July

July has been a difficult month.  Nothing bad happened; it is just hard to sell a house and think about moving somewhere else.  It is hard to have to constantly anticipate someone stopping in and judging what you love. It is hard when no comes by to see your house day after day.  It is hard to look at houses and find one that will be good enough to make you okay with leaving your old place.  It's hard to find a house like that and be rejected because your house is still for sale.  It is an odd limbo land and I will be glad when it's over.

One thing I do love though--my house is CLEAN.  I am naturally a tidy person, so I have LOVED having a decluttered, tidy house.

Tomorrow I go back to school. Yes! In JULY. Unbelievable. I will be glad to get away from this house business and focus on other things. --At least, I think I will.

Somehow this month, I managed to crochet a scarf.  It has been a long time since I made a simple crocheted scarf and this project was just the thing to ease my mind after that complicated forever-taking sweater.  I always love mohair too, so that was fun.  It is a silk mohair blend, very light.  I love all the fringe on this.

I am now wending my way through my first ever pair of knitted socks.  I am following the Winwick Mum pattern.  So far, so good.  But I know I'm just at the easy part.

The garden this year has been going like other years--some vegetables do better than others.  This year we lost all of our tomato plants to some kind of pest who gnawed through the stem at the base and killed the whole plant in one go over night. Awful! The beans, eggplants, and peppers have done well.

And the zinnas are really starting to bloom.  Flowers always lift my spirits. I can't imagine a garden without flowers!

It has been good to spend time with my boys and with my two dogs.  I've been on dog rotation all summer and worry a little how this will play out when I am working so much away from home.  When I was teaching summer school and taking out the dogs one at a time, it was nice to be up right before daybreak when the birds where chorusing in full.  I guess I'll be back to that.  Which it nice, though early.

I hope I will be back next weekend rather than at the end of next month!