Oh my goodness! We are experiencing a “cold front” here in San Antonio! This week we are sitting pretty in the 90ºs and I am beside myself! I have noticed that my husband and I are talking less and less about finding a cooler area of the country to move to when the time comes for him to retire (years down the road.) And, with our hottest day this week only reaching 97º, we are enjoying  a little respite from what we have thought of as the worse (as in heat) summer we have yet to experience since we moved down here fifteen years ago.

It is so “cool” that I have even noticed two different birds outside actually sunning themselves. All of this cooler weather has Sprite (our 14 1/2 year old dog) feeling quite frisky! She has actually taken a few (leisurely!) strolls around the perimeter of the yard, like she used to do daily. She likes to inspect and protect!

Poor Sprite… when she does finally see a bird, she must get frustrated when they don’t acknowledge her presence with fear. Usually Sprite is totally oblivious to the birds, but every once in a while she can actually spot one. Today she saw a bird in HER yard and got in her old I’m-going-to-run-after-you stance, but she doesn’t have a lot of get-up-and-go anymore. So, she just stood there and barked at the trespassing bird.

This bird not only didn’t fly away in fright, but it looked at Sprite, looked at the ground, and then continued searching around for little tidbits to eat. Poor Sprite! I wonder if she is aware that she is now the Beta dog to all of these little alpha birds and squirrels.

I guess she should be happy though… At least the birds aren’t swooping down at her, as if she is the interloper! At least they haven’t done that yet…

I know that this doesn’t qualify AT ALL as a Cozy mystery book entry, but we just found out about this information and I thought of all of the money I have wasted by not knowing about it… I am guessing that there are a lot of you out there who have been doing the same wa$teful thing, al$o. So, here goes:

For years, I have been shipping packages to my mother and brother (from San Antonio) to Colorado Springs. Each year, I always thought I was so clever to be able to cram as many of the Christmas and birthday packages into one large box as possible. Usually that meant that I sent about three large boxes for Christmas and another two large boxes for birthdays. Wasn’t I clever?!? I always RE-use the styrofoam popcorn I receive throughout the year by placing it gingerly between the breakable items and the non-breakable. Oh boy! Does this large box have room for yet another package?

Back to the reason for this post>>>

My daughter is leaving for the Boston area this week, and since it would have taken us three days to drive there with our car absolutely stuffed to the top (which meant two nights in a hotel each way of the trip) we decided to price what it would cost to ship all of her “necessities” for the three years she will be out there.

Boy!!! Was I ready for this challenge! I had been saving all of the largest of our boxes for quite some time, to use for my Colorado Springs Christmas and birthday shipping…

What a surprise to find out (my husband searched around on the internet to price different shipping costs) that UPS has a very $ub$tantial price hike after you hit a certain size of box. It appears that UPS calculates the square inches of each box, and after a certain amount of square inches you pay a huge (what I call) penalty. [In case you are interested in seeing the square inches, the place he found is Uline. It even tells you how to calculate UPS’ DIM (“dimensional weight”) guideline: 3 cubic feet (5,184 cubic inches)… And since I haven’t needed to calculate cubic inches since high school geometry, I appreciated the help!] Each of our boxes weighed under 50 pounds, which seemed to be the weight limit for the box size that we chose to use. I was actually surprised by how much stuff I could stuff into a box and still keep it under 50 pounds.

We ended up sending twelve of the correct square-inched boxes, which will be waiting in her dorm room when she arrives. She will be flying to Boston, which will actually end up saving us money on the four nights of hotels, restaurant/fast food stops, and a lot of driving time. Of the three, I will miss the driving time. My daughter and I have a lot of laughs when we drive for long (or short!) distances… But this way, we can use that time more wisely at home.

I try to call my mother at least once a week, but lately, hearing about the “cold spell” they are experiencing is getting old! I know that she doesn’t mean to complain about the temperatures dropping into the low 70°, but hearing about those “cold” temperatures in August makes me yearn for the days when I (too) lived in Colorado Springs!

My husband and I are starting to ponder where we might want to retire in the not-so-near future, and it isn’t in San Antonio! In the past, both of us assumed that San Antonio would be where we eventually retired. But, this last summer has been particularly difficult for us. Just walking across a parking lot is something I dread in these over 100°  days.

Sprite (our 14 1/2 year old “puppy”) is going through a time of blissful ignorance… Poor little Sprite… We have to be sure to watch her when she goes outside because she frequently lays down in the sun, on dried-up grass that we are only allowed to water once a week (our night is Thursday, and we get a very limited time span in which we are allowed to water.) If we aren’t particularly diligent, Sprite will simply lay down >>> never in the shade >>> and pant, pant, pant.

Because of Sprite, we have never wanted to “attract” birds, squirrels, or (of course!!!) the neighbors’ cats to our yard. But this year, my husband and I felt like we simply had to go buy a bird bath to put outside. After seeing several squirrels laying on tree branches as if they were going to pass out, we visited our neighborhood Home Depot and bought one. Slowly, the birds and squirrels are getting the word out… WATER!!!

As for Sprite, the little animals don’t seem to bother her. She would have enjoyed running after the squirrels a few years ago, but now she seems oblivious to them. She does enjoy inspecting her backyard domain in the morning to make sure no nighttime trespassers are still on the premises… Then it’s off to nap it off!