Dog Days of Summer

The title says it all!!  I've heard this phrase all my life, but lately have had a renewed appreciation for it's meaning.  We are in the rainy season here in Central Florida and that means heat and humidity with almost daily downpours accompanied by thunder and lightening.

Anything that needs to be done outdoors, that includes the garage or porch area if they aren't air conditioned, has to be done in the early morning or right after the rain when it's a bit cooler.  So needless to say we and the dogs are all indoors a lot these days.

Bea lounging in the middle of Lauren's room and the toys the girls are trying to play with.

Bear staying cool on the tile where he hangs out most of the time.

I've been working on a lot of hand stitching projects to make good use of the time.  The girls have been enjoying their school break with crafting and play.  Cameron's been busy with school and Kevin has had school projects for the Master's Program he's in and business projects.  All thankfully can be done in the air conditioned environment we SO appreciate right now (insert big smile here).

We did have to venture out yesterday afternoon in the midst of a real downpour when Kevin's older Mac computer had the keyboard freeze up then just stop working.  He was in the middle of an essay, he needs to complete and then has business projects, so we needed to get out and get something to fix the problem.  The closest store that carried a lot of Apple products was the Best Buy in Altamonte Springs that's about 23 miles down the highway.  The sky was dark, with a lot of spectacular lightening (none of which I could capture on camera sadly), the thunder shook the truck and the rain poured so intensely all the vehicles on the highway were down to 15 mph, and it was still tough to see out the windows.

It's fascinating to see the rain so intensely pouring in the distance when it hasn't reached where you are yet.

Then the rain arrives and looks like this

Kevin got himself a keyboard to attach to his older computer that he'll need to access his files to be able to transfer them to his new computer, a Macbook Pro that he also purchased.  He'll then let the girls work with his old computer and become familiar with this, as long as it still has life in it.  So with this done we headed back out in the weather.  Fortunately, the heaviest rain had already passed on and it was just the evening traffic we had to contend with.

We are getting used to the weather here in Central Flordia, but it still is amazing the amount of rain that falls in such short periods of time after dealing with years of the dry Southern California climate we were so familiar with.

Our forecast still shows heat and rain for awhile longer.  There is a chance of some relief after this and maybe we'll get outdoor stuff done.  Or will just have to get up a LOT earlier and take advantage of the morning temperatures.

So, for now we hang out indoors doing activities while the heat and rain continue outdoors and projects pile up, including a terribly overgrown garden in need of some TLC, grass that needs mowing AGAIN, trees that really need to be planted and a myriad of other stuff we've been putting off in the hopes that a cooling spell will come our way.  These are the "dog days of Summer" and we'll make the best of them.