It’s Hot.  Not small caps hot but caps locked HOT! Hot as the seven levels of high school hell hot. Hottest summer since records started being kept back in 1880 and I am  out working in it. Nice. So there I am under the blazing furnace of the sun with enough humidity to almost take a swim without  going to the pool. The air is even sweating. Did I mention it’s HOT! The big picture goal is to tackle the ravine and get it ready for the garden tour. That means lots and lots of hot mindless work. Today I am weed eating in the ravine  with sweat dripping inside my goggles  blurring my vision. My clothes are soaked and I smell like a teenage boy. Even the tip of the brim of my baseball hat is inundated with sweat as well.  I am thirty- seveteen years old I am too freaking old for this crap I start to think to myself . But for now it the only work I can find. Nice!

If  I did not  need to keep the lights on and the wolves from our door I would not keep going. I start to ponder as a way to distract myself from the mindless work,  relentless heat and the woe is me’s. That strain of the heat coupled with the frustration of living underemployed is almost unbearable. But it can aways get worse I think. In more ways than not I really have it made. No really I do.  Strange that I cannot blame this on delusions from the heat. See I have faith,family and friends: a very rare and priceless gift. It’s the trifecta of what we need: Faith, Love and Hope and one I must humbly say I can’t figure how I became so blessed to experience.

Don’t get me wrong : these is hard times and it effects everyone around me. Man I think on how understanding the bride is though I know it is beating her the hell down. There is no sugar coating the strain on her and on our relationship.Like a good swordsmith , our faith and our friends, are helping us make sure we stay well-tempered during this season of fire and ice in our lives. If we cool down too quick we become very hard but brittle. If we cool down too slowly we become too soft. So delicate is that balance. Man I thank God for my friends and family.

I am just a small guppy in this school of those who are swimming in the sea of under-employed people in America. There is no boat that I can see nor is there a lifeguard but we do not have to be alone. For me it is part of a continual journey  but for others I  pray they to can find hope and peace through faith, family and great friends.