good friends, good times and warm fuzzy feelings.

This region of Texas has been freakishly hot this year, and thus my Great American Hovel has been pretty hot as well. We had our first 110 degree day in early May, and I think we've more than 50 in a row at this point of days over 100 degrees. I'd resigned myself to trying to be happy if the house was a mere 20 or 25 degrees cooler than the outside. Dear friend Matt G declared this would not stand. He knew a way to make it not so.

Last weekend, Matt G and AEPilotJim came to town and helped insulate the attic. They got into town Friday night and they and Himself sat up talking into the wee hours and I finally dragged myself and the pups off to bed about 1:30 or so. I don't know how late the fellows stayed up, but they got up about 5:30 to start working on the house. Coffee was made. I wanted to stay in bed, but decided it would be weasely of me to have a lie-in while they were doing all that hot, sweaty work in the attic. I went to fetch breakfast burritos, and they were good and done with the insulation task well before 8:00 AM.

Matt actually said the attic was pretty cool, because there was an attic fan and no proper ventilation to do anything except pull all my lovely conditioned air from the house's interior into the attic. I was impressed by how quiet the machine was, and it was amazing to see the long, intestine-like ropes of tubing with the fluffy bits pulsing through like some big vascular system as it wended its way into the attic. I should have taken a video of that-- it was really neat.

Himself and Jim manned the insulation hopper and Matt was up in the attic blasting away. The first 16 bags took less than 1.5 hours to install. Mind, Matt's done this a few times before. After the insulation was installed, Matt installed some gable vents so some air could flow in and out without being hoovered up from the house's interior. Then he put together a very nice little plug for the spider hole into the attic.

I started a brisket out front in the morning and made a cake, because I figured the least I could do would be to provide some rib-tickling eats. Despite sweating buckets, I think no one lost weight, and I'm okay with that. :)

I'd bought 16 bundles of Atticat insulation at Homedespot(buy more than 10 and the blower rental is free), and I ended up buying a few more. I have gone from about 1"-3" of insulation throughout the attic, to a uniform 16". They all worked tirelessly and now my house is actually cool.

But the coolest thing of all is when a good friend does something unexpectedly that is extremely kind and helpful, asking nothing in return. I confess I'm amazed these folks would come all this way, take time to do this for the mere sake of helping a friend. I'm humbled, truly I am.

Thanks so much, guys. You are dear, golden friends, and I love you!