Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh...........

That's a collective sigh of relief from people, pets, and plants. . . It is finally raining!! It started about bedtime last night and is expected to rain most or all of today. Yeah!!! Except for the fact that it is a Saturday and now Mommy has to figure out what to do besides going to the pool, we are soooooo happy for the rain!

We have had such heat this summer. With the exception of a few blessed days here and there, it has been hanging mostly around 95 to 105 for weeks now. And without the rain, EVERYHING has suffered. The children at Aidan's school haven't even been able to go outside to play--the children AND the teachers have suffered on that, not to mention how the parents feel at bedtime. And just look at our front yard:



The grass turned brown in June! JUNE! Not the usual late July or August, June! Yikes. It will green up again, but my goodness, it looks so sad. The trees are doing okay. We have some water bags on them and that helps them not get stressed. Some of my neighbors have trees in distress--the leaves are already falling off. Not good. Two houses in the little town I work in had wells go dry and they have been drilling for new wells. The first house it took over a week to hit water! That is crazy! We have underground lakes and springs around here that are fed by the Potomac River, so they must be really really low.

Here in Leesburg, we are on voluntary water restrictions. We're doing what we can-not watering the yard and not washing our cars, shorter showers and bigger washing machine and dishwashing loads, but we are very happy about this rain. . .

Thank you God for this rain!!

In other news, we are moving forward with house projects. : ) Yes, that's right! We will be going up to the Tile Shop later today to order the tile for our Kitchen floor. I really love it.



It's a beautiful stone. It is 24X24 and we will lay it diagonally with a nice brown grout. You might not be able to see it all, but it matches beautifully with the cherry cabinets. The walls are a nice Sage green and the counters tops are a marble-look green (sometime I'd like granite or soapstone--but that's in the "future") I will sweep and mop it frequently, but if I can't right away, it will hide what gets dragged in by the two dogs and 4 year old boy! (not to mention the 46 year old boy).

We're hoping to order it today and then be able to do this in August. Along with a new refrigerator and new curtains, the kitchen will have a whole new look!

The old refrigerator is a black side by side that will be perfect in the Man Cave--A project we hope to get back to in September. More on that someother time.

And so, after breakfast, Mommy will take Aidan up to Target to get some new, inexpensive sneakers that he can tear up over the next month, and some new books. Then, we'll have a playdate with Catherine this afternoon.

I need to also start going through and thinning out Aidan's clothes. The first weekend of August is Tax Free weekend here in Virginia: all shoes and clothing, individually priced less than $100 is tax free! Perfect time to stock up on Fall and early winter items. . .does his winter coat still fit???

I see a Yard/garage sale in my near future. . .