July 1, Wednesday: If Memorial Day officially marks the start of the BBQ season for the warm months ahead, to me July marks the true beginning of the summer. I do realize it starts in June. Never mind. We have milder temperatures in June as a rule, but July comes in with all the heat and humidity, gnats, flies, mosquitoes and pop-up rain showers or heat produced lightning and thunder that is characteristic of true summer here in the south. Most of all, it is full on peach season. Farmers stands are filled with fresh produce that is truly fresh and locally grown.
Suddenly I find myself thinking of sitting under the sprinkler on a hot afternoon, watching the droplets of water form rainbows and shivering delightfully as the cold-water hits hot skin. Or spending an afternoon watching great fluffy cumulus clouds floating overhead. Cicadas lull me to sleep at night with their persistent rhythmic sound.
Yes, I am waxing poetic over summer. I know too well that I'll be weary as can be of heat and humidity and gnats within a month. Come Mid-August, the peach season will end. We'll have a quick 'cool' wave that isn't really cool but is less hot. And then we'll heat right back up and whine out way through September and most of October before we get a bit of relief from it all. But for just now, I'm embracing the fact that summer is here.
I stopped at the peach shed today and chose a half dozen of three different varieties to bring home. I don't know why I did that, because they are all in one bag and I don't know which variety is what. Perhaps next week's peaches will be just one variety. I ought to make notes about each variety as I eat them so that I can finally say assuredly that one or another is my favorite. But today, they are all in one bag. I was focused on something else peachy today, hence my lack of forethought. And what was that other peachy item? I treated myself to a child's portion of fresh peach ice cream.
Hot summer day and a cold swirly cup of ice cream...Can there be a better summer treat? I don't think so!
I finished up June by working, naturally. I started the great shed sorting out and made some headway. The shed has been off limits for so long that I truly had forgotten I'd already made a hard, fast declutter months ago before Sam asked to store the mattress in it. So there's not as much to do in that space as I kept thinking there might be. Mind you, it's enough to keep me busy and will likely net me a couple of more trips to the donation center, but it's not bad.
I also spent time puttering in my kitchen. I experimented making Cheddar Jalapeno Bagels, made a batch of caramel corn using the last of my movie theatre popcorn, and stocked the freezer with biscuits. But not all my time was spent in the shed and kitchen. The house got a proper cleaning, too.
Today, for the first day of this new month, I sat down and went over my finances. I did this right after John died and held my breath until I had income once more, being very cautious. And once income did begin again, I tried to catch up on the medical bills, expenses and such that were above the usual household expenses. To be honest, I wasn't really sure where I'd come to rest at the end of the second fiscal quarter of the year. I sort of glanced at the bank balances and made decisions based on a half guess as to where paying another thing off would land me.
I thought it time to look at it properly and see where I am. Remembering that I had practically no income in April, a funeral, a credit card to pay off, car repairs, medical bills, had socked money into savings, etc., as well as the usual living expenses, I find that I have landed right where I started when I first assessed where I was. How this can be so puzzles me, but I've gone over the figures three times and it's the same each time. I've broken even. And I think that is a rather grand thing.
As a reward to myself for being so mindful of the financial side of things, I've decided I can splurge just a bit and am buying a rug and a pair of curtains for the study. I'd been saving bits of my allowance since December to make my workspace as I dreamed it (sort of) and I had those funds still. So I used them to pay for those items.
I've worked up my budget for the third (!) quarter of the year. That just blows my mind, that we're now in the third quarter. But it's truth that we are.
Because it is a new month, I went grocery shopping. I think, aside from more peaches, lettuce and milk, I am pretty much set for food for the month of July.
I'd contemplated going to the annual fireworks at the church tonight, but truly I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in the heat waiting for the fireworks...and then there was the thought of the HUGE crowds who show up and the traffic and driving home in the dark. It was easy to say, "No" in light of all the negatives. In the end, I find I'm quite all right being 'at home' this evening, watching the sunset and enjoying the gentle night-ing sounds of the birds.
July 5, Sunday: What a busy set of days followed Wednesday. Thursday, mindful of the fact that I'd be gone most of the day on Friday, I did my weekly house blessing. I always enjoy these basic household things. It didn't hurt a bit to have boiling hot, beautifully sunny weather, so clothes all hung outdoors and dried in about the same time as using the dryer.
