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You probably think I'm going to write about the Andy Samberg digital short. You know the one. Where he's on a boat with T-Pain and rapping about being on a boat and wearing his flippy floppies. Only THE BEST digital short by the guy EVER.

Ok. So no, I wasn't planning on writing about that, but then found myself doing so anyway. Now on to what I was really referring to. At each school year closing, we tend to have a lot of fun with the 8th graders as a last shebang before they graduate and we send them off to high school. This year was the second year that our 8th graders decided to take the Spirit of Baltimore for a lunch cruise.

Spending the day boating around Baltimore is by far one of the better on the job experiences I've had. You know, just another day in the classroom, boating around the harbor and out the the Key Bridge. Sure beats a Baltimore city schools classroom.

This year I decided to bring my nice camera instead of the point and shoot because, quite frankly, seeing Baltimore from a whole new perspective is pretty awesome.

 This is the third time I've had the chance to check out Baltimore from a different view. Kind of makes me want to buy my own boat so I can cruise around any old time.

A few things. First, I want to thank all of you amazing readers for your comments on this post last week. I was completely overwhelmed by the response and loved being able to engage with you guys further on the topic! You've all reminded me why I love this blog community!

Second, I've been missing for a few days, I'm posting late today, and I'm all out of whack! Guess that's what happens when you're given an extra day off over the weekend. I had an amazing Friday and three day weekend. More on that to come!

Third. It's hot. Way too hot. Like 87 degrees in our house hot. Andrew has finally agreed that something MUST be wrong with our central air. Even after suffering a bit (though not quite THIS badly) at the end of last summer. Hopefully he did what he was supposed to and called an HVAC company today during his lunch break.......

Despite the brutal temps in our house at the moment, upon walking in from outside it actually feels mildly cool. This may be hard to imagine, but at the peak of the heat today it was a wonderful 96 degrees without counting the heat index. And anyone not familiar with Baltimore, you must know that the humidity here drives up the heat index to ungodly temperatures. Thankfully, I get to teach in an air-conditioned modular building while the other half of the school had to suffer with broken A/C. But joke was on me when I had to return to a hot house and a furry cat that thought it was a great idea to cuddle in this heat. Gross.

Ok. So enough of my complaining and let's cut to the chase. I'm a seasonal music kind of gal. Growing up in Indiana, we lived in an old house with no A/C so I had to find ways to cool down. One way that helps me to cool down is to get in a cool state of mind. That starts with music. Driving home from the post office this afternoon, I heard one of my latest favorites on the radio. It's an effortless and relaxed sounding tune from ALO. Maybe it was really the cool air in the car, but when Speed of Dreams hit the airwaves, I could have sworn I felt a cool summer breeze blow in from the ocean. An instant cool down.

It's been a while since I've written about any of our house updates. To be honest, life has taken over and this past month has not been focused on The Year of the House in any way. The weather has been beautiful and so there have been baseball games to go to, hikes to take in the parks, walks to go on with Lilah, and outdoor cafe tables to sit at. The last time I even mentioned anything about our house, I wrote about painting our bedroom. And despite our determination to get that job finished, I am sure you can guess how that turned out.

With all of our spare time being spent outdoors, we've been thinking a lot more about how to turn our outdoor spaces into additional rooms of our house. We have our finished patio to enjoy and a fairly barren roof top deck. Believe it or not, the roof deck is one of the coolest outdoor areas in the heat of the summer, so we're determined to create a lounge-y room-like space to enjoy. Here are a few of the sets of furniture that we think would do the trick.

via Crate & Barrel

via Frontgate

via Kingsley-Bate

We're still trying to make an ultimate decision based on pricing, size, style, and upkeep. In addition, there is the continual question-- do we go teak or all-weather resin wicker? Andrew is busy at work making dimensioned paper pieces and scooting them around on a mock up of our roof top deck. Outdoor lounge furniture turns out to be more expensive than we had thought, but everything that we've liked is great quality so we'd have to look at it as an investment. In the long run, we'd rather have something that lasts than have to get new furniture again in a few years.

Which set is your favorite? Any of you have teak or resin wicker? And why did you make your decision one way or another? Maybe you can sway us toward our ultimate choice.

Recently, I've been feeling a bit bummed out with the blogging world. I open up my Google Reader with hopes to read great content and instead I see giveaway after giveaway. Recently, some blogs have hardly had any content other than giveaways, which is not why I began reading them in the first place. Feeling frustrated, I tweeted this:
Within minutes, I was overwhelmed by an outpouring of feedback from all sorts of people. Some comments were from people that completely agreed with me. Others from people that felt they had strayed too far from what their original purpose of blogging used to be and thanked me for the reminder.

I had previously written about my frustration in comparing myself to others around me. I suddenly realized that was no longer an issue for me. Certainly, as bloggers, we all want to have a strong readership, but for me the numbers suddenly no longer mattered. I was watching other blogs grow on giveaways alone and it hit me. I'd rather have ten readers that care about what I am sharing than one hundred readers that are only in it for the free stuff.

I'm guilty of having the occasional giveaway. I think most blogs do have giveaways now and again. Giveaways are fun, but I don't want to be overloaded with them to the point that my written content comes second to a giveaway. I am not blogging for income, numbers, or solely to provide free stuff. I am blogging because I love to write and I want to share my passions.

I mulled over this idea of writing a blog post about this topic. I didn't know if I should write this post because I am a worry wart. I will probably offend people. I might even lose readers that I enjoy engaging with. But this is my space. And as much as I worry about all of that, I also love controversy. I love debate. I love conversation. So why hold back on who I am and not write about something that really hit home for me, and apparently so many others.

After my tweet, I had engaging and thoughtful conversation from so many individuals, including some of my fabulous readers and other bloggers that I admire. THIS is what blogging is about, I thought. It's about expressing opinions and feelings. It's about writing about what you love. It's about building community.

Had you forgotten about my little snail mail experiment? I had. In fact I had almost entirely given up hope that anyone would come through for me. I got home from a long day of teaching last week, checked the mail and found this:
I thought absolutely nothing of it since I tend to get snail mail here and there from friends and family. I didn't pay attention to the post mark and thought maybe it was an invitation to a friend's wedding or something of the sort. So I opened the envelope...
...and I became very excited when I saw this:
WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

The first card had made its way back to my house! Its final route? Baltimore to Connecticut to Rhode Island to New York City to California and finally back to good old Charm City.

I am beyond thrilled that I got one of the ten cards back since I had quickly given up on the whole experiment. This has kept my hopes alive, and I'm crossing my fingers that I'll at least get one or two more in the mail. Of course, I will most definitely keep you all updated if another one come my way. Keep your fingers crossed for me! :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.S. The winner of the Loralyn Designs giveaway is commenter #18, Shirley! Congrats Shirley! I'll be in touch with you via email shortly!