Books, Life

Feelin’ hot hot hot

I can’t let today pass by without commenting on our extreme heat situation up here in Wisconsin! Also, it’s always very fun to sing that song and it instantly gets me in the mood to be somewhere tropical and dancing in a congo line. “Ole ole, ole ole…. feeling hot hot hot…..” Ooh, especially the ending: “People in the party- hot hot hot! I’m hot- you’re hot- she’s hot! How you feelin’?! HOT HOT HOT!!” (Ok, sorry, I’m done.)

Anyway! Off the island and back to Wisconsin: We have had “Excessive Heat Warnings” issued by the National Weather Service due to our very high heat and humidity both yesterday and today. The actual daytime temps have been pushing close to 100 degrees, but with humidity levels over 80% and dew points in the 70s, the “feels like” temps are approaching 110 degrees.

This was from 7 a.m. today: already 80 degrees with 84% humidity! Wonder how it will feel at noon…. ha.

This is VERY hot for Wisconsin!

So hot, in fact, that Ethan’s school days got shortened both yesterday and today! Instead of 7:50-3:30, they only have school from 7:50-11:05.

I know, what?! When I first heard it, I was like, seriously? I mean, yes, it’s hot, but it’s this hot many places around the country almost all summer, isn’t it?

But then I found out that his high school building (which is a very old, historic type building) does not actually have air conditioning in all areas. Many/most areas of the school have been fully remodeled and do of course now have air. (We do commonly get upper 80s/low 90s heat in Wisconsin summers, and it’s always humid here, so basically everywhere is air conditioned.) But apparently some classrooms still don’t…. so obviously, with temps and humidity this high, the indoor temps would be exceeding safe levels.

Per the weather guidelines, they also had to cancel any outdoor sports practices or games- including what was supposed to be Ethan’s first official high school soccer game tonight. 😦 Instead of practice, they hit the weight room after school yesterday (air conditioned) and had a team meeting, and today they will practice at an indoor soccer facility (also air conditioned). Meant we had to work out pickups at 1:30 p.m. yesterday and 2 p.m. today., instead of our pre-planned carpool schedule for 6 p.m….It worked out that one mom was able to get them yesterday, and I re-arranged my day to run and get them this afternoon. All good.

It all feels a little bit like when some Southern state gets 1 inch of snow and they close down school and cancel everything and we northerners all laugh 😆, but, in fairness, it is really really hot. And I know risks of heat exhaustion etc are real- especially with this extreme humidity that we get around here sometimes. Playing a 2-hour soccer game in it at 4 p.m., in full sunshine, would probably be…. hellish. And dangerous.

I got out for a 20 minute walk at 7 a.m. to beat the heat and was already sweating when I got home! Fortunately, highs will be back down in the 80s by tomorrow.


Also on the docket today: a BOBW Patreon Book Club meeting! We read a business book called The Loooooong Game: How to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world, by Dorie Clork.

I liked it! Some of it felt more relevant for someone with more of a self-made career, like author/ entrepreneur/ content creator/ etc. but I found it inspirational. It made me think differently about things like career development, personal growth, creating your own opportunities, networking, and just generally how to “zoom out” a bit and look at the big picture versus focusing solely on short term gains.

Tried a new method instead of taking notes while I read… flagging passages I like with post-it flags, and then going back when done with the book and quickly typing up the quotes into a Google Doc. I liked this method! It let me keep flowing and reading in the moment, and then could worry about documenting the notes later. It was also pleasant to sit for 20 minutes and sort of “process” my notes when I was done.

I did not have a great day yesterday; won’t/can’t get into it here but just has to do with some things I do not like that are out of my control and making me feel, well, out of control and frustrated. I also felt incredibly distracted all day which was very annoying and disorienting.

Around the blogosphere it seemed like I was not the only one with a sour day yesterday, so maybe there was something in the air.

On the bright side, I feel generally much more perky and in a better mood today, so let’s hope whatever that dark cloud was has now moved on….

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for air conditioning. 🥵

13 thoughts on “Feelin’ hot hot hot”

  1. Your comment form is different and it’s freaking me out1 I hope I did it right!

    I’m very PISSY about this weather. I live in Wisconsin and I deal with Dumb Winter so that I can have an enjoyable summer and fall. That is the deal I made with the state when I moved here and now it’s VIOLATING that deal by making summer too unpleasant to enjoy it.

