You know it's hot when.....

• You're excited for the big cooldown over the weekend - it will be 20 degrees cooler than earlier in the week.... but it will still be in the mid-90s.
• You have a brand on your arm from the black trim on the car door.
• The water coming out the tap is slightly warmer than lukewarm.
• Your kids have cabin fever - from hiding out indoors to avoid the heat.
• The hydrant handle is almost too hot to touch, and it's in the shade!
• Your 3-year-old son says, after 5 minutes in the pool (which is in the shade), "Mommy, it's too hot to swim."

Seriously. I hate to complain about God's plan, but.... I'm tired of this weather. To give you a summary, this is from the National Weather Service in Topeka about our weather last month:

THE AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE WAS NEARLY 98 DEGREES AND THE AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE WAS OVER 74 DEGREES...YIELDING AN AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE MONTH OF 86.2 DEGREES. HEAT OF THIS MAGNITUDE OVER A CALENDAR MONTH HAS NOT BEEN EXPERIENCED IN OVER 30 YEARS... SPECIFICALLY SINCE JULY 1980.
THE CONSISTENTLY HUMIDITY ATMOSPHERE HELPED KEEP TEMPERATURES FROM FALLING MUCH ON MANY NIGHTS AND ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO VERY HIGH HEAT INDICES ON MANY AFTERNOONS. HEAT INDEX VALUES
TOPPED OUT IN THE 105 TO 110 DEGREE RANGE ON MOST AFTERNOONS...WITH A 118-DEGREE READING OCCURING IN THE LATE AFTERNOON OF JULY 10.
DAILY MERCURY READINGS REACHED TRIPLE DIGITS ON EIGHTEEN DAYS...AT LEAST 103 ON SEVEN DAYS...AND 106 DEGREES ON THREE DAYS.
THE PERSISTENT UPPER LEVEL HIGH PRESSURE ALSO
SERVED TO KEEP PRECIPITATION IN CHECK...WITH LESS THAN HALF OF THE NORMAL AMOUNT RECEIVED.

And where we live, we've had even less rain than that. We had 1/3 inch around July 4th, then another 1/3" a few weeks later. A couple other times, we've had "teaser rains" - enough to wet the deck and the rain gauge, but not really even enough to settle the dust. I asked Paul several times, "How many times does the rain have to completely dissipate or split and go around us before we figure out God's trying to tell us something?"

And not included in the above report is the temperatures from this week. Tuesday's high - actual temperature - was 115.