the first snow falls, there will be a bunch of accidents, because every year people forget how to drive in snow."

So far, this sounds sort of reasonable: a social observation of some kind. But it turns out that it actually means one of two completely opposite things. One is that the criticizer is someone who does not modify the way they drive for weather changes of any kind, and they believe that since others do, they must have "forgotten" how to drive. The other is a criticizer who is petrified of snow-related accidents and is upset when others do not modify their driving for weather, so the criticizer believes that those people have "forgotten" how to modify their driving for snow since the previous year.

Now, I probably fall more closely into the latter group. However, I don't really believe that people "forget" how to drive in snow each year, I just think they have that illusory sense of safety that comes from being in a large vehicle with anti-skid brakes and airbags and so forth. (Studies show that people drive to the limits of the safety of their specific vehicle, whatever that may be). I've experienced way too many events in which someone overestimated their traction or their brakes and got into some kind of collision, to have that illusion myself. I've also tended to have teeny tiny cars that didn't have automatic anything, so I could feel all the slithering and sliding all too clearly. (Plus I've researched driving attitudes.)

So, just for the record, stop telling yourself (and others) that others have forgotten how to drive in snow. Either they have a tiny car that can't drive fast in snow like yours can (or so you think! Ha!), or they have a big vehicle that makes them think they don't have to change their driving habits for snowy roads. Nobody's forgotten anything.

We actually have holly bushes in the front yard, so we have built-in decorations (as long as I keep it up high, since it's poisonous). There's also a huge holly tree next to my work building. I didn't even know holly became a tree when left to its devices, but there it is. Huge and shiny and bright with berries.

Okay, pie. I love pumpkin pie**, and tend to eat it for breakfast the week after Thanksgiving. At least the kind that I make, which is heavy on the eggs and spices, especially cloves. After all, it's squash, eggs, and milk. Sounds like a healthy breakfast to me! Originally TheLimey did not like pumpkin pie at all (nor peanut butter for that matter). But he's gradually begun to like it more each year, so now when I make pies they don't last nearly as long as they used to. This last batch disappeared almost instantly! (And we can't keep peanut butter in, either). And, oddly, I've started liking apple pie because he likes it. Well, I didn't dislike it before, I just found it kind of non-exceptional. But since I was making it each year, I started experimenting with the recipe (with some help from America's Test Kitchen, of course) and ended up with something that I can't restrain myself from gobbling down. The ingredient that makes the biggest difference is the zest of one lemon, as insignificant as that sounds. It's well worth the hassle of zesting that dang lemon, which is always a pain.

And finally, something that's almost a swear, but is a real place, apparently. Zesus Chrest !

*That sounded terrible. I don't mean that Limelet is annoyingly clingy. He's appropriately interactive and dependent for his age. But in the example, I'm picturing how a slightly older child might react instead of how a parent might react. (When in fact I'm a much older child.) This is not to say I'm never annoyed, but it's not because he's being anything other than he should.

**I noticed for the first time this year that my cheesy Classic Christmas Songs CD contains not one, not two, but three references to pumpkin pie. It appears in Sleigh Ride, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, and There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays. Was pumpkin pie originally a Christmas staple that migrated to Thanksgiving, or what?

Internets Advice

A friend of mine who still thinks that I am somehow internet savvy recently posed this question to me:

"My close friends from high school, mostly the wedding party at my wedding, are hoping to return to [party town] this year to celebrate [wife] and I being married for five years.  Anyway, I'm looking for a site where they can all be members, we can chat about who wants to drive, who wants to get hotel rooms, etc. . . and then possibly have an ongoing survey to see where the next get together will be.  "

Now, I'd probably just use eVite myself, because I already know about it.  But perhaps some of you have used other sites to this end and have better ideas.  I promise I'll give you full citation for the advice.

Almost the Meaning of Life

I think I worked like nuts on my birthday last year, too. But this
year I have even been too busy the past two days to tease TheLimey
about his being two years older than me, and now I've lost my chance.
Back to being just one year younger than he is.

