As most of you know, Georgia has been in an extended drought for the better part of the last decade. This year Mother Nature has been making up for lost time, as it has been the rainiest summer of my entire life, but she has stepped it up to a new level this week. I am pretty sure that Mother Nature is trying to make up for putting Atlanta in a nearly decade long drought in the span of just a couple of days. Unfortunately for us, nearly all of our 4th of July weekend plans involved being outside, so we’ve had to improvise a bit. The original plan was to house and dog sit for Jes’ parents in Lawrenceville, go to a minor league baseball game and watch the fireworks, hang out at their community pool, play some golf, and just generally enjoy the sun outside. Since the weather has done nothing but alternate from a steady drizzle to downright pouring the entire time, we’ve been stuck indoors instead watching a lot of movies. The only real bright spot out of all of this rain is that it has given me many opportunities to expand my photographic creativity, as seen in the picture on the right.
Aside from the unintended 4th of July movie marathon, there are a good number of positive developments in our lives this week and the one I am most excited about is that Jes has taken to digital scrapbooking. The idea is to be able to memorialize our year with a printed scrapbook at the end of the year and hopefully it will become a tradition. The way the world is moving towards digital, we have so many more photographs than in years past, but none in a tangible,touchable form. Years from now it will be amazing to look back on all of the best memories we’ve had each year without having to turn on the computer and sift through a bunch of digital images. And of course selfishly I won’t mind seeing my photography put to use in more ways that just filling out an online gallery. The other benefit that this new hobby has delivered is it gives Jes something to focus on during our downtime, which as we get more efficient with cooking has started to become plentiful again.
As for myself, I took my new irons out for a spin on the range earlier in the week and lets just say that it didn’t go well. I was probably just too amped about how much better I could hit the new clubs that I ended up over swinging. No matter what the root cause was though, I was unable to hit even one solid shot in a bucket of 100 balls. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was the worst driving range performance of my life. Luckily I had a chance to go back to the range a second time since then and got back on track. I arrived at the range determined to control my emotions and figure out what I was doing wrong. It took about 25% into the bucket before I really got things under control, but this most recent visit was probably my most consistent driving range execution ever. I am getting closer and closer to having a repeatable golf swing. Hopefully I can go back to the range at least a couple of times this week before the next full round that I play next weekend on my quest to break 100.
Finally, last weekend we took the dogs to Chastain Park for our morning coffee time. There is a little river that runs through a portion of the park, and we wanted to enjoy the sights and sounds of the river with the dogs. The dogs loved the chance to jump into the running water and chase the bubbles that are produced by the white water. There was even a time when Marble got in so deep she started to get swept away by the strong current. Don’t worry though, since she can’t be trusted to not run away when off leash, she still had her leash on and we were able to pull her back to us very easily. I’m not sure what it is about swimming, but that seems to tire the dogs out more than any other activity, it is too bad that they don’t exactly enjoy the water on most days. I of course took this opportunity to bring my camera along and got a couple of my favorite shots ever of both dogs. One of them is included on the right, the rest of the shots can be found on the family photos page if you are curious.