Housewife, 54

And yes, I mean real headaches.  The weather is the culprit - HOT, STEAMY and unrelenting.  Here in the Chicago area we have had temperatures and humidity levels in the 90s for what seems like weeks!  It is too hot outside to do anything.... I don't want to work in the garden, walk the dogs, or even sit out in the shade and read.  Any time you step out the door, it feels like you have walked INto a sauna and your body begins to sweat buckets.  Disgusting.  And I believe that going in and out of air-conditioning is what is aggravating my headaches.  That and thunderstorms that crop up almost every evening.  In the past 10 days we have had over 8" of rain.... and that just means more humidity and sweating and dripping..... SO, to keep myself semi-occupied I have been doing indoor things like reading and knitting.  In the wintertime I read and knit, but the 'flavor" of my books and the texture of my knitting is different to match the season. ...

And yes, I mean real headaches.  The weather is the culprit - HOT, STEAMY and unrelenting.  Here in the Chicago area we have had temperatures and humidity levels in the 90s for what seems like weeks!  It is too hot outside to do anything.... I don't want to work in the garden, walk the dogs, or even sit out in the shade and read.  Any time you step out the door, it feels like you have walked INto a sauna and your body begins to sweat buckets.  Disgusting.  And I believe that going in and out of air-conditioning is what is aggravating my headaches.  That and thunderstorms that crop up almost every evening.  In the past 10 days we have had over 8" of rain.... and that just means more humidity and sweating and dripping..... SO, to keep myself semi-occupied I have been doing indoor things like reading and knitting.  In the wintertime I read and knit, but the 'flavor" of my books and the texture of my knitting is different to match the season. ...

It is HOT and HUMID here today!  It all started last weekend when Son #2 and I drove up to the Twin Cities to visit Son #1 and wife.  Temperatures have been really hot and sticky since Saturday and there is no end in sight.....  Hopefully by the end of this week the temps and humidity may moderate a bit - down into the 80's maybe?  But all this week we are to continue to have temperatures in the mid to upper 90's and humidity so high that the heat index will be 105-115!  Thank GOD for Air Conditioning!!!! Like I said, we went up to visit my son and his wife.  I love driving through Wisconsin; the landscape varies so much more than what we are used to, going mostly through corn and bean lands of Illinois and Iowa in the past. Wisconsin has rolling hills, farmland that is corn, beans, wheat, oats and pastures of dairy cattle.  But mixed in are the forests with lots of different kinds of trees.  This time of year there are all kinds of wi...

Of course, my day without power is not today, or I would not be publishing this!  Yesterday we had quite the little storm blow through, just as we were sitting at the table eating breakfast.  The wind kicked up, the rain came down and WHOOSH!  Slam, bam, ~ thunder, lightening, wind and rain sent us reeling! The storm lasted less than an hour, but knocked out power all over the suburbs.  Trees were down everywhere, but not in our yard, and we couldn't see any real damage on our street, just a few small branches were scattered around.  But electricity, we had not.  Aaron went to work at his usual time and was back about 20 minutes later.  He had seen trees down in several places along his route to work, and with no power at his office, they sent everyone home.  Jim finally left for work around nine, not knowing if the power was off at the library or not.  As it turned out, there were pockets of power around town, but most of the town was out. ...

So, what are my interests?  LOTS.  Probably my primary interest these days is my dogs.  I have 2 Afghan Hounds; Maija is 8 years old and Elvis is 10 months.  Here they are! We also have a Miniature Pinscher, Nina. My dogs are not just couch potatoes.  We do lots of things together. I have owned dogs almost forever, and when we were first married and got our first mutt, I started messing around with training.  When we got our first Afghan Hound about a year later, I joined my first dog training class.... and was hooked.  We started with plain old traditional Obedience and I had a lot to learn about training dogs.  Primarily that they are ALL different!  I took our first mutt, Sassy, and the first Afghan, Jason, to training class and learned right away that I had to treat them differently and reward them differently and that they learned differently.  That has been reinforced for me through all 11 dogs that we have owned (and a couple of e...

I have wanted to keep a diary for years, and when the computer age developed in our home, I wondered how I could use it as a diary.... years later, I finally got my act together and have arrived at the blog-sphere.  Where did my "name" come from?  It was inspired by a book from the UK, a diary of a woman during WWII, called simply "Housewife, 49".  From that, I had to modify the numbers until I had something that was not already taken, thus I am Housewife 5404. I have many interests and hobbies, only one of which is writing.  I have no real training as a writer - beyond that afforded by our public school system.  However, I have been told that some of the things that I have written are interesting or well-written, so I hope I maintain that compliment and don't set to type anything that is too horrid! To begin, I am a housewife.  I am a homemaker by choice.  My mother was a homemaker, and my grandmother before her as well.  It was not because w...