Mindful again that I was going out the next day, I made an entree that I felt would do nicely for the weekend meals and using a new to me recipe made up a faulty batch of pizza dough. Never again! I had to clear my bread machine and literally start it all again which rather peeved me. I thought I was the one who had messed up but on looking at the amount of ingredients in the pan, I realized it was not me but the fault of the recipe author.
On Friday, I got up and readied myself to spend a morning out with Katie. John has given me lovely jewelry over the year, but I wanted especially to wear a pair of lovely little diamond studs that he gave me in the beginning days of our relationship. However, I never felt they showed to their best advantage on my ear, even with short hair. A second piercing that would be well placed behind my first seemed to me to be the answer.
So, Katie and I went off to have our piercings done. She wanted to get her daith pierced to help ward off migraines. It didn't hurt. It was nothing like it was when I got my first piercing done. At that time, someone stood on either side of me and used what appeared to be a sort of nail gun to shoot a gold stud through my earlobe. The noise the thing was loud and yes, it did hurt a good bit. Well, no more of that. Now it's just a squared off U shaped bit of plastic and what you hear is a bit of a loud click and feel a bit of pressure. It's the click that startles you, not the stud going through the ear.
We had a lovely lunch out and took plenty of leftover food home for Cody to enjoy. It's always good value when you can get three or four servings from a couple of meals. It was quite warm and I was glad to head home.
But I didn't come alone. I brought Caleb and Taylor home with me to stay the night. They were both excited to come and play in the sprinkler. Mind you, they have a pool at home, but it was the idea of a sprinkler that thrilled them.
Don't they look as though they were having a lot of fun? I think what they enjoyed nearly as much was that I pulled my chair out into the yard and squealed each time the cold water hit me, lol. They had a grand time. Then we came indoors to eat a scratched together sort of supper.
The big hit at supper time was that we had fresh peaches. Taylor has never before eaten a fresh peach, and not because she's never been offered one. She's always refused but she decided to give it a try. I've noticed since she started sports, she seems to eat more and more foods she used to shun. She was over the moon about peaches and even tricked Caleb into giving his to her, lol. So, she ate about 3 peaches altogether.
After supper, she and I worked on scrapbooks and Caleb played checkers with me (at the same time). He'd never played checkers before but my distraction explaining diagonal moves and making sure he didn't jump like a frog all over the black squares led to him capturing all but two of my men and him being crowned with five kings who terrorized me and finally trapped me on the board so I had to concede. I'll never tell you I am an expert strategist...but I refuse to believe a first timer could beat me that soundly! lol
Taylor and I had a lovely time after Caleb went to bed and was asleep doing more scrapbooking together. She started a summer journal...And then left it here. I shall have to see if I can't get it to her so she might carry on with it for the next few months.
I set ground rules with Caleb this time. No getting out of bed, except to go to the bathroom until I was up. No getting into the cars and pushing buttons and twisting knobs. No getting up and helping himself to whatever he pleased from the drink and cereal cupboard or fridge.
I have to say, he didn't disappoint me at all. But I guess my nerves were jangling because I kept dreaming he was up roaming the house, lol. However, I discovered when I got up that Taylor had moved into his room and slept with him in the big bed. She said she got too hot in the study. That's possible, but the truth is, Taylor has only ever spent one other night here with me and then she called her mom to come calm her down...And that's exactly why I decided to have Caleb here with her this time around!
I was surprised the children rushed me to take them home. I knew Katie had plans for the morning and they had planned a family gathering for lunchtime, a proper July 4th barbecue, so we had a leisurely morning to be at Gramma's house. But never mind the children insisted we needed to load up and head to their house. When we arrived, we found Cody was sound asleep! I 'commanded the forces' and we got dinner items started (potato salad, meals for Bella and Henry, Not the Mama making coffee for Cody). I'm sure those two guys were just thrilled to have a bossy female come in and rush them into busyness. Soon the grill was going, and squash was cooking, and eggs and potatoes boiling and all the things were going. Katie's appointment ran longer than she'd expected but she got home just as our barbecue meal was fully ready.
We all ate far too much. Especially those of us who had plans for the evening hours (myself, Not the Mama and the best friends who'd joined us). We all left about the same time, commenting on how very hot it was outdoors. My car said 112 inside and that was with the windows open! Cody's dad jokingly stated that at least his coffee had stayed hot in the car. I believed it. It 'cooled off' to 100 on the way home.
