Hot!!!!

OK - it's really hot. Today is actually cooler but not much. I just checked and it is 88deg. in the house. Yesterday at this time it was 91. It reached 98 in the house yesterday. IN THE HOUSE! I took a really long, cold shower to combat the heat. Erin and I also spent the heat of the day over at his mom's since she has A/C. I am glad we did since Erin has sun poisoning. She must have got it Sunday because she was only out in the sun for a little while late yesterday afternoon and she started having stomach cramps. Today, she woke up with a fever and complaining about her stomach hurting. I gave her some tylenol and she has been drinking lots of water and resting. She is much better already. I'll keep her out of the sun for a few days. I am now considering getting her one of those SPF 50 swim suits that covers her whole body since I know we will be out in the sun a lot this Summer. I hope Adam gets the swamp cooler in next weekend before we have another heat wave again. Supposedly, it is going to cool off this week. We'll see...

Top number is the relative humidity and the bottom is the temperature inside the house.

HOT!!!!

We went down to Victoria Garden's in Rancho Cucamonga today and it was REALLY hot!!! It was 100 degrees and windy - it felt like a heater was on. At our house, 38 miles away, it was around 85. When I got home around 7:30pm it was a breezy 75 while it was still 95 in Rancho. Erin and Jordan didn't mind the heat though. They played in the fountains for a couple hours. Since the heat is here and becoming unbearable, Adam will start installing our swamp cooler this weekend. I hope he gets it in before my dad comes to visit in a couple of weeks. Other than the heat, it was an enjoyable day. Here's the pics:

Bones

Adam put in our new security screen door Tuesday night. Being that nothing in our house is standard or built porperly, we needed to modify our threshold. Adam removed some concrete from under the metal plate and we found bones embedded in the underside of the concrete! I don't know what kind of bones they are. All I know is it is really weird!! Why would someone put bones under their threshold? I shutter to think if there are more hidden under/in our house. Oh how I wish we had a "normal" house. Bones aside, the door frame is so crooked we had to make a decision. We could install it to match the crooked door or install straight. We opted for straight and now it is really noticeable how messed up the door frame is. I guess levels were scarce when the guy built this house as pretty much nothing is straight in this house. So, what should I do with the bones? They're probably animal or from a steak or something like that but I wonder if I should call someone. I'll save them for now. Here's a pic of our screen door and a pic of the bones:

The Cost of Going Various Places

OK, so last night I was discussing with Adam the total suckiness of Diesel prices right now. It just costs too much to go anywhere. This time last year I didn't think too much of cruising over the the Victorville mall to escape the heat. Today, as it approaches 85 degrees inside our home, it is tempting the spend the money. But, since it will be even hotter tomorrow, I might want to wait to splurge. Once we get our biodiesel setup going, I will be able to escape from the jail that is our house right now. Today, I broke down how much it costs to go to and come back from the various places we generally go. I get 18mpg in my Excursion and the cost of diesel is approx. $4.65/gal right now. So, here's the breakdown:

Grocery Store: $1.98
Phelan Park: $2.05
Wrightwood Park: $5.74 (Sorry Becky, but we'll be meeting at Phelan park from now on!)
Pinon Hills Park: $1.77
Super Target (Apple Valley): $15.62
Sharon's House: $13.73
Our P.O. Box in Rancho Cucamonga: $18.30
The Mall of Victor Valley: $11.37
Adam's Daily Commute: $39.14 in his truck (10mpg @ $4.65/gal) , $15.38 in his Mustang (18mpg @ $4.11/gal)

After my calculations, I find myself not wanting to go anywhere. I can't wait for our biodiesel set-up to arrive! Still working on finding more used cooking oil sources.

Biodiesel!

We finally ordered our biodiesel equipment today! After about a year of research and learning how to make biodiesel, we came to a deceision to purchase a complete system. Adam was ordering tanks to make his own setup and he was asking a lot of questions. They referred us to Sonicbiodiesel.com and their complete processor is not much more than building it yourself. Not to mention all the time it would take to track down all of the components. So, we're hoping by June to be running biodiesel in most of our vehicles. Now, the problem is collecting enough waste vegetable oil. We have already started gathering it from the donut shop but it is not enough. We have a verbal agreement with one of our customers (Wienerschnitzel) to get their oil but we need to provide them with a drum first. Still, we need more. We need to make about 100 gallons per week so we need about that much oil. The demand is way up too so we are not the only people asking for it. I'll probably start canvassing the area's local restaurants to see what I can get. We are excited to get started! Yesterday, diesel was $4.79 a gallon in town!!!! At worst, we have to buy unused, crude grade vegetable oil at $2.00/gallon. Even with the cost of the methanol and lye, it is still almost half the price of the gas station. We'll keep you posted on how the whole system is working out and how much we are saving. Here's a picture of the equipment we ordered:

Lazy Cats!

My cats are really lazy! They sleep in the most ridiculous positions too! I have some of these pictures on my myspace page but thought I'd post here too. I got a new picture yesterday. They aren't even a year old and yet they sleep like old cats. They seem to follow me around and sleep wherever I am. At night they like to sleep right on my rear end (if I am on my stomach) or they sleep on my stomach. They also refuse to move when I need to get up. Other than their sleeping habits, they are not very remarkable cats. I had hoped Marvin would be a talker since he was in the shelter, but he barely makes a sound. They also tear everything up. Moona at least has the decency to wait until I am not looking but Marvin just stares at me with a "what are you going to do about it" look. He knows he is not supposed to (he runs if I start to come near him while he's scartching) yet he does it anyway! I don't know what I was thinking getting cats again. I keep hoping to replace my beloved Beast but he was 1 in a million. Some of you met him and will agree with that. Even if you didn't like cats, you liked Beast. He was my baby before we had Erin. Maybe after we fence the rest of the property, the cats will want to live outside and they can quit bothering me!!! :)

L.A. Zoo

We went to the Zoo with our neighbors (Buck, Santina and their son, Hayden) on Tuesday. It was fun. Erin really liked the animals and LOVED brushing the goats. It was nice to spend the day with Adam doing something besides working on the house or picking up supplies to work on our house that usually occupies Adam's time at home. Here are the pictures....