I locked my keys in the house when leaving the house after lunch.
Darnit. It doesn't mean anything practically speaking, but I hate
having my keys, phone, or wallet out of my reach.

"Be More Grateful"

I don't know how this email-from-Google-RSS will work in Blogger, but here goes.

The other day I was reading an advice column by Cary Tennis, in which a woman expressed her guilt about stealing something. His reply included a suggestion that she examine her life for feelings of deprivation (perhaps her past). I thought that his linking of stealing to feelings of deprivation was exactly right. 

Then a day or so later I was thinking about r@pe, a topic that comes up frequently in my line of work, (not to mention just in being in my gender group). And I thought of r@pe as a form of stealing, and then I recalled the deprivation link. At first thought that sounded terrible to me. "Those r@pists, they're just deprived"? But then, deprived of what? 

And then I considered that only a sense of (undue) entitlement can create a sense of deprivation about another human being. Why are most serial ki11ers white males? Sense of thwarted entitlement, as the theory goes. So, yeah, if we as a society go by the understanding that men "deserve" women (or even a woman), of course we're creating an atmosphere conducive to r@pe, because we're creating a sense of deprivation.

But from this thought came something bigger. It occurred to me that no sense of deprivation can occur unless there is a sense of entitlement. Even in areas of life where it seems that there "should" be some entitlement, such as health and safety and so forth, let alone areas like material belongings. And if we feel entitlement, then we are unlikely to feel gratitude, because we take whatever-it-is for granted.

So I guess it's all related to itself in a convoluted way that as I talk about it is beginning to sound Buddhist to me (in my limited understanding).

 

 

Sent via Google Reader:

 

 

Want To Be Happier? Be More Grateful

via ScienceDaily: Latest Science News on 11/24/08

Want to quickly improve your happiness and satisfaction with life? Then the pen may be a mighty weapon. Researchers recruited students from six courses to explore the effects of writing letters of gratitude to people who had positively impacted the students' lives. Over the course of a six-week period, students wrote one letter every two weeks with the simple ground rules that it had to be positively expressive, required some insight and reflection, were nontrivial and contained a high level of appreciation or gratitude. "I saw their happiness increase after each letter, meaning the more they wrote, the better they felt," says the lead researcher.

 

Mornings

I realized today why I am already tired by the time I get to work.  

It's because I awake at 5:50, spend 10 minutes prying myself out of bed, then 10 minutes getting myself ready (Wash face! Brush teeth! Throw on clothes! Hurry hurry!), and then spend 2 very focused hours getting Limelet up and awake and ready and off to daycare.  And that's all before breakfast [Larabar], which I hork down at work as soon as I get there, usually while applying a smear of lipstick and tying my [unbrushed] hair back.

So, tiredness, I understand you.

Good luck

I'm heading home now. With some luck perhaps I may catch a few glimpses of Argot/Eph's skypecast election room...thing.

Anyway, here come the nerves*.

*(My next band name, though doubtless taken.)

Election Coverage Online

A better roundup here than I have the time to do myself.

Not Recommended

I spent a lot of last week sick with some kind of GI bug.  If I had known how long it was going to last, I would have gone to the doctor, but as it was I kept thinking that it was surely over, and then it repeatedly wasn't.  The worst part was really just how exhausted I got after days of no appetite and all...er, output.  And then when I was my most exhausted, Limelet got sick. Best of all, he couldn't bear to be more than two inches away from me at any given time. Somehow, he managed to get a completely different thing than I had, lucky for us all.  But he was still stuck at home for three days with a mother who mostly laid on the floor (not out of dejection, but because we don't have a couch.)  I lost four pounds in about four days, but it's not a method I'd recommend.  What a miserable weekend. I'm still feeling depressed just from the accumulated misery of it.

Another Gap

While I could be using this (probably brief) respite to unpack the remaining box in my office, I am choosing instead to write the blog posts that I always have in my head but never get a chance to write. Every time that something big happens in my life (wedding, baby, moving), I am desperate to blog about it, but end up not being able to blog about the most important or interesting parts because of them actually happening and taking up all my time.