My second invitation for the evening was to Sam's for burgers, which he grilled on my grill. Those were super tasty but truly too much food for me and I paid the price the rest of the evening being uncomfortable. And to think I used to overeat every single meal instead of just once in a long while! And I did cut portions greatly today, mindful of the quantity of food I'd face. Too much and so good. When I left Sam's he and the children were headed into the pool where they were hoping they might see glimmerings of the neighbors' fireworks.
All that food kept me awake last night. It wasn't too many carbs, just too much. I slept finally propped up on three pillows but that made for a fitful night. So, I slapped the alarm off and rolled over and went right back to sleep this morning. That meant I missed the window of time to head to church. I decided after all, I'd take time to clean out the grills from last night's barbecue and then have coffee and breakfast while I watched today's service online.
And from there, I've puttered about. A few chores, then a sit down and binge watch a program, then I'd do a few more things and sit down to binge watch a few more episodes. I would have happily taken a nap about 4pm...but my personal set of rules says that 4pm is far too late to take a nap. Sometimes I hate the rule making me. I think I'd have felt better for a ten-minute nap.
Plans for the week ahead, include a special group meeting I've been invited to attend, getting the study set as much as I might with the new things as they arrive, house blessing on Monday and Thursday again this week, since Friday is booked in. And somewhere in there I plan to take the trio of kiddos out and then have them here to spend the night. Busy week ahead! And that's how most all of July is looking at present.
July 8, Wednesday: Well this week is not going to plan! And I finally surrendered my plans and let go of my idea of how things would be and here we are.
Sunday, I took a long nap mid-afternoon and woke a bit shivery. I put on a sweater, pulled a light throw over my lap and felt a bit amazed that as hot as it was meant to be July had suddenly turned so cool. Nope.
I went to bed and spent another miserable night tossing and turning, only to finally fall deeply asleep in the very early morning hours. I woke sick. And from there the day was spent moving from bed to chair to chair and back to bed. Wherever I lit, I slept for a bit before getting up to move again. I didn't eat. I barely could hold water down. Thankfully I had some older medication on hand to fight off symptoms. I slept for about 40 hours in the 48-hours that followed.
I thought I'd bounce right back. You know the way I used to do 20 or 30 years ago. Ha and ha. Nope. But I hoped I would as I'd promised the children across the field that we'd do something this week, including a spend the night here at my house.
This morning, I realized that my plans for this week were completely shot. I think it was when I went out to the car, planning to drive into town and I had to rest before I could drive off...No, the old bounce back is not there anymore. I was more like a ball with about half the air. I wouldn't have gone to town at all, but I had to pay my electric bill. They have this rather nasty tendency to charge me extra if I'm late and today was the final due date. I had some rather gross smelling trash that needed to go to the dumpster. I was desperate for a banana, a lemon and a Sprite Zero, in that order and going into town was the only way to manage any of those things. So off I went.
And that is when I made up my mind firmly that I absolutely was in no fit shape to take on three children, even ones as good as those three generally are. Especially if I thought I'd take them to do 'something' which had been the plan.
It might have been obvious to anyone that I would be in no shape to do anything with them, but I am stubborn and refuse to break my word if I can avoid it. But that little trip into town wiped me out. All I wanted to do when I returned was to melt into a chair and do nothing more. What I did was water the plants indoors and the ones on the back porch, made the last of the pink lemonade powder up and then I collapsed into the chair as I'd planned. I ate a banana and drank my Sprite.
Sam came in, dusty from head to toe after mowing our lawns. We talked for a bit and I told him of an incident that had upset me which I could tell bothered him since it involved his household...The truth is that the situation in his household had not bothered me that much at all. What bothered me was my own determination that I simply had to be responsible and keep my word to the children when in fact, I didn't feel at all like keeping the children. I was focusing anger on another who often shirks responsibilities because I thought I was doing the same.
I told Sam I was going to call and speak to the children and cancel plans for this week...And you know what? Sam was fine with it. The children were fine with it. Remarkably, once I'd allowed myself that courtesy, I felt fine with it, too. In fact, with the pressure off, I found a felt better overall. I had given myself permission to take time to heal, which I desperately need.
I have to say again how blessed I am with my children, most especially Katie and Sam. They don't hover. But they do check in routinely and especially when I say I've been sick, it's nice to have them look in, text or call.
Sam had given me a lovely bag of vegetables from his garden the other day and I'd taken a load of squash and zucchini and cucumbers to Katie, plus kept an eggplant, squash, and zucchini for myself. Today was the first day I'd cooked a meal since last week and I had determined that absolutely nothing sounded half so good as Ratatouille. The only thing I lacked was basil. Sam has an entire raised 6 foot bed of basil, so I texted and asked if one of the children might bring me 'a handful' of basil. Of course, he'd send Josh right over.
