Campfire in the rain, after a sweltering heat in Georgia, dancing and some smooches during a perfect soaking wet campfire night. Pretty perfect Friday night. My life is blessed if unexpected. Great conversation with DTabs, lots of laughs how blessed and appreciative we are.Ready to bring on 40 with this guy.

Pope is very happy to be home after being kenneled with Preacher for my birthday week. I can appreciate his exhaustion because I’m old and feel it too! Pictures of my awesome birthday to follow. (I think these pictures are hilarious because I’ve had 3 Italian greyhounds and none of them have relaxed on their backs like my Dobermans. Pope is something else.)

Rachel turns 40!!! My extraordinary family had so many surprises in store for me. Starting with a trip to Disney and a stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge! It’s stunning. Hot for sure, but so fun. And Disneys my favorite. Jake delivered on my only asking him to wear an epic outfit on my birthday. (He had 3 custom outfits, love this dude.) Then we all flew home to Wisconsin for an awesome potluck at the Cheemas lakehouse, my happy place. So many people came out to have a ridiculous day of games mom used to have us play as kids. (Licorice eating, balloon popping, egg run…ended in a water balloon fight.) my family is simply the best, so much fun. I love you all so much!

As I was setting up Ben’s birthday gifts, it was an evolution (crappilly wrapped up gifts, then I remembered I had pipe cleaners, found some balloons, figured I draw faces on them) Mark turned into an armless loaf amidst the new twig debris I vacuumed up hours ago. Cleaning my floors with two puppies is futile. Mark has found peace on our end table at last.

Power outages this month over 2 hours: at least 5

My Generac generator saving my sanity: ?

Georgia this month is next level. It’s been in the upper 90’s every day with “extreme heat warnings” the past couple weeks followed by insane storms almost every night. My puppy Pope has seriously regressed with his potty training as it’s too hot all day to even walk on the patio to go out or it’s storming. Or maybe he’s just mad he only has 2 friends. Either way he’s literally pissing me off. He’s still cute though and brings me kindling.

Heading back to Africa this year so I thought I’d try to remember my latest trips couture. It’s this. Not sure where I got goggles from, but the rest of the “look” I can recreate. Also pack extra damp towel “shorts” when it’s 100 degrees. #Africafashion #ReadyWearThirdTimesACharm

Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate Ben’s birthday! It was nice meeting all of his coworkers he talks so much about (some who have met my mom before me!) and their wives. Special shout out to Esme (Yvonne Reza) the sweetest little party guest. Happy to know my dogs are good around children. It was a good day. ?

Relocating spiders, making snacks for all the dudes helping with clean up efforts, Ben keeps giving away all our ice, generator has been running for over 48 hours, AC went out and I’m busy repurposing my flowers so they look extra pretty for impromptu friends needing a shower…I’m sure this is important to them. Seriously though, if anyone needs water, a shower, laundry, freezer space, we’ve got you covered.

I spoke too soon, our generator ran out of propane around 2pm. It’s been running for over 3 days and we’ve been abusing the electrical capacity of our house running fans for days trying to dry out our attic and me cooking for hours like a propane rich heiress. Lesson learned. Apparently there’s a 5-7day waitlist in less you’re smart like Ben and bribe the propane delivery guy with cash. We were out of power and water for maybe 4 hours and I was contemplating booking a flight home to Wisconsin. Power came back on around 6pm and Ben’s first thought “oh thank god you can make me dinner.” List of lessons learned throughout this hurricane.

These guys are hurricane survivors. They had to eat their homemade dog food at room temp when we lost power. Can you imagine?! Also our Doberman just gave up guarding at this point. Too many people over, too much interference with his schedule, I think he laid down to die in the donut bed and Pope thought to join him in solidarity.

Mark only sleeps in our bed when he can watch Ben sleep at night. Super creep. As soon as Ben gets out of bed he drinks out of my nightstand water glass and crawls into the dogs kennel like he’s totally innocent and normal. Jokes on you buddy, I have a separate water cup with a top on it now. What a loser.

Just Mark. He doesn’t look super garbagey. Ben’s bear hunting and I’m warding off an apocalypse of mosquitoes on the home front. But Mark is just doing A-okay. Little victories, right?