I have one last push with the garden to get it done, but everything came to a screeching halt with this heat wave. Not smart to be out there working hard in the sun and heat and not necessary. So what if my driveway is still full of mulch? It's not a big deal.
My husband reminded me of the summer of 1995 in Chicago. That was the last worst heat wave this part (and that part) of the US experienced. And it still is/was the worst heat wave - NPR was talking about it the other day I guess.
That summer, we moved. We moved during the heat wave. We moved from one un-airconditioned apartment near Lake Michigan to another un-airconditioned apartment, a 3 flat in Chicago a few miles inland. We hired movers and they were carrying our stuff up the back stairs of our apartment building two flights on a 104 degree day. How can I ever forget it? Our landlord had also painted all the windows shut so we couldn't get a cross breeze. Huh... I bet I could google both now! Ah, I found them. Had to show my son as he has no memory of it as we moved from Chicago and the 3 flat apartment when he was 10 months old! Now I've hyperlinked the two places - in street view - talk about taking me back 17 to 19 years! (maybe someday I'll google everywhere I remember living!)
It was the summer I had just finished my BA. We moved closer as I was planning on starting my master's at the local university, walking distance from our apartment. I remember going to job interviews from my un-airconditioned home, in my un-airconditioned car and trying somehow to look presentable in my business suit once I got there. Interviews themselves were a reprieve from the heat. Starting work in late August was a HUGE reprieve.
We spent so many weekend afternoons at a local juice bar (which we were pretty sure was a front for a local Asian drug business as they never had any business, yet never closed). This cute little flat (and the one before it) had problems with cockroaches. We were so determined not to take cockroaches with us to our move to Philadelphia when my husband started his PhD that we poured borax in and around every single box from the kitchen. We found one almost dead cockroach a few weeks after moving and that was it - no more cockroaches! Woohoo!
This was all pre-kids. Seems like another lifetime ago now. I think I was a different person. Aren't you really? That was 17 years ago now - a master's degree later, several employment positions later, 5 cities later, 2 kids later, my husband's PhD and becoming a fellow with the society of actuaries later and several jobs, before his mom moved to the United States and so on. Really, sometimes I think it's more amazing that marriages last. We change so much over our lifetimes! I know I'm not the same girl my husband married in 1993 when I was 23 and he was 26. And he's not the same man. Somehow we've managed to find ways to grow together - both in age, maturity, girth (though me a lot more than he) and now with getting more fit and trim. It's kind of neat really. He's been there for me through it all... and all these thoughts because of thinking of another time of our lives when it was miserably hot!
Stats for 7/9/12:
Highest weight: 275 Now: 173.0
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