Dog Days of Summer

Man, is it hot out. I don't care to think what our electricity bill is going to be this month, but it's just too doggone hot not to run the air most of the day and into the night. It's not even leaving the 80s till midnight these days, and hitting ninety well before noon. I need some autumn action, but it's August. Not even mid-August yet, either. We have miles of hot to go before we see any relief. I'm just grateful that we have air conditioning in our apartment! Driving anywhere is a misery these days, and results in sweaty, fussy baby if we stay out even a few minutes too long.

Today we didn't leave the house much. M went to his class and came back, reporting on the extreme hotness. Robert and I went out for lunch with my friend from church, who is having a baby in  February. We went out to a place that I had a Restaurant.com gift certificate for. I've never actually used one before, and I wanted to test it out. Typically, at Restaurant.com, you buy a 25 dollar gift certificate for 10 dollars and you can use it, say, on an order of 35 dollars or more. I bought mine on sale for two dollars, good deal there. My friend and I had to get 35 dollars worth of lunch to make it work, though, so we both got soft drinks, appetizers, entrees, and pie. Big lunch, but it was great, and I had leftovers to bring home. All of that, including the tip, ended up costing us ten dollars apiece, and we got to spend a long time chatting and talking. I won't say it was the most economical thing I've done lately, but it sure was a bargain for what we got. Robert was very good too, especially once he got his bottle.

After lunch, we went to Kroger, where they are doing a mega-event this week. If you buy eight of their sale items, you get four dollars off at the register. I went and stocked up on tuna and more Helpers, picked up a couple of avocados for Robert, and got some soup and Chex Mix. I have more shopping to do there, but it was a pretty good haul. I was excited to find a hanging Topsy Turvy pepper planter on the 50% off clearance rack. All summer I have been eying the various Topsy Turvy hangers avariciously, but they were just too expensive. This one was only 3.50 after all the various discounts! It has no perishable parts, so I'll just pop it in the closet and next summer get an early start growing myself some peppers!

After that we came home, and were home for the rest of the day. I made barbecue chicken in the crockpot, enough for sandwiches and pizza for the rest of the week, and it's quite nice. Robert played and played and played and then fell asleep on the floor, then played some more. He was a busy boy today. I gave him the blueberries and bananas for the first time, but I think it was a little bit tart and strong for him. Next time I will mix it with more rice and a little formula to take the edge off. He has about twice as many taste buds as I do, after all! Tomorrow we're going to try and head to the library, but for now, it is bedtime.