Happy July!

How did it get to be July already? Frankly, it's felt like August around here, with temperatures over 100 degrees for most of last week. It's amazing how much difference ten degrees makes, though -- I think it's around 85 or 90 here today, but people were coming back from lunch saying how beautiful it was outside. The humidity is probably lower; the 100+ degree temperatures last week were made worse by the fact that it had been raining pretty much non-stop for the previous two or three weeks, so it was pretty steamy.

And of course, the air conditioner went out during that period. We spent one night in the basement and a couple of very stressful, tense days, fueled by hope, prayer, candles and portable fans, and the air conditioner got a bandaid and, knock wood and fingers crossed, continues to work.

Speaking of rain, we got so much rain that the roof at work leaked again, although fortunately not in my office this time. Bob got a promotion at work, which, yay Bob! but that's been very stressful, too, so it's been kind of a hard month all around. I think we're going to go out to John's on Saturday to cook out and shoot fireworks, then I have a family reunion on Sunday, so hopefully we'll get some relaxation in this weekend.

I've been listing my very extensive library of back issues of knitting magazines on Ebay, many of which are out of print, so if you like that kind of thing, check it out. I've relisted some of them a second time, so if they don't sell I'll probably take them to Half Price books and get a quarter for them (and then they'll sell them for $9.00 or something), so I'd really like to avoid doing that. They're all in beautiful shape, and I kind of hate to let them go, but really, if I haven't read them in 7 years (I have some from 2002), what are the odds that I'm going to read them now?

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Food

• I don't like big chunks of tuna in my tuna salad. Or tuna casserole, for that matter. In fact, if I could have tuna salad or tuna casserole without any actual tuna in it, that would be ideal.
• Same thing with chili--when I make it I break the ground beef up really small. Ground beef in general kind of grosses me out, except for a good hamburger maybe once or twice a year, if I don't think about it too hard.
• Hamburgers: extremely well done, cheese, ketchup, yellow mustard, sliced onion, lots of pickles.
• Hotdogs: Oscar Meyer cheese dogs, yellow mustard, sweet pickle relish.
• I like "fruit on the bottom" yogurt best. Yogurt without any actual pieces of fruit is weird. I'll eat it, but it's weird.
• Salad: lettuce, green onions if not too strong, fresh mushrooms, sliced, black olives, sliced, artichoke hearts. No tomatoes, no hard-boiled egg unless there is also bacon. Ranch dressing, always, preferably the homemade kind made with buttermilk. Bottled ranch dressing is uniformly awful, but especially low-fat or fat-free.
• Eggs: Over easy or hard boiled.
• Milk: 2%, but only for cereal or cooking, not to drink. I don't drink milk. Ick.
• Macaroni and cheese: The ultimate comfort food. Macaroni, American cheese, white sauce made with milk, flour and margarine. Baked. Stouffer's in a pinch, but it's not the same.
• Spaghetti: Thin spaghetti or spaghettini. Red sauce, never meat sauce. Sometimes green olives or mushrooms. Ragu - the other comfort food. All my comfort food seems to involve pasta . . .
• Dessert: chocolate. Or cheesecake. Better yet, chocolate cheesecake. Fruit pie: why bother?
• Ice cream: The chunkier, the better. Ben & Jerry's New York Superfudge Chunk, Chubby Hubby.
• I've given up Diet Coke, so I've been getting back into iced tea. Or lemonade. Or a combination of the two.
• Lunch every day for weeks: low carb, fat free bean burritos (homemade). Low carb tortilla, fat-free refried beans, a little low fat mozzarella, a little Pace picanté sauce. Not tired of them yet.

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