So... way back in July, then.  June was so very rainy and horribly hot, that a bumper crop of mosquitos invaded the campus the next month.  It was extremely itchy for everyone.  We didn't like to take Limelet outside except at certain times of day when they seemed to be sleeping.  However, the other aspect of the heat and wet was that there was also a magical outpouring of fireflies that July.  The lawn outside the  back windows of our squalid hovel blazed with the little critters in the way that I remember them being when I was little.  (They're disappearing, as you probably know, so you can look up online how to encourage them if you wish.)  But when we got here, there were no fireflies at all, though my coworkers claim there are some here.  Somewhere.  But what this place lacks in fireflies, it makes up for in cicadas.  TheLimey had never seen one before; only their empty shells.  He sure got a chance here.  Limelet was really excited when we found several warming on the back pavement one morning.  And our back yard is positively pockmarked with cicada-sized holes where they hatched and crawled out from.

I did somewhat say goodbye to the old campus, but a lot of it was rather hurried as we had so much to do, and for me to go anywhere pretty much requires that I bring Limelet along.  I also didn't say goodbye or even hello to some of my old haunts in town that I was hoping to see, just because it was impossible to do anything at all, that entire year.  (I know, you think I must be exaggerating, but I'm not.)  It was a bit sad to leave, because I've lived in and out of that town off and on for the past 20 years, and I came of age there.  Plus the campus itself is really beautiful.  I was really sad to leave all those magnificent old oaks and sycamores that had become my reliable herbaceous friends over the years.

So it was with great delight that I discovered that our new place across from this new campus is right across the street from even bigger oaks and sycamores!  (Although I'm still unacquainted with them personally.)  This campus, while much much smaller, is very lovely and quite a bit older, too.  TheLimey, who fell in love with the last place when we were living there, fell in love much more quickly with this place.  He says it's like the previous campus, but condensed down to the most beautiful parts and buildings (all the ones from the '70s taken out).  I'd have to agree with him.  It's really quite historic (for the U.S., anyway) and verdant.  It looks like other campuses' brochures try to make them look.  And we live right across the street from it!  From the (American) football field, actually.  

We rented the house sight unseen from the college itself, and crossed our fingers that it would be okay.  And it is OH-KAY, alright.  We have been positively giddy with spaciousness.  We even have a fenced-in back yard, and a little tea-room (as we call it) overlooking the front (football field) that has  windows on three sides.  Limelet has positively blossomed since we moved.  If we had stayed in that previous hovel much longer, he was going to experience that thing where if you tether an elephant, it learns to only walk in tiny circles even after the tether is gone.  He likes feeding tiny bits of stick to the poor Boston Terrier living next door, the  patient creature.

So my walk to work is really, really nice.  TheLimey used to (pessimistically, I thought) declare that the last location was going to be the best walk-to-work experience I'd ever have (although it was a bit of a hike), but he's since recanted and can't believe that I found one that's even better.  If I actually lived and worked inside some kind of gorgeous garden, maybe I could improve on this.  Maybe.

Which reminds me, I really think that one way this country could save gas and reduce health costs would be to put showers in more workplaces.  I can't tell you how many times people have said to me (and I've thought to myself), "I'd just jog/bike to work if I could shower there."

Anyway.  Not only is our new home great, and our view, and my work site, but the whole town is just really cool.  (For people our age, anyway.)  We found an honest-to-goodness teahouse within walking distance, and it's like we designed it ourselves somehow.  It's in the bottom floor of an old townhouse, which has been somewhat opened up.  It's very eclectically decorated  with paintings and knick-knacks, and every tea setting is a different pattern.  They have a wonderful tea selection (though one does have to specifically ask for milk), as well as soup, sandwiches, pastries, etc.  So far everything I've tried has been absolutely delectable.  

We also visited downtown one weekend morning (hurriedly), and the (traditional-style) market is chock full of gorgeous-looking vegetables, fruits, dairy, meats (if you like that sort of thing), spices, teas and coffees, candies, and then also some of the usual handi-craft-y kind of stuff.  If you like that sort of thing.  In the building next door is also a little shop selling British  imports, so I got to try Marmite flavored crisps, which I now want a lot more of. 

