It’s hot. We’re hitting triple-digit temperatures with the word ‘teen’ at the end of them. Every time I poke my head out the front door it feels like I opened the oven to peek in on some biscuits. Only this oven has a jet-fan blasting the heat at fifty miles per hour.

This weekend I visited my parents (and their swimming pool). We started frolicking in the just-under 90 degree water at seven a.m. and quit at eleven a.m. It was already over a hundred degrees in the shade by noon. No sane person ventures out until 9 p.m. to go for another lap. Even then it’s soggy with heat and feels like bath water.

The weather at the moment is dangerous as well as miserable. Yesterday alone, I read, there have been six heat-related deaths. Tonight, on the TV news, I heard the area total was 29 deaths.

It’s this week with the oppressing temperatures that I get the urge to garden. It's more than an urge, I HAVE to garden. I know it’s an odd time – really quite crazy.

I can’t help it though.

My internal nesting clock has gone haywire and in overdrive. It’s kind of like the months before Jay was born. Okay, maybe not like those. I never got the nesting bug when pregnant with Jay. I was too sick and on bed rest to move much.

The only thing I can attribute this seed-planting-and-lavender-bush-buying urge to it is the expectation of our next child. With Craig we painted, cleaned, painted some more and then took our efforts outside to the yard. I planted seeds in the flowerbeds during November that didn’t sprout ‘til spring. I had daydreams of gardening with Craig while he crawled around the dirt and plants with his chubby baby legs and hands.

This time we’re going through the states foster/adopt. We are tentatively scheduled for parenting classes in October, which seems awfully early to get this ‘make our home and yard extra cozy’ urge. It could be another two years before we get matched. So I could be wrong about what’s inspiring me – but it sure feels an awful lot like the nesting bug.