It was already 81 degrees when I got up before 6 a.m. this morning. Yikes! And looking like our third or fourth day in a row of near or over 100 degree temperatures. You'll rarely hear this said in my family, but it's pretty much too hot to even go to the beach.

Oh, but it's summer vacation. Bliss. I had my last faculty meeting of the school year yesterday, and although I'll be working over the summer, the schedule shifts and softens into easier. A lot of what I need to do I can do from home, and I'm finally starting to settle into the realization that we're, for the next ten weeks at least, a bit freer. Like I said, bliss. A weight I didn't know was there has lifted a bit. It's the gift of time, really. I look around at my house, at all the disorder and disarray, and I'm thrilled to have the time to tend to things. To clean up and clean out and paint the dining room and pay attention to the blog and cook and sew.

Callum and I made all sorts of summer plans over lunch yesterday. He has some work to do himself to get ready for third grade, and he'll have to go into my office once a week or so with me, but we seem to have mapped out the plans for a pretty nice routine. It will involve the Wii a good bit, I have a feeling. When I got home yesterday it was pushing 101 and I told Callum that I would not press him to play outside. So he worked on his tennis skills while I payed bills, and then we made soup.

Chilled Avocado Soup, to be precise. Before we did anything else, Callum read the recipe for me and we determined that we needed to chill it for two to three hours before serving. So soup before Wii. Callum did so much of the work for this. We cooked together some last summer, but it's amazing the difference a year can bring. I told him to get out a step stool, and I was the only one who needed it!

He chopped all the avocados, measured the yogurt and chicken stock, stirred the soup and even helped clean up. As my friend Ben is always saying, "many hands make light work." This extra set of hands make the work light and fun, for sure.

The soup itself was pretty good. Not a home run. I added some cumin, and that helped. It was a bit thick. More smoothie than soup, perhaps. I have to say, gang, that the consistency reminded me of Jen's avocado salsa at Gringos, so with some adjustments to the seasonings we may be onto something here. First summer supper. Good with BLTs too.