This is all connected, I promise.

First, as I was sitting here in my living room with my fan working its little heart out trying to blow in the tiny remnant of cool air that's left outside this morning, I suddenly realized that the normal chatter and yelling coming from the children on spring break had reduced to one single voice. I took a second to figure out what that child was screaming and I realized that it was "Help me!" So I instantly stood up and searched through my screen door to find out where she was and why she was screaming. This part wasn't too hard. In the middle of the sidewalk, I saw a little girl, maybe 5 or 6, sitting on a trike and yelling for all she's worth. However, there didn't seem to be a problem. She was just sitting there, yelling, "Mom, help me!" I stood watching her for a moment, trying to decide if she really was as desperate as she sounded. But sure enough after about another minute of this, she carefully and slowly climbed off her trike and peacefully walked back through her front door.

All of this made me consider that maybe sometimes the crisis that I may be facing doesn't always seem so big from the perspective of others. And sometimes it might be pretty easy to take care of myself it if I just try.

Second, I found my car covered by a layer of green dust yesterday. Thankfully, the cleanliness of my vehicle has never had a big effect on my life, but it did make me curious. The lawn had been mowed earlier in the day, so I thought it might have been from that. However, as I drove down the road I saw that nearly every car was covered in green. I was able to rein in my imagination, you know keeeping all those thoughts of nuclear waste, aliens, acid rain out of my head, but I still had the mystery of the green dust that kept accumulating on my windshield.

It turns out that its pollen, and it has plans of continuing to plaster itself all over everything for the next several weeks. goody. So far, there haven't been headaches, runny noses, itchy eyes or uncontrollable sneezing, so I'm desperately hoping that this pollen is the friendly kind.

What brings all of this together is the ridiculous heat wave that is threatening a long, hot summer. It honestly feels like August this week with the kids home from school, bees flying everywhere and windows open and fans blowing 24 hours a day (we just couldn't turn the AC on in good faith the first week of April). I'm starting to wonder if I should invest in a mini pool for my deck to keep me cool for the six-month-long August ahead.