77 Days of Summer

When you live in Seattle, normally the June gloom makes way for the sunny skies and warm temperature trend that begins promptly on July 5 and ends in mid-September.

This year, July 5 came and went with temps so cold and skies so gray, it might as well have been March. Sure, we had some bright, warm days during July, but I could count them on one hand.

When August rolled around, people joked that it was Aug-tober, and the gray days overtook sunny days 2 to 1.

Now it's September and I'm staring at the skies, wondering what the hell happened to our summer. We've been cheated!

I'm a big outdoors person and since I write from home, I make plans to do fun things with the kids during the summer. The three of us love to swim, more than anything, and we could spend hours at an outdoor pool, soaking up the rays and splashing around in the water. This year, we only did that once, and now I'm really glad I didn't pay for a summer membership fee.

In years' past, we've been so miserable in our house during week-long scorchers. So when it came time to de-commission the heating oil tank, we were stoked about getting central air as part of a heat pump package. So this is our first summer having it--and we've barely had to use it. In fact, on days when we did use it, we were freezing!

My husband just came downstairs wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath a cashmere sweater, and promptly announced, "It's fall!" From a calendar point of view, he's wrong; but weather-wise, he's absolutely right.