It was pretty loathsome looking today. If it had been cloudy and stormy, it would have been one thing. Instead, it again looked like someone turned the contrast slide on the television all the way to the left side. The sky was a milky blue, so pale that there was little delineation between it and the cumulus clouds that were scattered everywhere. The air was heavy; "air you wear," as John Ghiorse at WJAR always says.

And of course it was hot: in the mid-90s. No relief for the rest of the week, either. Tonight's news talked about 99°F on Thursday. Aieeeee! I don't even want to think about my cubicle tomorrow morning. It will probably be almost 90 after a Sunday with no A/C.

We had a late morning and waited to go out so that James could put our dinner in the crock pot. We had bought pork stew bits in order to make pork cacciatore; I'd even bought a nice baguette at Publix to have with it. But it turned out we were out of the Campbell's roasted garlic tomato Special Select soup used to make the sauce. So we had to make a quick trip to Food Depot again. Naturally, they didn't have any, so we made do with regular tomato soup, a green pepper, onion, and basil and oregano flakes.

Once that was started we went to Cumberland Mall to take a walk. The mall was crowded because it is tax-free weekend for Back-to-School and we only did one circuit, partially due to the crowds and partially because we still had to truck around Costco. We had some coupons for cleaning/storage supplies that were expiring today and therefore had to walk most of the store. It was actually a relief to leave the mall; the open areas were fairly cool, but the interior of any of the stores we popped in were hot. The halogen lights they use at the entrances throw off unbearable heat.

One of the things we'd planned to get at Costco was Loratadine (generic Claritin) because I had five left and James had none. Costco had none, too, so we had to stop by Kaiser to get some.

The scent of pork slow-cooked in tomato sauce accompanied housework when I got home. Two bathrooms were cleaned and I also vacuumed. The carpet wasn't in bad shape so I used the little Shark instead of the clumsy Kirby. I have been continually surprised by the cleaning power of this little gadget I got for $10 (that was half price) at Target on "Black Friday," especially since it is basically a Dust Buster. I had two Dust Busters previously and the moment the reusable dust bag got a coating of dust on it, the vacuum action dropped dramatically. But this unit, which has a vacuum head attachment for the front and an extendable handle that turns it into a little stick vac, has excellent "suckage." It even gets up birdseed.

We also folded the clothes, and, as a capper to a cleaning evening, gave Willow a bath. She sure isn't happy about it at the end like virtual pets. :-)

Labels: housework, shopping, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:31:00 PM

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