More of This and That

I'm following up on last week's post, aptly titled "A Bit of This and That," wherein I moaned and groaned about the heat and humidity and being without our central air for almost three days.  Mr. Forest Manor and I are so thankful to have a new A/C unit installed.

We did get to go out of town late Thursday afternoon, and we were glad to get away for a few days.  We spent two days in this relaxing place...

A Bit of This and That

Well, it seems like I eventually end up saying it every year, and this year I was trying really hard not to say it, but yesterday was the day for me.  The words came out, even though I'm the only one that heard them, as my husband wasn't in the room at the time.  But I muttered it to myself -- "I Hate Summer."

I felt like a real grouch for saying it, but yesterday was not fun, folks.  Our air conditioner started acting wonky on Monday afternoon, but by dinnertime, it was working and the house was cool again.  Thankfully, we were all three able to get a good night's sleep that night.  Then on Tuesday, the house started heating up really fast.  Our regular guy that we've used for years wasn't available, so we called one of the really big companies in town.  They couldn't even think about seeing us until Thursday at the earliest.

July Note Card Party

Hi everyone!  How's the weather in your part of the world?  The heat has finally arrived here in North Carolina and has joined forces with the ever-present humidity to make us feel like we're in a steam bath.  But...we have blue skies and sunshine, and for that I am very thankful.

Every summer on our local weather station, we hear the nasty D-word (drought) at least every other day.  Not so this year.  In fact, we are truly saturated.  I saw a disturbing piece on our local news last night that a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Asheville and Mount Mitchell is closed indefinitely due to cracks in the pavement.  The ground beneath the road in that section is completely saturated and they said the crack is five feet deep and 200 feet long.  Yikes!  Can you say sinkhole, or maybe, landslide?

Today, I've put together four pictures from some of my previous posts in order to join in with the other bloggers at Vee's monthly Note Card Party.  This month I was in the mood to use pictures of our American flag because July always feels like a patriotic month to me.  These pictures somewhat reflect the evolution of our American flag from early colonial days up to the 21st century.

"Continental Colors a/k/a Grand Union Flag"
A restored merchant's shop in Old Salem, N.C., circa 1776

Adding Summer Touches To The Family Room

Hi everyone!  It seems that I've disappeared from blogland recently; but not by choice, I can assure you.  Life has certainly changed since our son graduated from college and moved back home -- more dirty dishes, more trash, more recycling, and less time for me on the computer.  We have two desktop computers in this house and two laptops, but my son and I both want to use the same desktop computer.  Sigh.

What have you been up to during these rainy summer days?  I hope you all had a great Fourth of July holiday.  Ours was very nice -- a family reunion on my husband's side of the family, and a cookout at my parents (with homemade ice cream) on the Saturday.  It was a busy four days.

I've been making a few wee changes to our den just for the summer months; I felt it needed some lightening up.