Whew. July has gotten off to a wild start, y’all. Not only has the mercury been soaring (we hit 99* last week, with a heat index of 104*), but I ended up running a fairly high fever for a few days last week – no other symptoms beyond a headache that fluctuated with my temperature. Thankfully I was c*vid-negative, and after a few days the fever broke and everything went back to normal. {Also very thankful Mr. did not fall victim; and so grateful he took such good care of me}. Very strange. I’m blaming the heat – for everything. Ha.

The weather broke just in time for my birthday: I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy to see a storm roll in. Sunday was a gloriously stormy wet afternoon/evening, and we ended up getting an inch and a half of rain! {Fun fact: that’s more rain than we got the entire month of June}. The garden absolutely loved the deluge, and I promise the cucumber vines grew several feet overnight! The original forecast called for afternoon rains all week, which has not materialized {sigh}, however another front looks to be coming and we should have a soggy Friday and Saturday. And I am perfectly okay with my weekend(s) getting rained out at this point.

The heat is good for our peppers and tomatoes though: we’ve got little baby peppers appearing, and our first “real” tomato {as opposed to the adorable spoon and cherry varieties} has turned! Look at this gorgeous pineapple beauty: it’s huge! We’ll probably give it a day or two on the counter before we cut into it … but that first BLT is in reach, y’all. Life is good.

Since July is my birthday month, I indulged a little with my Book of the Month box – they give me a free book credit for my birthday, and I couldn’t resist adding one more add-on to the mix. I also treated myself to two other highly-anticipated new releases: A Novel Love Story and The Spellshop {which is even more gorgeous in person}.

After watching me struggle with my old Kindle Touch while feverish {reading on there was easier on my eyes}, Mr. surprised me with a Paperwhite for my birthday, and it is every bit as awesome as people say. Of course I had to get the glittery version of the clear case, to display {unstuck} stickers, and it turned out so cute! {I love that I can swap out the stickers as I feel inspired}. The reading experience has been great so far, and the next time I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, I’ll be able to test out “reading in the dark,” thanks to the backlit screen {honestly the biggest selling point: gentle/warm backlight for the screen}.

Hopefully after a wild and wacky, somewhat chaotic, start to the month July will settle down … and the heat will break. Maybe? Hopefully? {We’ve had so many days with Extreme Heat Advisories, it’s ridiculous. Can’t even stand outside without getting sweat-drenched, eww}. Things in the garden are about to get busy on the harvesting side of things and it’s time to start fall seeds {be on the lookout for that!}, so we would really appreciate lower highs. It’s also been too hot to work with the bees, and we really miss that – we want to see how our new swarms are doing! And find out how much of a honey mess the others have made, ha. Plus we just really like looking inside the hives, because bees are so fascinating.

It may be a little quieter around here while we’re in this superhot lull, but things are definitely happening! Hopefully summer is treating y’all well and you’re staying cool – and finding good books and tasty seasonal treats.