Four more days.

That's how many days until school starts. Lest everyone think I am a terrible mother who will have the kids waiting at the school door the night before - well, I may be a terrible mother but I'll wait until the day of to take them to school - we've been together since Memorial Day weekend, and we all need to see some new faces. People from other parts of the country always grumble about school starting back so early here, but look at the southern summer. The nicest part of summer is June. We get out of school around Memorial Day and we have a whole month in which it's actually bearable to be outside. After July 4, it becomes less and less bearable until we reach the point at which we are now, which is 98, 99, 100 degree days coupled with "ozone alert" and "particulate matter alert" days. We're also at the point where we've done everything, seen every movie, so why not go back to school? It's certainly too hot to play outside. If I suggested to my kids that we go to the pool, they'd probably revolt. They're sick of it.

My friend Beth was attending a "Safe Routes to School" training meeting at school yesterday and heard that all PE classes are going to be held in the auditorium for the first week of school because of air quality issues. It's that bad.

For crying out loud, it's 10:25pm and the temperature box in my taskbar says it's still 89 degrees. Is that not sickening?

I did take the kids back to Sun Valley Beach today with two other moms and we spent all but twenty minutes for a lunch break neck-deep in the water while the kids swam. Even the sand was too hot to walk on.

Practice, well, I'm kind of squeezing in a bare minimum right now. I did a Bikram class on Monday night, and three-quarters of primary yesterday morning. Home practice is not very inspiring, but I'm plugging away at it. I'm continuing to struggle with strength and with backbends. They're related, of course. After a Bikram class, I can push up into the bendiest backbend, with nice straight arms, and feel like I could hold it for a while. At the end of primary, it's all I can do to lift myself up, much less stay there for a few breaths.

I'd trade some of my flexibility for more strength, if I could.