I’m writing this post on Sunday because we’re getting up early on Monday to watch the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, so I won’t have time to write at my usual time in the morning. Better to write it now and guarantee it’s published near the usual time instead of hoping I get to it.

Sunday was warm – 83 degrees – and sunny. I was actually rather shocked by the warm temps when I went out to water some of the plants.  There is still a lot of mowing to do, but we plan to spread it out over the week ahead. Hopefully, I’ll be able to join in. My back is getting better; I vacuumed and dusted and did a little more work on the puzzle. After all of that, I sat back down in my chair with the heating pad on.

Remember the bunnies eating all my zinnia buds? Well, I guess they didn’t get them all because these tiny zinnias have bloomed. I’m hopeful there will be a few more. The gardens along the chicken wire fence have suffered this year. The Rose of Sharon didn’t bloom as much as it would have had we had rain. The morning glories and zinnias basically came to almost nothing in the chicken wire fence garden, and the aforementioned zinnias right outside the side door grew, were eaten, and apparently fought back. The morning glories behind these zinnias are growing up the fence, but no buds are in sight. Still hoping.

What a strange and depressing summer. Frankly, though I dread winter, I’m very eager for fall. These cooler mornings and evenings are lovely. I’m afraid fall color here in my part of the northeast will be a bit of a bust because of the drought.

Okay, my friends.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Not to harp on the weather, but this heat and humidity is relentless. Both Don and I are in bad moods. With the heat index routinely around 104 degrees, it’s hard to think, let alone come up with a sunny mood.

But we try. We try. We may have some storms today, but I’ve learned not to trust those forecasts this summer. In the meantime, I spent hours yesterday adding up figures in my quest to gather together our deductions. We need to submit them to our Tax person by next Monday. I got a lot done, but I find that I can only work in the morning in this weather. By afternoon, I’m fried. So, I have to divvy up my time between dialect prep and tax prep this week. I’m supposed to work with Jim later in the week, so I have to get all my ducks in a row.

The coneflowers are drying up early this year, which breaks my heart. Even those steady little dependable flowers can’t withstand the relentless heat. Oh, and the bunnies ate all the blooms off my zinnias. I had to break it to Don that he won’t see his favorite flower this year.

Spring and summer lover that I am, I am ready for Autumn. I can’t imagine how farmers feel when faced with a drought. I feel powerless, even when it involves only my little garden. But when it’s your crop and your livelihood, my goodness! How awful it must be.

As soon as I finish this post, I’ll go out and hand water things. I briefly considered letting it go because we might have rain later. Nope. I have to do it, because what if it doesn’t rain?

But Don made an apple pie, so there’s that! And we had sugar-free vanilla ice cream!

One additional thing about Blythes – there are some customizers who routinely command high prices. Prices I could never afford. You’ll start to notice who they are. They all do beautiful work and have a distinctive style and to a collector, those dolls are worth the price. Remember, we’re talking about Art Dolls, highly collectible creations with resale value. Anyway, there are plenty of beautiful dolls out there that are reasonably priced. One other note: you might see a price of several thousand dollars on an Etsy listing and that’s usually because the doll has been sold and the seller wants to keep it in the listing so that potential buyers can see their style. That confused me at first. They price it high so that you know it’s gone and/or would never even think of paying that much.

Okay, my friends.

So sad that Mar-a-Lago was raided. Well, technically, not raided. A search warrant was executed.

I’m crying big old crocodile tears.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.