Progressive Summer

Berry Cobbler

First off, I hope anyone reading in the States had a wonderful 4th of July and anyone out of the country had a relaxing weekend.

We celebrated with friends at their home.  They have the perfect home for entertaining, complete with pool and outdoor TV which Ruben found perfect for watching NASCAR yesterday.

To the left is a desert I made.  I found this on the MSN home page and am happy to report that it was gone within a few minutes of it being tucked into.  My poor husband didn't get any so I will be making him his own batch (sans sucre).

After an afternoon of drinking sangria in the pool and chatting with a good girlfriend while her kids splashed around us, we headed over to a nearby park to watch the fireworks.  Apparently the fire ants were celebrating too, and I had to keep brushing them off my legs.  I was bitten twice before the finale, and man, those things hurt!

Before the fireworks started Ruben and I separated from the group for a few minutes to sit on a park bench.  He told me this was the most relaxed  he had been in a long time.  I could tell by the way he was seated so casually on the bench with his arms stretched out across the back rest and his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles,  that he really was.  It's nice to see that side of him sometimes because I know his job can be very stressful.

It's been a good summer so far.  I am feeling beyond blessed.  While laying in bed this morning I thought back on these past couple of months and remembered thinking that there was much work to be done in my life.  Things are progressing.  It's been hard work to figure out what it is I wanted to do.  There were many times I felt so lost.  There were times in this past year when Ruben and I had talked about calling it quits (my eyes tear up at the thought of that) but we've worked it out.  It's my firm belief that relationships/marriage are defined by the harder times.  We've both found out what we are made of.  That's not to say that there is not work to still be done.  Marriage is a work in progress and I refuse to be another statistic buried in too large of a graveyard of failed marriages.  I've prayed for guidance and the path has become clearer.  I will continue to pray on it.

Right now I'm continuing to work at my sister-in-law's company.  I'm really enjoying the work.  This week I start training for a temporary job that will start within the next few weeks.  Its nice to be doing something I enjoy again.  It's a relief actually.  The nice thing too is that I realized that I have had time to be with friends again.  I'm exercising, which was something that I didn't have much time for before.  At least a few times a week I meet up with friends to either take an exercise class or just get together to do girl stuff (pedicures, lunch, shopping, and pottery!).  My life feels full again.  This is what I had missed out on.  I wondered if I would ever feel that sense of balance again and finally, FINALLY, I do!

This past week the air conditioning in my car went.  Luckily it was only a shot of freon that it needed but wow, it was pretty miserable those few days I went without!  Wednesday night I arrived at the gym looking like I had already worked out.  On Friday I brought my car in for detailing.  Ruben wasn't too happy that I had spent the money because there was a closer place to our home that charges a third less.  It was more out of convenience that I stopped at the one place I did.  Of course following the rule of things, we finally had the rain that night that we've so needed.  It was just enough to spot the exterior.  I also left the window open.  :(  It had been such a nice night with cooler breezes that I decided to forego the A/C while out Friday night and opened a window (which is pretty much unheard of this time of the year) and forgot to close it when arriving home.  Luckily nothing was damaged or drenched.  It must have been a brief shower.

The heat this year for some reason has really bothered me.  Ruben said the same.  Maybe we are just growing less tolerant as we get older.  Then again it went from about 90 or so to 110 within a relatively short period of time.  Usually there is a gradual increase.  I noticed when working out that I feel nauseous and I just feel more lethargic.  --More so than I remember feeling in the past seven summers I have spent here.  There's a lot of humidity, too, which we don't usually get.  It's been a different kind of summer.  I will be very grateful to go camping in a few weeks.  It is always much cooler and the temps for the day usually do not get much higher than 80 degrees.  We also get at least one rain storm a day.  Being a desert dweller, what's not to like about that?

Speaking of the heat, Ruben went out this morning and mowed the much needed overgrown backyard.  Although it was early I'm sure it was still in the low hundreds temperature-wise.  He just got the mower back from being repaired so we had quite the jungle back there.  Luckily none of our neighbor's windows face our backyard.  It was that bad, ha ha.  I was beginning to think we might lose poor Abby back there.  Anyways, it is looking quite nice now.  Ruben even went so far to pull the weeds that I was able to see from the window in the livingroom.  To thank him for that, we are going to go to lunch.  --My treat.  And we won't stop until we find a place that is properly air conditioned to a frosty 60 degrees so I better get a move on!