Having a Time

Jack and I are doing well here in Tucson. We're still working on the Project of the Century here on this cottage. We have the "stone" installed around the front, as of Saturday, and it's looking great. I will post photos when I have the final touchups done. I have to do a little "carving" and touch-up painting where the miter joints were cut.

The deck is what we've been working on for the past couple of days. While the foundation for it is made of regular wood, the decking itself is Trex -- a composite product made of 95% post-consumer recycled plastic and sawdust. It is creating a really sleek and beautiful deck and the deckboards are 80% installed.

Today we also got part of the low-voltage lighting installed. As with everything, it took some trial and error to get it all to work, but I think that it's working now. We have it on a dusk to dawn sensor so that there will be light when we need it. I will have solar lights around the front, where I have plenty of sun.

The skirting is part the rock stuff and part is siding like on our cottage -- a sort of cement board. I hate the stuff more than I can really describe. It weighs a ton, is long and cumbersome, and if you lift it wrong, it breaks. To cut it, requires practically a Hazmat suit -- hearing protection, safety glasses, and a dust mask. And all of this in 100+ heat. Urf. I cannot wait till we are all done with that ucky stuff. We are done with the part of that that's on the deck, and the part that's around the north side of the cottage. We still have to do around the south side and the west side.

 We've been taking good care of ourselves -- taking frequent breaks, drinking more Gatorade than I thought a person *could* drink, going out for healthy and delicious lunches, and going for a dip in our pool after the workday is done.

So how hot is it? Yesterday and today were 104. It's been over 100 during the day since Memorial Day, with a day or two with high in the upper 90's. That actually feels noticeably cooler. It's so hot that, even when metal objects are not in the sun, they still feel VERY warm. When anything is in the sun, of course, it is blazingly hot, and that includes skin.

It's also dry. The dew point has been in the negative numbers. Yesterday's was -11. What that means is that you can have a big jug of Gatorade with ice cubes in it and the outside is DRY. Towels air dry in an hour. And we do go through lots of lotion. I love it here!