So I’m from Maryland. Temperatures above 90 degrees? No big deal. My hometown is literally built on a swamp, and the humidity doesn’t phase me. Usually. Considering my “time outdoors” consists of dashing from my car to the cool confines of my air-conditioned office, I don’t sweat it (puns!) when it gets exceedingly hot.

Which it has been. Horribly so. In the Washington, D.C. area, we’re wrapping up eleven straight days of temperatures hitting 95 degrees and up, and I have been one sweaty, cranky person. The heat has been getting to me in the worst way, making me one frizzy-haired nightmare — and that especially sucks considering I’ve had so many fun things to do outside lately. Between family reunions, the Fourth of July, crab feasts, fireworks and more, the past week has been really fun . . . and really sweaty.

Seriously. I took three showers on Saturday.

All the same, we hit a friend’s Fourth of July party on Wednesday (no work! Yay, America’s birth!), hung out by the pool (but not in the pool . . . your girl can’t swim) and ate delicious barbeque. Though we didn’t make it out for fireworks, we lit (legal) firecrackers in the backyard. The next night found us at a baseball game with my cousins and their adorable little girls, in town from Pennsylvania, and I think I sweated off 10 lbs. in the bug-infested night air. The Blue Crabs were losing 11-4 when we ducked out in the eighth inning, unable to take any more of the soul-crushing humidity.

Spence and I managed to get up at 2:30 a.m. to see the sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay on Saturday with our photography club, which is always beautiful and life-affirming. The mosquitoes and my agitation had reached sky-high proportions by 7 a.m., though, so it was off for pancakes and a two-hour nap before we hit my aunt’s belated Fourth of July party. We stayed until dusk approached, and then I came home and tried to stay awake until a “normal” time . . . which ended up being 9:30-ish. After the busy day and crazy sleep pattern, I was wiped out. I actually felt jet lagged.

Sunday was made for more time with family — and a big one, at that! We were thrilled to see my grandmother, cousins and my dad’s extended family at a local seafood house, where we picked crabs, gabbed and covered ourselves in Old Bay. I haven’t spent so much time in such good company in ages — and I loved it. And so much good eating.

Crabs and family. That’s what (my) Maryland does.