Apparently I was planning to blog something about birds, but I don't remember what specifically.  Oh, unless it was just that I finally got my  bird feeder up and have been happy to see my familiar chickadees and cardinals.  Although there is some kind of something singing a lovely song I don't recognize.

Oh yeah, and we have actually had an autumn here!  Already!  By that I mean that it didn't go from 90-degree weather to 40-degree weather with only 16 hours in between.  No, we've actually had nearly two weeks of the kind of proper autumn weather that makes one want to wear a corduroy sport coat, preferably fawn-colored with leather patches on the elbows.  Unbelievably nice.

The only bad thing is that every few Saturdays, there is a fireworks display somewhere nearby that begins without warning exactly when I am tiptoeing over to the bed with the finally sleeping Limelet.

A Very Long Day

Today has been a really long day.  There was a de@th on campus last night, so I've been in crisis-counseling mode for 12 hours already.  I feel like I, myself, have been crying all day just because after a certain amount of exposure feelings "rub off" on the therapist.  (This is why we don't work 12-hour shifts normally!)  

There just happens to be a brief gap in the walk-ins this minute.

I miss my husband and son, but there are some who have it way worse than me today.  At least I know they are okay and I get to go home to them (eventually).

Ha! Romance.

TheLimey got the job offer from his top pick job, so we have been attempting to celebrate that.

We tried having a takeout crab dinner from a local fishmonger, but neither of us had ever had crabs before (yes, ha, ha) so we didn't realize that it was completely inappropriate for a household with a 2-year-old. At least one who is awake, which Limelet always is.  We didn't realize how low the meat-to-shell ratio is, and how much whacking and picking would be involved. The mallet provided by the fishmonger turned out to be so much like Limelet's little wooden hammer for his peg-bench, that we just ended up using that, too.  Despite how frustrating and complicated it was to us, Limelet became immediately distraught because he wanted to whack crabs, too.  I couldn't think of a reason why not to allow it, but you can imagine the results. We ended up clearing everything away and having noodles (Limelet) and crackers and cheese (us).  Maybe we should have done that in the first place.

Limelet may be teething again, as he still has at least another set of four to come in and seems to be showing a  lot of the usual signs.  At any rate, this weekend was a trainwreck as far as sleeping goes.  We are all simply exhausted.  Also cranky, especially me.

At any rate, we went out for a nice rainy walk on campus yesterday to try to tire out Limelet* (and just get outside), and we stopped at the coffee shop mid-campus.  One of the employees (I'll sexistly guess the female one) had left on the counter their current reading material, a romance novel called A Baby in the House .  I was flabbergasted that it could even be remotely considered as romance novel material.  Maybe birth-control novel material, but definitely not romantic!  When we left the coffee shop I told TheLimey about it, and we had a good, if hollow-sounding, laugh.

*It didn't work.  He was up until midnight again anyway.

For no reason

I was taking a break at work, Googling "sour deans" (as one does)  when I came upon this page that is linguistically interesting, in a fluffy yet obscure sort of way.

Recess

That last post has been temporarily recessed for--er, political reasons.  Hopefully it will be back up soon to further enrage others.

 

Meanwhile: What do people do who've had their undergrad studies in, say, Germany and want to apply to grad school in the U.S.?

McCain

McCain's campaign visit here was today. There was a lot more advance notice and you had to have a ticket.

It poured rain.

The campus was not overrun as it was last week.

Obama

So we went to see Obama the day he was here. When we got to the site, stroller and all, there was a hujambous line that snaked all over campus and then south for about four or five blocks.  And it was in the 90s that day.  Ambulances were at the ready, and we saw people being loaded into them before they even got to the fenced-in area.  We decided to people-watch instead.  

