Time on Treadmill: 35 minutes.
Weight: lowest that I’ve been all year. Eat veggies with at least two meals a day, people. Trust me, it makes a difference.

It’s somewhat hot here in the clavicle of Texas, to the point where we got up to 100°F with a heat index of something like 112°F. What makes it worse is that we’ve been having a fair amount of rain (nothing like the Gulf Coast, of course — NOLA and the rest of Louisiana, you have my deepest sympathies) so it is muggy as hell here right now. We had yet another storm go by earlier in the evening, mainly off towards the west so we didn’t get much rain, and it cooled everything off a lot (thank you, Thor), but it left behind a buttload of moisture in the air. And since I was trying to cook hamburgers, kale chips, and sweet potato fries, that added even more heat to the kitchen. In case you haven’t already guessed, heat + moisture makes for a very soggy Nicola, as I sweat copiously at the drop of a hat.

So can someone tell my why, when I am sweaty, sticky, hot, cranky, and just want to get dinner MADE, dammit, that’s the time that 3/5ths of the J Crew decide that They Must Be With Mom? Jeremy was constantly under my feet, JJ was shout-meowing from the living room, and Jasmine tried to surgically attach herself to me yet again. Why? Why don’t they do this during the winter when I’m cold and would appreciate an extra bit of body heat? Why must they decide to pile on when all I want to do is climb into a cold shower and sluice down? Cats, I swear.

That being said, I’ve learned that when I’m hot and sweaty and just want to get the treadmill part over, it’s best if I leave off the podcast and switch over to music, specifically my Femmedance playlist. Say what you will about her, but Katy Perry has some extremely danceable hits, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need if you have to keep bopping along.

Oh, also, we got to Episode 3 of Stranger Things 3 tonight and my buddy Cinco and I agreed that Hopper could get it. You know he gives the best damn hugs.