heat survival guide for the gestating / five faves

For being 25-weeks pregnant and lacking any air conditioning in my house, I'm really dealing with the summer heat quite well.

Know that saying of "Don't make an ugly face; it just might stick"? Yeah. Also, I'm pretty sure that if my hair has to be in a top knot or off-the-neck braid for one more week, I'll never be able to coax it back down.

I'm no stranger to heat. I lived--nay, flourished--through 25 summers in California's Sacramento Valley, when hot means not just a few days over 100, but 30. But every building there has AC. Now, I'm in Eastern Washington, that duplicitous region. Not only does winter bring the stinging cold and dirty exhaust-coated ice that clings to the road from November through March... but summer comes with the audacity of 90 and 100-degree 10-day heat waves. It's a "both/and" kind of place--glacial winters and boiling summers.

But hey, there's no state income tax. So, yeah.

Two weeks ago we scurried to fill our van like Steinbeck characters fleeing the dust bowl and drove out to my in-laws' air conditioned house to escape the rising temps. This week, I'm resolved to stay put. My game plan:

1. Cook nothing--NOTHING--indoors

With the advent of a gas grill onto our patio, I've declared my stove and oven to be out-of-order until September. This coincides nicely with Sean getting his whole "I'm a man and I like to grill" thing going. I might even get him an apron. After all, I might need to bolster his spirits as he braves the propane, flames and smoke, while I stay inside chopping lettuce and sticking my face in the freezer.

2. The 8-hour iced coffee

One of these things is not like the other...

I make a point making my drive-thru coffee place the very last stop on my daily errands. When I get my iced vanilla americano back home, it goes straight into the fridge--with first a little top-off of lactose-free milk, just to replenish what I sipped on the way home. Then, at each of the 400 times through the rest of the day that I open the refridge to fetch, refill or put away sippy cups, I take a sip. And my blood pressure recedes a few points.

3. Costco Camping

That membership fee pays for itself after your third slow stroll around the refrigerated dairy/produce cases.

Today the boys watched for 20 minutes as the Vitamix guy made them a smoothie. I stood by the cart and nodded at him periodically, thinking to myself with a grin, "There's no sweat running down my back. It's 11 a.m. and my feet aren't swollen yet."

I think the guy took my smile as a sign I wanted his $500 blender. We walked away instead of telling him that at $500, it better cool my house AND puree bananas.

Another Costco amusement: Watching 40 chickens receive their new plastic homes. Also: dinner.

4. Retreat underground

Our half-finished basement is not a thing of beauty, but it stays a good 15 degrees cooler than upstairs.

So while it's not fun hauling 12 blankies and 29 pillows down there (and that's just the stuff I need to get comfortable), it beats showering in your my own sweat each night.

5. Suck it up

I listened to The World Over while doing my dishes over a steamy sink last night. Want a sure-fire way to be grateful for living in a brick-oven-of-a-house? Listen to the plight of Christians not living in the promised land of Eastern Washington. Read about the children at the border, Ebola in Africa, or the homeless that whether this kind of weather sans shelter. I didn't need to go far to find people who's lives are about a million times harder than mine. That doesn't make my house less hot, but it makes my little burden much more an inconvenience than a burden.

That's my spin for this week. Linking up with Heather of unbelievably-bad-airport-experience fame.