Hot Summer Days

Comox Estuary

We broke record temperatures here on Friday at 32 degrees celcius.  This area is known for it's moderate temperatures,one of the most moderate in the world with not much variation between high and low yearly temperatures.  The picture above is the estuary where we kayak.  This picture was taken where we sometimes walk the dog, a water side loop around a small airfield.



My birthday was Friday and hubby asked what I wanted to do.  I wanted to go kayaking!  My happy place is always on or by the ocean so that is exactly what we did.  We knocked off work at 3 pm and loaded up the kayaks and went for a very peaceful hour long kayak.  A great idea since it is always cooler on the water.  It was lovely and followed by Japanese takeout so neither one of us had to cook.  I am so glad we bought kayaks last year, we can drop everything and go kayaking and it costs us only our initial investment which should pay for itself by next year in not having to rent kayaks.

Fortunately, a few days ago we had a bit cooler day and I managed to fill up the freezer with more blackberries, this time for muffins and pancakes to be made in the cooler wetter winter months.  The whole time I was picking berries I was thinking of the little boy who biked away from his rural residence this week and was finally found the next day after an all night search.  He was covered in blackberry juice and was none the worse for wear, thank goodness.  If I was his parents I would consider a GPS tracking device for that little boy.  And no, the parents are responsible upstanding citizens.  When you live in a rural area you let your kids ride their bikes on your property.  Unfortunately he wandered a little bit too far and likely forgot how to get home.

I am looking forward to fall, being able to bake things again without heating up the house (we have AC but are extremely careful to cook outside or stovetop so as not to heat it up unnecessarily).  We still eat soups and stews in the summer months, just make them in the crock pot.

This week I finished up helping out at my old job.  They initially asked me in June to work some extra shifts as an old coworker had left and they needed to train someone new.  Then in July my old supervisor needed someone to help out while she was on holidays and then again this month while she took a couple more days off.  In small offices it is sometimes difficult to staff when someone is away so they were extremely grateful.  I managed to put $1200 into the travel fund from all of this and they likely will call on me down the road if they need to.  I don't mind (as long as the business is not too busy, there were some conflicts so I had to pare back on the hours in the end) and it is an easy way to feed the travel fund without it coming out of our regular paycheck.  Fortunately, I can always say no if I wish to as am not their regular employee but only agree to temporary stints if I want to.

Today is cooler and it might even rain (fingers crossed) later.  We are on water restrictions already as the last several weeks have been so hot and dry, we need some moisture.  We are still able to water our lawn twice a week but if it goes into the next water restriction stage there is zero lawn watering and everyone's lawn dies off.  That happened last year.  Fortunately, lawns are hardy and come back fine after they die.  I was always amazed at how our lawn survived extreme cold -35 degrees celcius winters in Alberta so a hot summer doesn't hurt them.

Another kid has decided to spend Christmas with us and I managed to book him here albeit on somewhat crappy flights using our won air miles.  We shall have a fuller house than normal with us, Mom and two kids.  I am really looking forward to it.  On that note I managed to put a couple hundred dollars into the Christmas fund so just have a little more cash that needs to be saved there and it will be fully funded.

We also returned many months worth of deposit bottles yesterday and $25 went into the "fun" fund.  We can use that money anytime for a splurge but it has to be activity based like a weekend away, boat ride or something else.  Likely we will save up for another weekend away as our trip in June to Ucluelet and Tofnio was the result of a year and a half of saving bits of money from selling things we no longer needed, bottles and found money.  As Mom says, every little bit helps.

Have a great week everyone!