...and the rains came

Boy, did they. We got 2 inches of rain in two hours last night, and a big ol' rain/windstorm on Sunday that knocked out power for hours.
It's monsoon season in Phoenix, which means that a big nasty thunderstorm marches in from the north or the southeast (yes, all the mountains around here means the weather circulation is a little different) almost every evening.
Mind you, I'm NOT complaining. The t-storms have broken our heat wave, at least for now. Instead of 115 plus everyday, we're at 100 or 105 degrees. It makes a huge difference, even if the humidity is 10 times greater than three weeks ago.
However, the rains coming in on Saturday, and the cloudy day before that, led directly to me getting the mother of all sunburns whilst playing at our friend's pool up in Cave Creek. Unlike our earlier bash up there, we were slovenly about applying sunscreen, due to the clouds and the cooler weather. My legs turned a purplish-red color I have never seen before! WOW. But no blisters. And aloe vera gel got it under control in about two days.
In the writing world, I finished the column for Echo. I took out all the ponderous stuff and left in the humor. It's really hard for me (as the former editor) not to turn every opinion piece I do for them into a sermon.
I'm learning how to get a lot more freelance irons in the fire these days. I'm not there yet, but I'm trying to do enough prep work to send things out that have a chance of acceptance/payment/seeing print, but not laboring over it and wasting time making it "perfect." It's hard. I still have that "gotta getta A" school-leftover syndrome.
Scooter's older daughter (not the new momma) restrung Scooter's Martin guitar on Sunday. She bought some brighter strings and it does sound better. Scooter and daughter sang and played "Marty," easily the favorite guitar of both of them (and they have close to 10 guitars between them); it was fun to watch and sing along.
I have to work on a bunch of computer stuff at home tonight. I've meant to update the blog more than once or twice a week, but judging from some of my other blogging peers, this is the dog days of blogging and no one's updating much.