Summer Heat

This morning when I went for my walk, the sky was overcast or foggy. By the time I sat down to breakfast, the sun was shining through the trees out back. I love taking pictures of how light interacts with the environment. Pretty.

This weekend we went to South Carolina to see Madeleine race in a double. Doubles are sculling boats, which means each rower has two oars. This is how you expect them to look.

This is what it looks like when someone gets overheated. This shot is taken a few meters before the finish line. Notice it looks like our girls in green have already quit. No worries as they maintained their slight lead and finished with a bronze medal.

Afterwards Madeleine's partner was completely beat. When they got back to the trailer she almost passed out and had to be cooled with ice and the AC in a truck. Luckily she was well looked after and soon feeling better.
I can tell you it was hot as hell there. I wasn't doing anything more than standing around in the shade and I was perspiring profusely--Granny would say I was"glowing". We had thought about doing a little sightseeing before heading home, but once we got the AC on in the car we didn't want to get back out again, so we drove straight home. Were we complaining about the snow and cold only a few months ago?

Blue Door

My two favorite things about England were the signs, which I shared here and here, and the blue doors. I kept saying that when I got home I was going to paint my door blue. Well, it took eleven months but I finally have my blue door. And I love it! What do you think? In the past two weeks our house has gone from a red roof, red shutters, and a red door to a charcoal roof, black shutters, and a blue door. It looks like a completely different house. Amazing what a few color changes can do.

In other news. I have been trying to get in shape this summer. Mostly I have been riding my bike on the Riverwalk. However, yesterday we tried something new. Paddle boarding! I was very nervous about falling into the river, especially since a body was just pulled out earlier in the week. Yuck! Everyone assured me that I wouldn't fall in. For me, paddle boarding was like running in a nightmare: working very hard and going about 3 inches. It took about 45 minutes to paddle from Ross's Landing up to Veteran's Bridge and then about 15 minutes to get back down again. Everyone else in the group (Eric, Madeleine, Caleb, and one of Madeleine's friends visiting for the weekend) went a lot faster than me. I was feeling pretty successful by the time I got back to Ross's Landing. Then I had to get out of the water. Oops! I knew I would fall in! Fortunately I didn't hit my head on the concrete landing or anything and I got back up on the board and somehow managed to flop onto dry land. All in all it was a good trip. I would like to do it more often to get my arms toned up. However, we had a freebie (as a "thank you" for carpooling the owner's son during rowing) and I can't afford to go all the time.

Birthday, Part II

For her 19th birthday, we let Madeleine choose any tourist attraction in town for us to go to. She picked the Tennessee Aquarium. Here is her special day in photographs.

"Go on and touch the fish." "Ummm, I don't think so."

"See. They won't hurt you." "Maybe later."

"OK. I'm going to do this!"

"I'm doing it! I'm touching a ray!"

"Hey, this is fun!"

"Hmmm. Butterflies. I don't know about this."

"I like the big fish."

So pretty

"Ice cream before dinner! Yippee for my birthday!"