All’s Quiet on the Eastern Front

The weekend is winding down to an end.  Out my window, I can see the golden clouds of Sunday’s sunset.  Still beautiful, touched by the magic in this world that all too often we forget exists.  It’s so easy to run about busy when we should stop every once and a while to look at the sky, trace leaves as they sit on the trees, and to pet the friendly dog that it pattering by.  These last few hours I have been breathing softly and still, living and relishing in this beautiful world and being grateful for the moments in my life that allow my to kick my shoes off and lean back and try to guess what shapes the clouds are taking.  What a wonderful weekend!

I rarely have the opportunity to relax.  Even when I have time off, I have projects.  Some projects are self-inflicted.  Others are assigned.  One way or the other, even in my “free time,” I am occupied (or at least I am supposed to be) and so I spend my free time procrastinating and begging my overheating computer for another excuse to put off the inevitable.  But not this weekend.  When you’re separated from your resources, you have no choice but to sit back, relax, and be grateful.  On Friday, I saw Despicable Me and it made me smile from it’s cuteness and creativity.  The characters were round (unusually so for a children’s film) and it was a movie equally enjoyable for adults and children.  It was cool to see the threate filled with all ages- you don’t get that a lot.  And I also spent the last couple days at Bryan’s house.  No internet, no phone calls… I didn’t even bring a book (pure accident, I assure you.  I was frantically digging through my purse this morning, seeking Scarlet.)

It was really nice to have the house to ourselves.  Nowhere to go, nowhere to be… nobody demanding our attention (except a kitten, who was mostly a pleasure to play with anyway).  We were able to curl up, talk about whatever we wanted, do whatever we wanted.  Bryan made a scrumptious steak that was marinated for a week (yes, I know, it sounds like overkill, but if you had tasted it, you wouldn’t think so) and we started watching this really awful movie called “Vegas in Space”.  We got about five minutes in to this ridiculous, B-rated, 1980s (at the latest) sci-fi murder mystery before it stopped being funny and started being painful.  It was still a lot of fun, though.  And it’s nice to be able to escape and burrow away with someone who loves you even when you look like Medusa when you wake up in the morning.

The clouds in the eastern sky are bright pink now, and the neighbors on the lake are starting to shoot off fireworks.  I think it’s time for me to bury my head into my writing and lose the rest of my weekend to comfort.

If only every weekend could be so simple and welcoming.

It’s Too Darn Hot

It’s been a real struggle the last couple nights to get any sleep.  I’m that person who shuts the bedroom heat off in the winter because I fall asleep easier in the cold.  So having it feel like 90-degrees when I’m trying to go to sleep makes sleeping hard.  I know the heat and humidity make some people sleepy, but me?  I just get grumpy.  What do you do, on nights and days like these, especially if you don’t have air-conditioning and the fans just aren’t cutting it?

• Get air-conditioning. This would be many people’s first solution.  “Why are you complaining, just go buy an air-conditioner!”  Well, since they cost $100 and not everyone has a good window to put them in, we’ll move on from this solution.  However, I believe that you shouldn’t complain if you aren’t willing to find a solution.
• Swim. A lot of rural areas have ponds and lakes that are good for swimming, at a small fee to get in.  There are often a lot of free beaches, too.  Suburban areas often have neighborhood pools, and anywhere there’s a Best Western, you’re bound to find a pool.  Also, try your local YMCA.  If all else fails, I bet you know one person who has a pool you can dunk into for an hour.  If you don’t….
• Take a cool shower. Just take about ten minutes and put the temperature to cold(ish).  You’ll feel refreshed when you get out… and it’ll wash the sweat away!
• Keep the oven off! As amazing as those chocolate chip cookies seem (and believe me, I am a sucker for chocolate chip cookies), the oven is going to increase the heat in your entire house.  On those really hot days, grill some dinner instead of baking it.  And there aren’t a lot of people out there who loathe a good old picnic-style dinner.  Cold cuts and potato salad, anyone?
• Eat fresh fruit and veggies! Not only are these incredibly good for you and should be eaten all the time anyway, but also all of them are fridge foods, and they’re juicy, and cold.  Personally, I had a slice of watermelon for breakfast.
• Seek out air-conditioning. If you’re in a suburban area, this is a great time to go window shopping.  A lot of stores have air-conditioning, and as long as you aren’t obnoxious and are moving things around or refusing to leave when the store closes, staff don’t mind if you come in to cool down.
• Eat out. This dilemma of the temperature around you and eating things.  You can eat whatever you want, and restaurants are usually have their air-conditioning turned way, way up.
• Head into the cellar. Unless you have a nasty, infested sort of basement, it’s going to be much cooler underground, because heat rises  Bring a book downstairs and pull up a chair!
• Avoid strenuous activity. If you’ve been thinking about skipping a jog, days like this are days to do it.  A lot of physical exercise on hot days puts unnecessary strain on your body.  Keep cool and relax.  You can do a little extra tomorrow.
• Shut off the lights. Any electrical thing emanates heat.  If you can see without the lights, shut them off.  If you’re not using the computer or watching the television, shut it off.  It may not seem like much, but if you have a lot of electrical appliances and things running in your house, it will make a small difference.
• Breathe deeply. It’s just like your soccer coach used to say, short breaths and panting will keep you alive, but that’s about it.  Breathing slowly and deeply (like meditating) will refresh your body and you’ll feel a lot more relaxed.  The last thing you need in intense heat is tension.

