Our summer is half over. Unlike other places, our kids don’t go back to school until after Labor Day. It hasn’t been too bad here in the mountains. Right around July 4th, we had a couple of days of mid-90s, and since then it’s been pleasant for the most part. The high temps during the day are upper 70s to low 80s, and at night it’s been mostly comfortable for sleep. I finished the above diamond painting this month and sent it off to be mounted. It took me about 2 months to do.

Even with the pleasant weather, I haven’t been out much. Heat has always been my enemy, hence why I live where I do. I’d rather have it cold and snowy than 100 out. In June, when I went to Detroit and Toronto, I experienced more excessive sweating than I ever did before. For a long time, I have felt the heat more than most. My body is like a furnace, and exertion when it’s warm left me sweaty beyond what most people would consider normal. It was in the 80s in Detroit and Toronto, and I sweated until my clothes were soaked through. I asked the doctor about it when I got an appointment in July. We have a family trip to Florida planned for August, and at this point I will probably spend most of my time in the villa in air conditioning or in the pool.

The doctor persuaded me to try hormone replacement therapy. Now, I had my uterus taken out in 2012 and haven’t suffered any really noticeable effects. I am already on blood pressure meds, antidepressants, a sleep aid, cholesterol meds, and stomach meds. The increased sweating happened about the time I upped the blood pressure meds and added the statins for my cholesterol. The doctor says excessive sweating isn’t a known side effect of either medication, but it hits people differently. That’s when she suggested the HRT. I can’t really tell if it’s doing anything. I don’t feel very different, and she said I should notice it right away if it helps. Next appointment is in the fall, so I’ll get to see if it helps at all when we’re in Florida.

While perusing camper groups online, I saw a picture where someone had taken out the queen bed and replaced it with separate twin beds. My husband and I usually don’t share a bed anymore since I am a light sleeper and have a tendency to wake up. The main problem in the camper, though, was that the dog wanted to sleep with us. The queen bed was not large enough for both of us and a 100-pound dog. I will take the twin bed on the right so the dog will have an easier time jumping up on my husband, which is who she wants to sleep with normally anyway. We lost a lot of clothing storage with this, but he made it so the ends of the beds lift up. I have storage bins on order, and they will go into that spot with our clothing. I also ordered more Command hooks to hang things on the wall. My bed does block the door, but we never use this door, and it would only come into play if we needed to escape the camper, and we can do that over the bed.

We celebrated two birthdays this month. My oldest granddaughter turned 11 on July 4th. I can’t believe I have an 11-year-old granddaughter. Didn’t I like just graduate from high school five years ago? My husband also celebrated #62. He starts collecting Social Security in October. Hopefully that will help us to enjoy more time in our camper.

I spent most of July watching the Mets on TV. It’s been rough being a fan this year. I knew when they traded Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil, plus let Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz walk, it wasn’t going to be good. Still, I thought, “let’s wait and see, maybe I’m wrong.” Nope, I wasn’t wrong. Alonso especially was a huge loss as a homegrown talent that really was embraced by fans and made the game exciting. Having him and Jan Soto back-to-back benefited both players. Now it’s the trade deadline, and who knows who else they will get rid of. I don’t like this style of baseball. When the team missed the playoffs in 1985, they didn’t blow up the heart of the team. It’s looking more like this might be the last season of the game for a while, too.

I think the schedule I set for myself posting reviews worked well, even if I blew off Friday and Saturday of this week. I’m going to continue with posting MCU posts on “Marvel Monday,” The West Wing posts on “West Wing Wednesday,” and Babylon 5 on “Babylon 5 Friday,” with book reviews the other days. It’s a schedule I can usually keep up with, and one thing I learned this week was not to procrastinate. I left it until Friday to even watch the Babylon 5 episode this week and ended up with my grandchildren at home, so I didn’t get to watch TV on Friday. Lesson learned: on Mondays I’ll try to watch everything for this week as well as the next Marvel Monday so I have time. There will be two weeks messed up in August because of our family reunion at Disney World, so August will not be perfect either, but it’s a goal.

Books I read this month: