July 14 & 15

July 14th 2010


It is HOT 95 degrees and 100% humidity.

There has been a strong south wind all day which is the only thing that keeps this from being a real killer heat. Yeah! I know that other parts of the country have been having high heat also, but not with this humidity. This is nuts. The only time we’ve gone outside today is to go to Village Inn for ‘pie rush Wednesday’.



Nathan brought the girls out to see us and we met there. I drew a cartoon of Ella & I on Charlottes cast. It is on the side facing away from her so grandma took her into the restroom to look at it in the mirror. She will be getting a different cast this next week and she wants to keep this one. And have everybody sign her new one also.



Adam is supposed to be in town for work today. He’ll call when he gets out of his meeting so that we can get together.



Ella is working this evening so she may miss out on that unless we see her at the clubhouse.

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July 15, 2010

This morning is starting off a bit better than yesterday. It is still warm but the humidity is down to only 80%. Yesterday the heat index was around 115 degrees.

We had lightning and thunder and some amazing gusts of wind last night. However, it appears that any storms went around us.

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I did get to talk to Adam for a while yesterday. We met at Arby’s for supper. We talked about his writing and desire to earn enough from it to be able to stay home and write more. We discussed some of his plot ideas and how he’d like to establish a stable of characters that interact in different stories. (My understanding of what he wants to do). I like the idea of minor characters reappearing in various stories or becoming major characters in other stories. Sometimes I feel like a minor character in my own story. Of course we also talked about how brilliant our children are.

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I’ve been burning up the data usage on my new air card this morning. I found an interesting blog called: “Wreath’s Adventures Living 1oo% Off Grid”. I was looking for information about building a small wind generator for our RV. I like the idea of using solar and wind for our electricity. And since the RV is already set up with 12 volt lights and outlets, plus the deep cycle 12 volt batteries (I actually have 4 – so that would store a lot of energy) What I don’t have is an inverter (it changes 12VDC to 120VAC). They are kind of pricey.

The refrigerator can run on 120VAC (which it does while we are hooked up to shore power) or 12VDC or even propane. Our water-heater runs on 120VAC or propane. And really, other than for showers, we can easily heat water on the stove fast enough that we don’t need to run the water-heater all the time anyway. RV catalogs are full of appliances that work fine on 12VDC; everything from TVs and coffee pots to hairdryers and curling irons. About the only thing I would really need the 120VAC for is the microwave. We can live without it but would rather not.

I’ve been toying with the idea of capturing rainwater, filtering and storing it in our holding tanks. It should be easy enough. A small emersion pump hooked to a garden hose with a standard inline filter should work well enough.

I like the idea of being as self-sustaining as possible. (I better be careful or I’ll start sounding like a survivalist! – btw – I love their websites!) I’m not really concerned about “The Coming Revolution”, “The New World Order”, “The New Great Depression (oh, wait, THAT has started)”, or even “Life after the Sh*t H*ts the Fan”. I’m just a control freak and want to Do It Myself.