Day 4836

What a weird Spring we've had. It's been hot, it's been cold, it's been all over the place. Today the temperature got up to 81 degrees. If that wasn't enough, the humidity was almost 100% this morning. It was so damp that all the bricks on the back porch were soaking wet. That didn't stop us though. We got up, dressed in summer clothes and took Dawn on her morning walk. Dawn is still taking shorter walks, but she seems to be doing fine.

This was another one of those days where the furnace was on when we first woke up and then the air conditioner kicked in later in the day. Eventually the heavy dew everywhere evaporated, but it was a very muggy day. A quick look at the yard confirmed that my annual Spring chores need to start soon. It's almost time to start mowing the grass again. I need to cut back the dead growth in the Asian Jasmine at the back of the yard as well. It will be time to battle the ants and wasps soon. I'll need to go and get some insecticide for ants and something stronger to kill the wasps. The wasps build their nests everywhere and they are very aggressive. I've been stung many times. I don't want Dawn to get stung by these things.

If I was a sensible person I'd start getting rid of things in the office and storage warehouse. Instead, I keeping wanting to repair things I seldom use. I'd like to repair the big production printer so I could make a few large prints of my best astrophotography. Never mind that I have no place to display the pictures. There's a big Sony TV in the storage warehouse I'd like to get fixed as well. I need to retrieve some of the equipment I still have on consignment at a local music store. If it hasn't sold in two years, it will probably never sell. Where will I put this stuff? The storage warehouse of course.

That's all for another day. Today I just followed my familiar routine. I ate breakfast, checked my messages which were mostly just spam, and then got ready to take my long walk. It was so warm today that I just wore shorts and a t-shirt. Wasn't it just a few days ago that I was decked out in all my winter gear? I can't keep up with this constantly changing weather at all.

I left Dawn alone in the house while I took my walk. As I expected, she didn't move an inch. She was asleep on the bed when I left and still asleep when I returned. She wasn't at all interested in getting up until Janet returned from the gym. Dawn gets excited when Janet comes home but hardly even looks up when I enter the house. She's fine though. As soon as Janet returned, Dawn's tail was wagging and she was ready for lunch.

I vacuumed the carpets this afternoon. The carpets in the bedroom and office need to be replaced, but that will come later after the new roof is installed and the damaged sheetrock in the ceiling has been replaced. For now I just continue to vacuum the old worn out carpet and am still amazed at how much dirt is collected. The carpets don't look any better when I'm finished, but the Dyson canister is filled with dirt and dog hair.

Tomorrow is going to be another unseasonably hot day and Friday it's going to start raining again.  Probably as soon as this weird Spring is over I'll be complaining about the hot Texas summers again. This is supposed to be our nice season, but I think we got cheated this year. 

Brooke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4524

It's nice to have a livable house again. It's hot outside, but the air conditioner is working fine and keeping it nice and cool inside. Hopefully, nothing else will go wrong this summer. I'm sure we've got a lot more hot days to come. 

If I didn't get to bed so late, I'd probably enjoy getting up early. Now that the weather has gotten warmer, it's definitely the nicest part of the day. We all enjoy our early walks with Dawn. The temperature is still in the low seventies before sunrise and there is usually a nice breeze when we get near the lake. Dawn has been very enthusiastic about these early walks lately. I can't blame her. Later in the day it is fairly miserable outside.

Today was grocery shopping day. I found everything on my list fairly quickly, but I don't enjoy this activity any more. I think a ton of new people have moved to Dallas recently. The stores are always crowded and the traffic is terrible. There really isn't a good time to avoid the traffic anymore. It is always bad.

I was finally able to download the new firmware that the Benro folks wanted me to install in the star tracker. I didn't have high expectations, but I did have a lot of time this morning. I gave it a try. I installed everything exactly as instructed and absolutely nothing changed. The firmware seemed exactly the same as the previous firmware I installed. The star tracker still won't connect to my camera.  I wish I'd never bothered to upgrade things after I returned from the observatory. When I was testing the Polaris on Mount Locke at the end of last month, it was the last time it worked.

I really can't handle the heat anymore. I took a walk after lunch today, but I wouldn't call it long. Two miles and I was done. I even wet down my hat and shirt, but it didn't help much. Why was this so much easier in previous years? I guess I'm just getting older. I hate to think what the weather is going to be like in July. Who knows. The weather has been so strange lately that it might actually be cooler in July. I doubt this will happen, but I can always hope.

There's a ton of stuff I need to do around the house, but this heat has taken away my motivation. It's just not supposed to be this hot in May. If I'm going to do anything in the yard, I need to do it early. Afternoons are way too hot. I don't know why I feel like I need to fix the greenhouse door. The greenhouse doesn't even have a roof anymore. A bad storm blew most of the roof off last year. We really need to tear the greenhouse down, build a carport and move our cars to the back. Traffic has gotten so bad that it's hard to get out of the driveway now.

Hopefully it won't be too hot for Dawn's Sunday outing tomorrow. She enjoys exploring a different park on Sunday. If it is too hot, we'll still go get ice cream though. Ice cream is good in any type of weather.

Lady is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day