As summer fades and the temperature dips!

"Then summer fades and passes and October comes.  

We'll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness,  

a thrill of nervousness, swift elation,  

a sense of sadness and departure."-  

Thomas Wolfe

All summer the boys and I battled with the thermostat on the air conditioning. I'm pretty sure that one day last week I found it set on 68 degrees. When I questioned the boys, they swore that they hadn't touched it. The invisible ghost strikes again. Imagine my amazement yesterday when I arrived home to find my living room feeling very similar to a sauna. The temperature outside was 68 degrees but my living room was a toasty 78 degrees.

Now  I'm willing to give credit. When I asked the boys about this strange phenomena of it being so warm in the house, Alex confessed. He stated that he had been outside walking in the rain and had gotten cold and wet. He further stated that when he got home he kicked on the heat to warm up and dry out. I explained that it just wasn't cold enough to kick the heater on. He argued that it was freezing out. Now here's the part I don't understand we had this conversation with him wearing only his gym shorts. He looked at me as if I had grown horns when I suggested that in the future he try putting on jeans and a sweatshirt to get warm. I've been having this battle of the thermostat for many years. The child's name changes but the logic remains the same. My memory is probably a little rusty but I may have understood this logic when I was a teenager and I had this argument with my own Mom.

One of my favorites when its rainy and chilly outside is chicken noodle soup.

Chicken Noodle With Spuds

Ingredients:

2 tbsps butter

1 diced medium onion

3 celery ribs (diced)

2 cups of new potatoes (diced)

6 cups chicken stock

2 cups of chopped cooked chicken (I use breast meat)

8 ozs noodles of choice (Prepared as package directed to add to soup.)

sage, salt, and pepper to taste

Directions:

 Melt butter in large stock pot. Combine onion,and celery with butter and cook until onion is translucent. Combine chicken, potatoes, and stock and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until potatoes begin to soften. Add noodles. Bring to a boil and serve.

The rain stopped and the clouds drift away in the early morning hours. The sky was dazzling with stars. I'm not much of an astronomer but I was able to pick out the dipper and what I think was Venus. This site has the visible constellations for September.  http://www.jodcast.net/sky/