    Only the high school and a couple of elementary school classrooms have AC in our district. I’m so glad they’re not back in school yet because it would be so unsafe. I don’t know how people whose houses lack AC are still alive.

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      1. Ugh, it looks like WordPress changed something… I do have it set so that people don’t actually have to log in in order to comment, but now it seems to make you either click the WordPress icon to sign in and comment that way, OR, just click the Mail/envelope symbol and then you can just fill out your name/comment…. I think…. not sure why they have to always change stuff!

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  2. If I log into WordPress, it won’t let me change my username to NGS (the dominique100). If I use the email/envelope thing, it prompts me to log in to WordPress and I end up with the dominique100 name instead of NGS anyway. LOL. There’s no way out of this loop!

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    1. Ugh that’s annoying! I just checked another blog I follow who is on WordPress.com and her comment form is the same way now too. So it must be some kind of WordPress update…. That’s weird that it won’t let you just type in whatever you want! I was able to do it that way and manually filled out my email, name and website and it didn’t prompt me to log in to word press. Who knows…. Sorry about that!

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  3. I noticed the new comment format on CoCo’s blog the other day! I figured out that clicking on the envelop works!

    I was also singing that Ole Ole song this week to my boys, too. Well, until Taco yelled “no singing.” That kid and his strong opinions… The heat has broke here – we seem to be a day ahead of you. Yesterday was the worst. I started to sweat just walking to the car! I had a dr. appt in the morning so by the time I got to work, I had to park on the roof of the parking ramp!! Worst. Day. Ever. to have to do that! My car was horribly hot and did not cool down on my drive to get Paul! Bleh. I did think of how this is probably just every day life in like Houston. I don’t think it gets THIS bad in Florida actually. But much of Texas seems to have had this weather A LOT this summer. No thank you!

    Sorry to hear you had a rough day yesterday! I feel really discombobulated in general since we are in a season of transitions. Paul’s summer program ended last week so now we are piecing care together for the next 2 weeks. So he was home with me during the BOBW zoom but luckily stayed off camera! He’s home with us today/tomorrow (well just me today – Phil had to go in). Then Sat I take him to my parents for the week although a few nights ago he said he didn’t want to be alone there. My sister comes with her family on Tuesday so I’ve been talking up the fact that he’ll get to see his cousins and meet his baby cousin before anyone else in our family will. That seemed to help but I hope the goodbye on Sunday isn’t awful. My parents live on a lake so he will be living his best life up there! Taco and I come next Friday so he only has 5 nights without us? Fingers crossed. But I’ve been thinking so much about the 2 week gap that I”m like – what is the date today? When is August over? I’m ready for a routine!!!

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  4. Woof, that is HOT. My goodness. I have never lived with humidity so I can imagine it’s – like my friend Hannah says – living in a giant’s sweaty armpit. Try to get THAT image out of your head!
    Calgary is not a place that is built for any kind of warm weather. If it is above 25 degrees for 3 consecutive days, it’s a heat wave, and if it gets above 30 degrees, the city acts like it’s going to collectively die. One year we had this kind of weather in June, and at my kids’ elementary school there was a large Muslim population who were observing Ramadan. The kids observing could not be outside for recess because they were at risk for dehydration. That was something I had never thought of before! It made me grateful to be able to chug water whenever I wanted.
    Stay cool, my friend! I hope it passes!

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  5. This is the first summer I’ve seen the “Feels Like” temp where I live reach 125*. Apparently, we’re going to have summers like this every 2-15 years. I hope it’s 15!

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  6. Yes, you’re having Florida heat! Actually I think it was even a little hotter where you are than down here. My sister’s husband also had a shortened school day (they live in Illinois.) And that led us to reminiscing- growing up, our schools were not air conditioned! I don’t remember it being a major problem though- but also, we didn’t start school till after Labor Day, so I guess it was a lot less likely for it to get up to 100 degrees in September.
    I’m pretty sure by the time I’m writing this you’ve cooled down. phew!
    Also- I’ve noticed that my comments show up differently on all the WordPress blogs. Now it shows my full name instead of just my first name? Not a big deal, but I’m wondering how NGS changed it? Oh well!

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  7. Woo. Everybody is getting a bit of “climate change” these days. That are some hot temps for Wisconsin and the humidity makes it so much worse. I don’t envy you.

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  8. I didn’t even think of the schools – of course, not having kids in the schools. So odd to just have four hours (well, really three) hours, but I guess it was a “something’s better than nothing” approach? And man, sorry about the carpool stress. I do not know how you do it!

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