Last week was one hot week for the San Francisco Bay area and beyond! All summer long, we experienced one of the coolest and breeziest summers on record which was a big disappointment for me as I love summer heat. And because of the unseasonably brisk weather, we decided to drain the pool a week ago. Go figure!
On Monday, the local temps hit over 90 degrees. Tuesday, it hit 101, Wednesday it was still 100. Thursday cooled down to about 95 and by Friday, it was down to 80 degrees. All over the Bay Area records were broken.
Like a lot of people living so close to the San Francisco Bay, we don't have air conditioning in our two story house. Downstairs, the thermostat read 85 degrees every day last week. Although we have ceiling fans and regular oscillating fans (ooOOOOoooh!), we baked. I would get up early and prepare the house to keep it as cool as possible through the day. My effort was not obvious, until you stepped outside and felt as if you walked straight into a burning oven. 85 degrees was definitely more tolerable than one might realize.
And as you might imagine, extreme heat is not conducive to learning. No amount of popsicles or iced lemonade drinks rescued us. I had a brilliant idea and decided to see if we could work in the Main library downtown. Upon driving there, we realized that everyone in the city must have been thinking the same thing, because there was not one parking space available in the entire lot! Bummer! So we stopped, got a smoothie and came back home. The dogs were happy to see us return because they too could then escape the torturous heat and come inside.
We worked through our most important subjects in the mornings, took long breaks during the hottest parts of the day and then as the evening began, we'd catch up with the rest. One of the very best assets of homeschooling is that we set our own schedules. Even still, this wasn't one of the easiest weeks to homeschool.
And as I remember the famous quote, "Patience is a Virtue", I am reminded again how important it is to have an abundance of patience during these stressful times. Gratefully, the notorious San Francisco fog once again graciously rolled in from the ocean, over the hills and through the sweltering cities persuading everyone that, no we weren't dreaming, Autumn really did arrive last week.
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