The dog days of summer*

It’s hot.

Not that I would ever complain about hot, because I much, MUCH, prefer hot to cold weather, but I could do without the high humidity.

Last night I ran about six kilometers and I was breathing like I had asthma because the weight of the air was so oppressive.

Aside from the huffing and puffing, running when it’s humid isn’t bad. I like the way it wraps around my legs and has the same comforting feeling as being in a steam room.

I also need to make sure I appreciate every moment I can outside, because summer is rapidly coming to an end and pretty soon it going to be winter again. I feel like I did a lot more this year than last year, but, I didn’t do near the number of things I wanted to.

I wanted to go to the market every Saturday morning and get tons of fresh vegetables that were grown locally.

I wanted to freeze and can these fruits and veggies so I could have great tasting food year-round. But it seems like something came up every week.

I was thinking this Saturday was the Saturday, but at the last minute a work trip came up – I’m out of town all next weekend for meetings, then I am visiting my parents next weekend.

Where does the time go?

 

*And according to Wikipedia the dogs days of summer are the sultry days of summer — with sultry being that hot, humid rainforest-y feeling. That perfectly describes my world right now.

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Seeking Summer in -35 C

You know those days that are long and tiring and all you want to do is lie in the sun and warm up and feel lovely?

Well I had one of those days. Unfortunately for me, being able to laze in the sun is still months away.

It’s -35 C today and that’s before the wind chill. I believe that is termed a FAIL.

I was not going to be deterred — I still wanted a taste of summer, in order to preserve what precious little is left of my sanity.

So I made iced tea and not with a creepy powder mix that is only good for camping … and making you sneeze. (If you don’t know what I am talking about shake the powder container, then take off the lid and inhale — your nose doesn’t even have to be over top.)

Orange infused iced tea, notice fancy new-ish bottle

The nice part about making ice tea from scratch, along with it tasting better, is that boiling water adds humidity to the apartment. So for the briefest of minutes I can feel like I am in a tropical location instead of freezing to death in the middle of winter, with ridiculously and incurably dry skin. (But, it’s a

dry cold.)

So with almost a litre and a half of boiling water, three bags of delicious-smelling, fair-trade, black tea, enough honey to sweeten it and a small container of mandarin orange segments for added flavour, I created a bit of summer.

It lasted until I looked back outside.

Now I’m trying to figure out the perfect alcohol to put in it, might as well get warm somehow.

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