Ugg Icky Hot

Ugg Icky Heat
My face was stuck to my pillow this morning. Well, maybe not REALLY stuck, but it had that tacky feeling of having perspired against it, then having said moisture cool. Gross. Needless to say, I'll be changing the sheets today. Which seems pointless as it'll be even hotter tonight and tomorrow.And THAT's why Garrett and I will be camping "a little bit" (meaning in the back yard). We had promised him after our "real" camping trip that we could pitch a tent in the yard and sleep in it after the deck was finished. This prompted him, over the course of the last few weeks, to mutter things like, "Is the deck EVER going to be done so we can go camping?" and "Aren't you done with that deck yet?" and the heart-wrenching run-straight-outside-after-nap-throw-open-the-back-and-sigh-dejectedly routine he adopted when I told him he had to sleep so I could work on it. He didn't even believe us when we told him it was ready. He had to go out and look, then walk around on it inspecting its construction before he announced that yes, it was ready. Then I told him we could camp the next night, Monday, or Tuesday if Monday's weather wasn't good. He cocked his head in thought and replied, "Let's do Tuesday. That will be a good day." So glad I fit in his schedule.Ironically, Tuesday was NOT a good day and we wound up setting up camp Wednesday, with much fan-fair and excitement. And much running round and round inside the tent. I believe they were trying to simulate the effects of an earthquake on camping equipment. Then they entombed themselves in their sleeping bags and wouldn't come out until Garrett realized he didn't have a flashlight-we all know how important a flashlight is when you are in your sleeping bag at 1 in the afternoon in August. They were soaked in sweat and wouldn't come out. But they had a flashlight! We got the new patio furniture all set up on the deck, and proceeded to make preparations to BBQ. The kids played in the sandbox and helped water my garden and plants-side note: My squash and pumpkin plants are HUGE, I mean bizarrely huge, leafs the size of my torso, but none of them are flowering. Odd. Anyway, Garrett even put on his "workin' man gloves" and helped me tackle some overgrown blackberry bushes so we could reach the delectable sweetness that is finally ripe (every year Troy swears he's ripping them all out, and he has yet to manage it before August, which is fine with me as it keeps them from overtaking the yard again but we still get to enjoy the world's most delicious blackberries, organic and free!). He even managed using pruners with his gloves on-isn't he accomplished. So anyway, fast-forward to Wed night-we had a lovely dinner, roasted marshmallows for s'mores, and read many books in the tent by flashlight before Daddy said goodnight and headed in (wuss). Morgan lasted about 15 min-she just wouldn't stay in one place. Once she was headed in with Daddy, I took the cover off the tent so we could watch for shooting stars. Stars? What stars? Between the car lot flood lights (who's shopping for Toyotas at 10 PM?) two miles away and the newly risen full moon, we could see everything BUT stars. That combined with our neighbors watching an epic adventure movie at top volume, apparently outside of their house, and Garrett's complete inability to settle down (even after I made him a bed out of chair cushions as it "did not feel well inside this tent, the ground is very hard and sharp and it hurts me"), he and I were headed back in by 11. Oh well. It's no Orcas Island (sigh). We'll try again tonight. At least we got to eat S'mores!A final sidenote-I feel like freakin' She-Ra after doing the deck-sure, Troy worked on it, too, but he always had someone else with him--I did a lot of it ALL BY MYSELF! I love that I am competent with power tools. And I love the look on my mother-in-law's face when I talk about things like chop saws and nail guns. In the words of Mastercard, Priceless.