I made a glass of lemonade for Josh, which seemed fair since he walked over in the heat to bring me the basil. Y'all...lol
Josh came in with what appeared to be empty hands and then held out his palm with tiny little basil leaves in it the middle of his hand. "Dad said you'd need about 8 leaves." Mind you all that most of the leaves on Sam's plants are palm sized. Josh must have picked the newest most tender of leaves and he'd picked only eight. I didn't say a word to fuss just thanked him nicely and urged him to drink his glass of lemonade before making the hot walk back home. I supplemented with the basil I'd dried.
And it was so good. Just truly lovely with all that sweet, garden fresh vegetables and tomatoes in it. I have a dish full of it leftover and texted Sam later that I really wanted to have it over a big baked potato. I expect what I shall do is cook a bit of rice and roast a chicken thigh or two to have with the rest.
July 9, Thursday: It is well I felt better today. Not quite up to 100% but goodness I felt to be a good deal stronger and closer than I did yesterday. But the morning nearly broke me.
Do you know how you can tolerate a fussy sort of morning with equilibrium most of the time but when you feel not quite yourself it all feels a bit too challenging? Meet my morning.
It's been incredibly hot and dry. Yesterday I managed to struggle through watering the four plants on the back porch and those indoors. This morning I was determined that if I did nothing else, I should get the patio and front porch pots watered. Hence, I headed right out this morning to feed and water. I only fed the front porch plants. I just wasn't up to feeding and watering both on the patio. However, I thought, I could hook up the sprinkler and leave it running long enough to get the pots on the patio watered.
Well...The only blamed thing the sprinkler 'watered' this morning was me! I mean it went off and soaked me to the skin from head to toe, right away. I wiped away what I could of the water droplets on my face and glasses, I decided it was best to just use the hose to do the watering.
I did that and immediately Rufus came along and let me understand that this morning, he was waiting on his breakfast and would appreciate my coming right away. I said, "Give me a moment to get a towel and I'll meet you on the back porch." That dog understands too well what I say. I went right to the bathroom for the towel and right to the back door. When I opened it, there stood Rufus looking in the door at me.
I fed him and came indoors, prepared to start my day's work. I was in the midst of getting it started when my phone rang. I texted back that I was going to make coffee and I'd call right back. The coffee pot decided that this morning was its 8th year of brewing and that was quite enough thank you. So I dug to the back of the cupboard and hauled out the electric percolator which proved tricky, then drippy. And it took forever to brew. I started a few other tasks, made breakfast and finally just unplugged the coffee pot in frustration and drank the brew which proved to be terrifically fortifying and strong. It seemed a good time to stop the morning and chat with my friend and then begin afresh later which I did.
Eventually I worked my way through the house while talking away with my friend the whole while. She was on the other end of the call doing the same courtesy of a new house puppy who was keeping her on her toes removing chewable items from lower levels. However, two houses got tidied during that call so no harm done on either side.
I was done by the time I stopped to prepare my lunch. I'd accomplished quite a bit, which made me happy, and rested enough between tasks to not feel all done in. I found myself enjoying a rather nice nap.
This evening we had a terrific thunderstorm with rain so heavy I couldn't see through it to any part of the yard at all. I shall not have to water anything at all tomorrow morning. Yet despite the rain, we have a lovely sunset for the evening.
Tomorrow I've a handful of necessary chores to attend to, then a luncheon to which I was invited for the church widows. I am reserving my opinion, but I'm being polite to a woman I met when we first went to our church who was unfailingly friendly and I shall do right by her since she's always been very nice indeed. I have a short list of necessary errands related to two impending birthdays and two more at the end of the month and the missionary mail. And then I plan to come home and enjoy my tidy home and the weekend ahead. If I'm feeling better (and I do seem to be on the rise) I hope to go into town on Saturday for the monthly Market Day. I've always meant to go but never knew when it was since it never falls on the same day nor at the same time. I've found the Chamber of Commerce has a lovely county page that keeps me informed of local events and I'm going to try to take advantage of that.
I've a new book by my chair which seems a lovely way to pass time this weekend as well. Here's hoping it's a good one. I'm afraid of the last 3 I've purchased, which includes this one, one is a sad no and one is not at all what I expected. Perhaps book 3 is the charm?
I hope you all have a lovely weekend. And that we have a lovely week next week.
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