My friend, Wes Bennett, shares my love of dragonflies. He took this picture of a beautiful blue one and put it on his Facebook photos page. I just had to share it with you (he said it was OK).

Last year I had planted several tomato plants in containers and had a terrible problem. The issue was not with the fiberglass planters but with the tomato planters that I had bought from Home Depot.

I had no idea when I started this little container gardening project that the tomato plants were all shipped from a big nursery in New England in pots that had soil contaminated with a fungus. This fungus gave all the tomato plants bought from Home Depots, Lowes, K-Mart and Wal-Mart the blight last year.

I was so upset at losing all my plants to the blight that I threw them all away – even the fiber glass planters and stakes and everything. Now that I think about it, that was silly. I could have dumped out the soil and cleansed it with chemicals to kill the fungus and scrubbed out the planters. But I wasn’t thinking clearly when I was staring at the fungus all over my plants.

This year I bought one  fiberglass planter and one tomato plant from a local nursery. I hope that buying locally will avoid the fungus contamination issue. I won’t have a lot of tomatoes this year, but I hope that the few this one plant produces will be big and healthy.

A web site that I like called, “Smarter Travel,” has listed their picks for the Top Ten Beach Towns in the U.S. according to ten different categories.

Their first pick is Carmel Beach, California, saying that it is the most romantic beach town. I have been to Carmel and really loved the town. I might have to agree with them on this top pick! Although, it might depend upon who you are with. When I was in Carmel I was madly in love with Glenn. *sigh*

The next best is Mackinac Island, Michigan, voted the best beach town for families. I haven’t been there yet. Going north for a beach has never been on my radar. But I might check it out next summer with the kids.

One of the things my brother has done to help fight the heat is put ceiling fans in more of the rooms of his house. Ceiling fans cost a lot less to operate than window air conditioners and can be left running on a low speed throughout the day and night for just pennies every day on your electric bill.

I love the ceiling fan in my living room and I’m thinking about my brother’s suggestion about putting in more fans. I could easily put one in each of the bedrooms and then cut the air conditioning back several degrees at night.

Dylan says that the Hansen Wholesale Ceiling Fans website has a great selection of all the top quality fans. A cheap fan will annoy you with vibrations and noise, so make sure you get a good quality fan. This is an investment in your home and in your family’s comfort, so shop wisely for the right brand and model.

Talking to my brother this morning about the awful heat here and he says it has been just as hot all the way up in New York, too. Their heat wave makes national news and, unfortunately, people die from heat in the City. A lot of the buildings do not have windows that open, so if you lose your electricity or the air conditioning goes out, the indoor temperatures can rise to deadly levels.

Lots of things can help give a little relief. Seek out the shade if you have to wait outside for the bus or your ride, even if you have to carry an umbrella to make your own shade. Keep your drapes drawn and your shades closed during the day to keep out the sun and the heat that comes in through your windows. Use your ceiling fans to keep the air circulating.

I mostly feel bad for the guys who have to work outdoors, such as policemen, firemen, road crews, tow truck drivers, dock workers, roofers and anyone else who has to be out in the sun and the heat. Be careful out there, guys. Drink lots of water, take frequent breaks, and know the warning signs of heat stroke so you can get help if you need it.

Honestly, I don’t remember a summer as hot as this one has been. The peeps at work are saying that this year’s heat is record setting. Since the middle of May the temperatures have been in the 90’s and it is not even August yet!

This summer has been very easy for the weather forecasters, though. They can use the exact same forecast and graphics every day. The forecast is hot and humid, with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. This is the forecast for every day, as far out into the weeks ahead as they can foresee. Ugh.

This morning I was driving to work and my cell phone rang. It was a surprise call from an old friend, Jenny Corbett. She had a baby a few months ago and is very busy this summer chasing her kids and baby around the house. She told me that they bought a plastic inflatable pool for the kids to splash around in the back yard. That sounds like a great idea! If we had a pool in the back yard we would probably use it every day. It has been very hot this year and the kids get so hot and sweaty when they play outside. It would be great to have a little pool right here for them to jump in and cool off every day this summer.

I believe this is the third week in a row where the temperatures have been in the 90’s and the heat index has been over 100 degrees. This is awfully early in the summer for this kind of heat wave. Usually we only get these high temps in August. I hope the weather gets back to normal so we can have nice summer days instead of three months of “dog days.” It’s too hot to feel like doing anything outside – not even shopping, as the car barely cools off by the time we get to the store.

Tennessee is great for quality of life and a lot of great things for outdoor recreation. The one thing that it doesn’t have that I miss so very much is an ocean beach. So when we just HAVE to get to a beach, we head east for  the resorts in Myrtle Beach.

We have plans to spend the Fourth of July weekend with my New York family at a beach house. But after that, I will want to make sure we go to Myrtle Beach for a week at the end of the month. I might even arrange for my sister and her kids to get an adjoining room and share the vacation. Tonight I’ll jump online and check http://avistaresort.com so I can start making plans for our last beach trip before school starts in August.

It’s easy to find a Myrtle Beach hotel online and make the reservations for our vacation. Plus, I’ll want to get in a round of golf while my sister takes all the kids to one of the lazy rivers.

Have you ever seen a carload of juvenile delinquent-type boys driving through neighborhoods with a baseball bat, banging on people’s mailboxes? Banging up Residential Mailboxes seems to be a sport among high school age kids who roam the streets late at night. Evidently that’s what was happening last night on my street. I’m surprised that I didn’t hear the noise and that my dogs didn’t go crazy with barking. We must have all bee totally sounds asleep when it happened. But this morning, I walked out to the car and found my banged up mailbox lying on the ground next to the wood pole by the road.

Dealing with installing new mail boxes is something I am getting good at, as I just replace my home’s mail box last summer for the same reason. This seems to be a trend of vandalising people’s property during the summer, when there is no school and some of these kids evidently get to stay out on the streets without proper parental supervision. I really have to wonder what these parents think their kids are doing at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.? There is no way I am ever going to ever allow my kids out of the house that late.

Last time I wanted to look at mailboxes I found a great web site and ordered something special for my curb side decor. I even planted a climbing rose bush and small fan-shaped trellis by the mail box. Now I have to do that all over again. At least the web site makes it easy and the order is delivered really fast. So things have a way of working out.