Clichés are Clichés for a Reason

It really isn't the heat, it's the humidity! Today was only a windows-open day if I was planning to sit on the couch reading, and occasionally raising a cloth to dab at my brow. For me to get anything done today, it was an air conditioning day. This always makes me a little sad, but this morning I broke a sweat sitting and talking on the phone: it's humid. I do feel grateful to have air conditioning. (And now the windows are open again. It's humid in here, but not more than I can stand.)

And not to have a headache! Feeling grateful for that always makes me a little sad, since it shows how much headaches muck up my life, but it's true. Not having one is a gift.

So what have I been doing today, you ask? Well, laundry for one--the stairs are a bit much, but it's nice and cool in the basement. The sweater is (ulp) washed and laid on its rack to dry. It seems to have come through the experience all right, though I don't want to handle it much while it's wet, so I don't really know for sure. Solution: put the rack in the corner and try not to think about it. The weather has certainly passed into the realm of too-hot-to-wear-it, so there's no rush.

I'm also doing some closet clean-out, since I have way more clothes than I ever wear, and I want the space back. Some are things I don't love, some don't fit, but in any case, I can take a lot to the Salvation Army without feeling the pinch. I mostly tend to wear the same 10% of what I own anyway, so I may as well let someone else get some use out of the rest. I didn't think to take a "before" picture of the very overcrowded closet, but trust me when I tell you that I can see the difference.

Food for thought this afternoon:
Is it wrong to wish that the rain storm currently threatening would come in, so that the kids next door would go in and stop with the almighty never-ending basketball bouncing already?

The last month or two have been so crazy, and one of the casualties is that I never wrote about the books I read in May, and here it is time to write about June's. Another casualty was reading time, as can clearly be seen in the numbers. After reading 20+ books in each of the first four months of the year, I read ten in May and 16 in June. (Legacy of a long weekend: I've already finished four books in July, and that doesn't count a couple I tried, but didn't like enough to finish.)


In May, only one book was a re-read. Some of what I read was only just interesting enough to finish, but not compelling. I found a new sci-fi author I liked, John Ringo, and enjoyed a middle-readers book, Okay for Now, quite a lot.

In June, five were re-reads, including the first three of Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, preparatory to reading the new one, Heartless (which was good! Go read the series! And tell me what you think!). I don't know if I was more excited for that or for the new Penderwicks book, and considering that one of those is a re-imagining of Victorian England with werewolves and vampires, and the other is a series of young readers books about a family of young children, well, what's the word I'm looking for to describe my reading taste? Varied? Eclectic?

What about you? Have you read any good books lately? Or do you have any further questions about my reading?