I’m a big fan of warm weather, but it gets pretty unbearable indoors when you don’t have air conditioning. So I do what I can to keep cool. I keep the blinds down and run fans from the time I get up until I go to bed (besides the ones in the bedrooms, which run all night).

I have long and fairly thick hair, which can be a real pain when temperatures rise. But I’ve found a way to use it to my advantage. I take a shower when it starts getting hot in the house and wash my hair. Once I’m out and dressed, I put my hair up in something similar to a French twist. But instead of tucking the ends in, I leave them loose. I secure it with a hair clip that’s flat on the bottom (because the rounded ones always flop to the side and bug me to death).

This hairstyle is simple, attractive, and works out very nicely on hot days. Twisting my hair up like that makes it stay wet instead of air drying, which keeps my head cooler than it would be otherwise. And it helps that my hair isn’t laying on my neck, too.

I can leave my hair up all day, and when I take it down before I go to bed, it’s still very damp. So I guess that explains the excellent cooling effect. For those of you out there with long, thick hair, maybe this little tip will help you find some relief from the heat.

I’ve still been pretty stressed out, and have had a hard time getting myself in front of the computer at times. And when I have been able to make myself write, and I’ve gone back to proofread, I’ve found myself wondering what kind of drugs I was on when I wrote stuff. I’m not as careful about proofreading my blog posts here as I am about proofing work for others, so it’s probably more noticeable here. So if there have been times when I’ve made absolutely no sense, sorry about that!

I suppose I could chalk my unusually bad mental issues up to the heat. It seems to be affecting others around here, so that might actually be somewhat believable. For example, I went to the grocery store today, and for once there weren’t huge lines at the checkouts. But I just happened to get in line behind some guy who refused to believe that he couldn’t buy his muscle supplements of choice there. It took the cashier forever to convince him that they didn’t have them and that he should try ordering them online. Sheesh!

I should be accustomed to this weather by the end of next week, because according to the forecast it’s going to stay the same for at least that long. Then maybe I can get myself back on track. I can hope, anyway.

But I don’t know why I’m surprised. Spring is always highly unpredictable in these parts. One of the biggest snows I remember came in April, and that was when I was younger and lived in the foothills. I’m sure they got much more up here in the mountains. And then there was the year that we had regular frosts throughout May.

The local weather website is calling for cold and rainy weather through the coming weekend. They’re saying that it should warm up next week, and I hope they’re right. I’m ready for warm weather to get here and stay here for a while.

It’s a bit annoying cuddling up with a nice warm electric blanket one night and then having to shed all but the sheets the next. But when you live where I do, you come to expect it. There is no gradual warming and cooling. It’s just the weather going balls to the wall crazy for a while until it finally settles into the pattern for the coming season.

I just have to keep reminding myself that even though the sunshine and higher temperatures make me giddy, I can’t let them fool me into packing in all of our winter needs. Because we will inevitably need them on several more occasions by the time it’s all said and done.

Hubby and Pumpkin had a ball on Saturday. The had a snowball fight and rode the four-wheeler quite a bit. I was extremely tired for some reason, so I stayed in and slept. I was awoken from my nap by loud Christmas music, and I got up to find that they had brought in the artificial tree and decorations. They had even put the tree together, but I had to redo it because Hubby didn’t pay any attention to the color coding of the branches.

We started decorating the tree, but the only strand of lights we had decided to quit working. So as of right now, it only has tinsel on it. But we bought a new strand yesterday, and we’re going to finish it up today.

Between the snow and the decorating, Pumpkin is now in full Christmas mode. She took the liberty of making us a list of what she wanted, which was helpful, but I told her not to be disappointed if she didn’t get everything on it.

In other news, it has been bitterly cold for the past few days, and is supposed to stay that way for a while. We’ve been keeping a fire in the basement in an effort to keep the water from freezing, and it has worked so far. I’m hoping that our biggest plumbing issue this winter will be deciding which of the kitchen faucets I’ve been looking at to buy, and we won’t have all the water problems we had last year. We shall see.

We’ve got all of the wood we had chopped and stacked, and are hoping that it will at least last most of the winter. Now all that’s left to do is the little stuff. We need to make sure the drain pipes are clear so that the melting snow will go around the house instead of under it and into the basement. We need to shut the storm windows, and check into a local program that will replace some storm windows with more energy-efficient ones if they qualify. And we need to do something about the outer basement door.

Our basement is rather unique in that it has no entry from inside the house. To get in there, you have to go through a door that leads you under the front porch, then go through another door that leads you into the actual basement. Both doors could use some help, but the outer one is the worst. It definitely needs some new door hinges, and maybe a whole new door, because the whole thing just refuses to stay in place like it should. And that means that much more cold air is getting in than there should be.

If I can get Hubby started on that little project, I don’t think it would be too hard to complete. I’d be more than happy to help if he’ll let me.

I just hope this winter goes better than the last one. Between the excessive snow and ice and the constantly freezing water, it was absolutely the winter from hell. And that’s saying a lot, because we’ve had some real doozies around here!

I’d like to take some pictures of the leaves in different stages of transition, but the the skies have been rather gloomy for the past several days. But it’s supposed to be sunny toward the weekend, so maybe I’ll get to take some good pics then.

I try to get pictures at various stages for a couple of reasons. First off, because it’s interesting to see the subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes that occur from week to week. And secondly, with the often unpredictable weather we have around here, the leaves may or may not stay on the trees long enough to achieve their full glory. One year we had so much wind and rain in the fall that the leaves fell off prematurely and there really wasn’t much to look at after the first few weeks.

When I get some photos, I’ll be sure to post them up. Fall in the mountains is just too beautiful to keep to oneself.

It has been one of those days when I would be quite content to sit indoors and veg out in front of the TV. Preferably a 60-inch Samsung HDTV or something like that, but our old 32-inch would suffice. But that’s not quite how things went down. We slept in until 10:00 or 10:30, fixed a bite to eat, and hit the road. We had to take Hubby’s cousin back home, which is about an hour and a half drive. I’m just glad it wasn’t foggy like it usually is going down the mountain on days like this.

We took him home, sat and talked to the family for about 30 minutes or so, and then headed back home. On the way back in we stopped at the in-laws’ house and borrowed some video games, then we came to the house. I hit the bed as soon as we got in, and slept for an hour or so. Meanwhile, Hubby and Pumpkin had supper. When I got up, I got something to eat, watched a movie with Hubby, then played some video games with the family.

So basically, it has just been a dreary, lazy day. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

We did get some rain, but nothing to write home about. Just a drizzle here and a sprinkle there. Nothing to write home about.

Now I’m just hoping that they were way off on the forecast for the upcoming week. It could happen.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this gorgeous weather is going to last much longer. It’s supposed to cool back down and get rainy by the weekend, and they’re saying that it will stay that way at least through next Wednesday. I hope the sun pops back out by next weekend, though, because that’s when we’re having Pumpkin’s birthday party.

I know the summer can’t last forever. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Fall is beautiful around here, don’t get me wrong, but the drop in temperature gives me a sense of impending doom. By the time winter gets here, I find myself wishing I had the money to shop for Outer Banks foreclosures.

But I’m going to try to make the most of these few days of pretty weather we have left. Maybe tomorrow, if Hubby feels up to it, I can talk him into going ATV riding. That’s lots of fun on a hot day, not to mention a great way to cool off. And maybe I’ll take Pumpkin to the park after school. Sounds like a plan to me.