"Summer has set in with its usual severity." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It hot! It's freakin' hot! Today it will be 100 degrees with a heat index ('feels like') 105 to 110 with somewhere around 90% humidity. I dare you to go outside and attempt to take a deep breath. Nearly impossible. Someone on the radio said this is the hottest June on record. I can believe it. It hasn't been below 90 degrees so far this month and it's only the first day of summer. Ugh.

I am watering my herbs nearly every single day. Every morning I turn on every ceiling fan in the house. We've turned the temperature for our hot tub down to 90 degrees. We are doing everything possible to stay cool.

And, if that's not enough to set your hair on fire, last week provided more than the usual hot buttons (pun intended).

Tom's 1994 Audi has been at the shop since the end of January. The mechanic has been attempting to rebuild the transmission, with little success, until last Monday when he called and said it was fixed. Tom went over to pick it up, but luckily took it for a test drive first. Still slipping. Not fixed. Back in the shop.

Tom mulled it over (fretted and didn't sleep) all weekend and decided to go get the Audi today. This morning he went in and offered to pay for the parts only. After some [heated] discussion, they agreed. Just over $1,000. As I write this, Tom is following the Audi that is loaded onto a flat-bed tow truck on it's way to an Audi dealer/service garage in Little Rock. Hopefully, they will have the proper diagnostic tools to determine what is wrong with it. And maybe, just maybe, we will have a fully functioning car in a reasonable amount of time. No, I am NOT expecting it to be at a reasonable price.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the ski boat engine leaking water into places it's not supposed to leak. It is at the boat shop currently being repaired. Blown head gasket. Another "just over $1,000," but we're told it will be ready Thursday. Whoo Hoo!! Maybe we'll actually be able to use it during this ungodly hot, sweltering summer.

Then, my washing machine broke down. Less than one month after the warranty expired. Of course. It wasn't faulty parts. It was a nail. A carpenter's nail from the pocket of someone's (who I won't name, but you know who I'm talking about and is the same 'who' that uses his pockets as trash cans instead of using ....what???.... a trash can) jeans. The jeans went into the washer, pocket-fillings intact. The nail was washed out of the pocket of said pair of jeans, into the tub of the washer, then was sucked into the drain tube that leads to the pump, where it came to a screeching halt, jamming the pump and rendering my washer inoperable. $280 later I am once again doing laundry. Tom and the technician could only marvel at the most expensive non-precious metal nail ever.

I should be laying in bed, with my head under the covers, writhing in emotional and financial pain and frustration. But that's not the kinda gal I am. Nope. I have another coping mechanism. As Karin @ altadenahiker commented: "Now when things go bad it's all blog fodder."

Amen, baby. Amen.