Most importantly of all….

• Keep hydrated! You know, we’re supposed to be drinking approximately 8 10-ounce glasses of water a day.  Human’s are under-hydrated in general, but in the hot weather, it is more important than ever to keep hydrated!  Sweating is our body’s internal air-conditioning and if we aren’t drinking enough water, then we’ll get sick.  Sweating is going to happen one way or the other, but keeping hydrated will save on the stomachaches and headaches and dizziness that comes with the body using our “reserve water supply” in order to condition itself.  Really, you should be drinking water, but drink gatorade or powerade or lemonade or iced tea if you must.  Stay away from soda!  Although you may feel like your thirst is more quenched with soda, the carbonation is actually a dehydrator and it’s anti-productive!

Hope this helps a little, folks, and keep cool!  Goodness knows I’m going to be doing my best!  Personally, I’m going to go eat some more watermelon.  Do you have any additional suggestions to add to this list?  Please, share them!

Melted Chocolate

Good morning sunshine. It’s 10:25 in the morning at the temperature outside is already about 93-degree.  Temperature inside?  Honestly, about the same.  I’m (not) looking forward to 12:30 when I head to work.  It’ll easily be over 100-degrees (at this rate) and I have no air conditioning in my car, and only one window rolls down.  That’s okay, though, because work has air-conditioning.  And there are Reeses in my locker at work.  So between the good ole a/c and chocolaty-peanut-butter-goodness, I think I’ll manage.

I am working on trying to see the good and the bad in everything.  Usually I swing one way or the other.  With my friends, I’m incredibly optimistic, trying to make them see that their situation isn’t all that bad, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  In my own life, I tend to see only the bad.  So I’m working on trying to be more balanced.  Actually, I want to be a more balanced person in general.  I need to balance work-stuff with relaxation (mostly, I do more working than relaxing, but my goal to change that.  I’m stopping my internship (little by little) and I have ever intention of taking Fridays off just for me this year.  To do homework, if necessary, to read a non-school-related-book (ha ha), to draw,, to write… to do something, y’know?  As I type this I keep looking at the massive pile of editing I need to do for my internship.  Aye-yi-yi.  I’ve got three weeks, though.  Heh.

I need to balance eating and exercising.  I thank God constantly that I grew up with a great metabolism, but I am up now, and that metabolism is no more.  I really enjoy eating.  I love the flavours and textures of different foods, so I eat not just because I’m hungry, but because something tastes good (Mexican Wedding Cookies for the win).  I dislike exercising because I find it a boring waste of my time.  I’ve tried exercising at home (only a treadmill, and my landlord is in the basement all the time and he’s a sketchy old man), at the school gym (they’re all athletes and I feel like they’re judging me).  I’ve settled on WiiFit, which I like, except the space to do it isn’t always there and I have to fight for the tele (we only have one television in my house and my family watches a lot of movies…all the time.  Also, the living room is relatively small and it needs to be void of other people to have enough space for certain exercises).  Despite all my usual complaints, though, today marks the first day since I got WiiFit that I haven’t exercised.  You know, I left my water bottle at work, and it’s 93-degrees, and I’m pretty sure that exercising without proper hydration in that temperature isn’t healthy anyway.  And I’ll be burning calories at work, so yeah, not concerned.

I need to balance social time and self-time.  I tend to fill my free time with too much of one or the other.  If I fill all my free time with social interactions, then I feel overwhelmed and I get really short with people.  If I fill it with too much self-time, then I get lonely and whiny and bored (even though I have plenty I’m supposed to be doing).

Those are my goals.  I think they’re fair enough.  I want to learn to appreciate everything I have instead of complaining about everything I don’t have.  Seeing the chocolate instead of the fact that it’s melted.  Hey.  In the end, it’s still chocolate.