Awoke this morning to the sound of wind, rain and thunder. It was a fast-moving front and didn’t hang around long but it was still nice to hear the rain pouring off the roof and the thunder in the distance. What a nice way to start the day! I should see how cool it is outside and maybe open up the house for a bit. We aren’t often able to do this in our part of the country – it’s either too warm and muggy or too chill.

The morning storm moved out and it cleared quickly into another beautiful day. It was hazy at first because of the moisture in the air but it smelled WONDERFUL after the rain! I opened up the house to air out the rooms. My biggest complaint with our house, other than the interior kitchen with no window, is that the cross-ventilation seriously sucks. The designer of the home paid absolutely no attention to air flow and as a result, the only areas of the house that get decent outside ventilation are the dining room, kitchen and master bedroom. It’s like Texans have a pathological fear of opening their windows! Yeah, I get it, the weather here gets abominably hot and humid during the long summers but most mornings are usually cool enough to let in some outside air. Our little house in Burbank was amazing – we could open the windows in the living and dining rooms or open the front door, then open all the doors and windows at the back of the house, and there would be a literal BREEZE blowing through our central hallway! The airflow was that good. Even on the hottest days we would use this method to cool the house in the mornings. Ugh… I really missed my calling. I should have gone into architecture like my grandfather. 😑

Not much more to report. I made banana muffins this afternoon to use up the four over-ripe bananas that were slowly turning to compost on the kitchen counter. The girls fell on the muffins like ravenous dogs almost as soon as they came out of the oven. Guess they liked them! We had hamburgers for dinner made with the Beyond Meat ground beef substitute. Geez, that stuff is weird. It made for very tasty burgers but I ended up tasting the stuff for hours afterward. Still, it’s a great stand-in for ground beef! Its one drawback: it’s much more expensive than regular ground meat at around $10/lb so we certainly aren’t going to be having it every night.