In Mississippi, July is hot, every year. Every year, it surprises me just how hot. In any case, I sweated and learned things this month, so here are eleven learnings from month seven.
As usual, I’m linking up with Emily P. Freeman, and invite you to visit her site and do the same.
1. Why can the British be wittier with their logic than Americans are allowed to be? And why is it successful? I don’t know, but I know that this sample first chapter from apologist Andy Bannister’s new book The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist delighted me with wit and logic. (Just so you know, this chapter is called “The Loch Ness Monster’s Moustache.”)
2. “Thermal monotony.” My rough definition, based on a July 16 episode of The Takeaway, is that “thermal monotony” is the concept that all areas in a space must be the same temperature — hall and entryways and cubicles and closets. Gail Brager, of UCLA Berkley, suggested that “thermal monotony” decreases productivity and even causes ill health — particularly because the cooling in summer is so extreme — and outlined various solutions she had to cure thermal boredom and increase energy efficiency.
3. “Griffonage.” This rare noun means careless or illegible handwriting; scrawl. I kind of love it. Also, as a teacher? I’ve become fairly adept at deciphering griffonage.
4. Making a heart-string: easier than I expected.
5. I-learned-where-I’m-going-to-live-when-I’m-married!
6. I still like Thomas Hardy, as I’m now reading The Return of the Native for the first time. He’s a good story teller.
7. Planned Parenthood. I’ve been processing through things with the release of those videos: how those who sacrificed their children as offerings — Lev. 18:21; 2 Chron. 28:3 — might also have seemed like sane and even kind people in other contexts, how little we grieve for this loss of life, how helpless and ill I feel, knowing that this happens.
8. Thanks to my brother, I got to look at this fun article from Nautilus about how animals see the world, and it has pictures that let you compare:
9. White vinegar and blue Dawn dish soap, mixed in equal proportions, DO work to clean soap scum from tubs. I saw it shared on social media often enough that I finally tried it.
10. Gift registries: fun, but . . . So. Many Decisions. While we’re at it, though, I figured out that percale sheets are the kind I like.
11. In college, apparently, I had a lot of blue-colored cups: now I get to use them again. 
©2015 by Stacy Nott
Between Blue Rocks 