Watering everything, praying for storms and the laid back holiday.

I can never remember a 4th of July celebration that I absolutely cringed when I heard fireworks.  Hubs did, too.  Why?  Because we've been in a drought.  Our grass is like straw.  It was very crunchy, very dry and very flammable straw. 

Yikes.

The little plot o' dirt that the palace sits upon was subject to flying, flaming debris from the many neighbors nearby who spent good money to put it up in colorful smoke.  We had heard fireworks for hours during the daytime and knew that nighttime was only going to give more. 

As a result, I stood out and watered everything-- the flowers, the grass, the shed and the wooden play set.  I wasn't messing around.  I told Hubs that if I wanted to sleep, I had to do what I could to prevent fire.  (For the record, I had a coworker who decided to do the same.)

I was on the computer, Hubs was in the living room and K- in bed.  I heard a thud on the roof.  I heard another thud.  I heard Hubs get up.  We went out and watched as gloriously it started raining and hailing (no damage here, thankfully, but plenty close enough.)  It would shut down the fireworks, yes, but more importantly, we were getting rain-- rain that we so desperately needed. 

Now, I have no issue with fireworks generally.  However, when you are driving down the road and they have lit highway signs asking that you not toss lit cigarettes from your car window, you know things are dry.  Well, that and the median fire I saw about a week ago.  Oh, and the fact that mulch is very regularly spontaneously combusting, burning houses and a hotel.  Yes.  Dry.  The only other time that I recall seeing signs like that was when I was a child, maybe 12, and on our way down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Virginia Beach.  There were signs that you were NOT! to smoke at all in the park.  They were, as memory serves, very serious signs and I do believe that they carried a fine if you did choose to smoke and they caught you.

We saw no fireworks to speak of this year.  I don't think any of us feel as if we've missed out.  Instead, we hoped to and made sure that we had the boat on the water before nine.  They had heat advisories out and calling for storms later on.  I woke up at 6:50 AM, getting Hubs up at 7 to start rolling.  Hubs and K- readied the boat and I packed lunches and snacks.  We had a lovely day, with Hubs catching 12 fish (catch and release, so we put them back in their home.)  K- got a hit, but didn't get the hook set.  No problem.  She still had a nice time and even had a gentleman boat by to tell us how amazed he was with her casting skills.  He said that she's better than a lot of adults.  (Kiddo can wet a line pretty impressively.)  We started in at about 12:30 PM, when it was clear that we were sitting in the equivalent of a large metal ladle in a very large pot of hot soup.  The battery was on the edge of dying, so I did have to ask Hubs at one point whether we were moving or not.  We got home, Hubs dealt with the boat (and the 95 degree heat) and I hopped in the shower, then set off to making our meal.  I put Nathan's hot dogs in pork and beans and cooked those in the counter top convection/toaster oven (trying not to heat up the whole house), corn on the cob, pressure cooked potatoes then pan fried them, bought cheater macaroni salad and the neighbors had us come to get rigatoni, pasta salad and baked chicken.  We did not go hungry.  In fact, we saved the chicken for tonight's dinner.  (He sent so much!)  We finished with bomb pops (the red/white and blue Popsicles) for dessert.  Yum!  We watched Bill Dance bloopers and laughed and laughed.  So many of his bloopers have been real life for us, too. 

Today we laid low.  We hung out in the house, as we were in for another heat advisory.  We cleaned, we took care of Webkinz, we did school work, we checked in on Webkinz, we played some games, fed the Webkinz, went to the library program tonight and made sure that Webkinz were okay. 

It was a very Webkinz-y kind of day.  We don't normally do that. 

We're looking for temperatures to hit 100 tomorrow.  We've got plans and we'll have good fun.  We're going to squirrel away in the air conditioning early in the day, though. 

Smiles in my day:
-  Though I was not particularly thrilled with the storyteller at the library, K- was over the moon that she was chosen to be a mama kangaroo in an Aboriginal story.  K- is very motherly, so this was right up her alley.  It was even funnier when there was a kangaroo hat, tail and a pouch with a joey for her to wear.  :)
-  No hail damage.  (Not smiles, but need for prayers on the following.)  My younger brother lost a few windows, has damage all over and the estimate on one vehicle alone is over $5600.00 in damage.  Oh, how we've been there.  I also have a friend who reports that they came home to shredded screens and vinyl siding, along with trashed gutters and a shot roof.  A lot of clean-up and many prayers that people have the insurance they need for the proper repairs.  We had over $10,000.00 in damage when we were hailed 5 years ago.  Thank goodness for insurance!
-  Air conditioning and electricity that hasn't gone out. 

Be safe, be cool, be well!