34

I turned 34 yesterday. Whoopie.

For my birthday I hung a 10 foot strip of guttering (is that a word?) on the north side of the house, and connected four rain barrels to collect the rainwater that I hope to see pouring off our roof in about, oh, two weeks. I think I stayed outside way too long while working on this, I came back in dizzy and nauseous. It was great (not).

My day ended on a positive note, however. Emily had to go to a meeting at the church, so I got to spend a few hours on my own with Brenna. That was perhaps the best birthday gift of all. I have no pictures to commemorate the occasion, as I was busy entertaining her, but I did take some video of her playing with her National Park wildlife blocks, and wondering around the house a bit, so I'll upload that as the mood strikes me.

I squeezed another 6 ounces of Calomonden juice off our tree yesterday (salvaging the fruit before it bursts into flames on the tree from the heat). We now officially have enough to make two more pies! Yum.

Let's see, what else. I haven't stepped foot in the garage to run and/or walk on our treadmill since Monday or Tuesday of this week. For the lack of a better phrase, it's simply too freakin' hot out there to do much of anything. Even after the sun sets everything out there is hot to the touch. Our grill that sits on the back porch, which has a built in temperature gauge, has been reading between WARM and HOT, just from the sun beating on it. I suspect I could slow cook some meat out there without any charcoal if I felt so inclined. But hey, it's Arizona and it's June, what do ya expect?

Album of the day: Minutemen's "Double Nickels On The Dime". What a great CD that I don't listen to nearly enough. Perfect for a Friday afternoon. If you're familiar with the theme song to that MTV show "Jackass", that's the Minutemen.