Conveniently for us, as we were walking on the other side of the street, Obama's motorcade came sweeping in, so we saw him in his car. Unless it was a ringer, of course.  TheLimey joined the rush up to the fence when Obama began talking, but reported later that all he could see was people's backs.  Meanwhile I slinked sadly away with Limelet in the stroller, but then magically saw a spot near some campus buildings and trees where a couple of people were taking photographs.  Where there are photographers, there is a view.  So I was able after all to catch a glimpse of the white-shirted dot that was Obama behind the miniscule podium draped in patriotic bunting.  I left after al while because I really couldn't hear anything, and a toddler only has so much patience for that sort of thing.

On the way home, also magically, we saw Daddy, who had left his spot at the fence at about the same time we left.  And once we got home, we were just sitting around debriefing when I heard an odd kind of siren and went to the front window--there came the motorcade again, this time up our street and right in front of our house!  So we got to see him (or the ringer) again.  We ran out and waved our hands, but didn't have any flags or anything. Oh well.  It was still cool.

And Limelet was thrilled with seeing the la-la cars, anyway.

Moving Right Along

I almost forgot to mention this:

Yay!  My dissertation revision sign-off sheet was signed by the most unpredictable of my committee members.  (Remember intra-committee drama from my defense?) This is important because I am not officially Ph.D. until they all sign off on the blasted form, and then the dean of the grad school signs it.  The moment she signs it, I am officially Ph.D. and can do official doctor stuff, within licensure limits, of course.  And what is very important, is that the postdoc work I am currently doing does not count towards my licensure hours (I need a year's worth) until it is actually postdoc--until then, it's just basically more internship.  So I've been frothing at the brain about getting that dang paper signed, all the while needing to carefully manage Some People's moods and perceptions about it.  

Although, even when it's signed I still have to apply for graduation to get the actual pretty paper for my wall.  And I will probably not be "walking" until next spring.  I wasn't going to do it, but then TheLimey reminded me that it's not too often in a lifetime that a person graduates, let alone gets a Ph.D., and I should at least do it for the photos for posterity (Limelet).  (Then I will have a fancy robe and hat for festive occasions, such as convocation at my current place of  employment.)

What I didn't discuss much with TheLimey until recently is that in order to get my licensure, I have to not only have a year of supervised postdoc work, but I also have to pass a superduper exam , kinda like your GRE or your Microsoft certification exams and so forth.  A person only gets a couple of chances to pass the EPPP, and the minimum useful study time, as they say, is six weeks.  Most people begin studying months beforehand.  And did I mention it's expensive?

So you see why I didn't extensively discuss this aspect of my career with him yet, as this whole process has already just about killed him as it is.

On the sword side (which is supposedly the even-obscurer counterpart term to the obscure distaff side), TheLimey spent the first week after we moved at an intensive IT boot camp sort of thing, where he studied for and took not one but two Microsoft cert exams, both of which he passed.  Only half of the attendees passed both, so he did pretty well if you ask me.  He's had a lot of interest from recruiters and has several job interviews coming up, one of which is tomorrow.  It looks like a pretty cool place and is very close, though most of them do look pretty cool.

Having recently gone through the job apps process myself, I sympathize with his nerves.  It will be really great when we can all just settle in and get to this daily life that we've spent so much time--years really--setting up.  We are both frickin' tired of all-work weekends after three years solid of them.  I still haven't even unpacked my suitcases from moving, let alone all of our boxes.  I only just yesterday found my graphing calculator, for Pete's sake!

So, wish him luck, send vibes, whatever it is you do.  Hopefully I will be able to pass mine on to him.

Tiredness

I've been really tired the past couple of weeks, and I can't decide if I'm more tired than I was all of last year, or if it's just more noticeable by comparison because now my husband is less tired than last year.

Factors possibly influencing my tiredness:


1. Not a single night of uninterrupted sleep for two years straight
2. New tap water doesn't have iron in it
3. Transition, new job, moving stress kind of thing
4. No (or extremely little) time that I'm not "on duty" (either job or Limelet)
5. No self-care, including no exercise / yoga or similar
6. Hurried and thus often poor eating habits
7. Just getting over a cold
8. Drained by excessive heat lately (we didn't install the AC here)


I guess I should address each one of them.


(When I have the energy and time?)