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A View From the Field |
July 2015 July 31 Well, I've successfully made it through another year with no serious convulsions except some financial ones. Amazing. As I said to the Facebook people who sent me good wishes, I can celebrate the day but not the year.
I don't have much to report. I got to bed around 1:00, I think, but I didn't sleep all that well. I was a bit too warm under the comforter, but I didn't want to go without it because of my back. And besides, I had cats all night long. It ended up with Louie at the end of the bed, lying on his back all stretched out, but parallel to the side of the bed, and Grayson sleeping beside my head, where Louie usually is. I was up several times, and turning over with the covers, the body pillow and the cats was difficult and I wasn't very comfortable.
I guess I got up around 9:30, which wasn't enough sleep, and I knitted and did the usual stuff. My back is stiff but not in spasms, so I guess all I have to do is be very careful for a few days and it will go away. Johanna is going to give me some kind of rub to put on it. I did exercise, and that helped, and I sat on the heating pad all afternoon.
By the way, I haven't been to the post office yet. I'll do that Monday.
The weather has cooled off nicely. The high temperature for the day was 73º, and there was a brisk wind out of the north, with gusts up to 30 mph. It was clear to partly cloudy all day. While I was doing my exercises, I was watching the wind pushing some high clouds across the harbor. There was a lot of sunshine and blue water, with some occasional whitecaps. Nice. Tonight is the second full moon of the month, and we should be able to see it, although it hasn't appeared in my south window yet.
The guys were sleepy. Grayson spent some time on my lap, but I haven't seen Louie yet. He got some loving while I was in the powder room and he jumped up on the chair.
I invited Johanna to Harbor Haus, and we are going tomorrow. So I had almost my usual Friday night supper - fish - tonight. I can wait. Besides, I've said for some time that the older you get, the longer you should celebrate your birthdays.
This one isn't particularly interesting to me, because it's just another year. Next year is a milestone, if I reach it, and then I might be more excited about it. Frankly, I don't feel any older than I did yesterday, and I certainly don't feel my age, except when I try to get up out of my chair.
So it's a coolish, clearish night in the field, and I'm officially a year older. Oh, and I'd better get that new license tab on my car tomorrow.
July 30 I got to bed around midnight last night, and I slept for a while. But when I went to get up around 3:00, I discovered, much to my dismay, that my back had gone into spasms. It's been a long time since that last happened, and I don't like it one bit. The only thing I can figure is that it cooled down more than I anticipated, and I wasn't covered up enough. Anyway, I had a terrible time making it to the bathroom and back, so I immediately dug out the heating pad and strapped it around me. Since the bed was full of cats and I hurt, I didn't sleep very well for the rest of the night. I was up once more, and I got up around 10:00.
I knitted, of course, and then I did my exercises for the second time in two days. There is enough stretching in those that I felt better by the time I went to get my breakfast, and my back just felt stiff. When I got to the studio, I put the other heating pad on my back, and by the time I went to choir, I didn't feel too bad, although I wore a sweater (in 75º heat) just to make sure I stayed very warm. And I did - very warm. We'll see how things are when I get up, but I will be being very careful to keep warm overnight, and I think I will use the heating pad again.
The big problem is that both cats have decided my bed is the place to sleep. They were both with me almost all night, and when I came out of the bathroom to do my exercises, which I do on the bed, they were both in it already, and they were not real interested in giving me any space. So while I was exercising, Louie was beside me and Grayson was between my feet.
The other problem is that it's been so long since I've exercised that I'm very stiff. The leg exercises aren't too bad, but I can't do the shoulder ones very well at all. And actually, that is one reason I didn't start earlier in the year. I didn't think it would do my shoulders any good at all if I was exercising while they were so sore. Now I will just have to work up to the number I could do when I stopped. I was startled to discover that I had all that physical therapy four years ago. It sure doesn't seem that long.
The weather was mostly nice. It was cloudy, then clear, then cloudy again. The high temperature was 78º, for several hours this afternoon. It was still very windy, with gusts up to 37 mph this morning, but overnight the direction shifted to the northwest. There were some nice whitecaps on the harbor, which is so pretty when it's clear and sunny. It's still breezy now, but the wind is finally dying down.
The guys were sleepy, mostly in my bed. Nobody sat on me. Poo.
Choir went well and we sounded good. There was some traffic going south, and I thought I was in for it going north, but I took Cliff Drive and lapped all the slow ones. There certainly is more traffic around than I'm used to.
So now I have to wash my hair, even though I'm not going out tomorrow. It has dried out enough that I don't like to wash it two days in a row if I can avoid it. And I have to try to prevent my back from seizing up again overnight. It's not fair; it wasn't that cool! So I will have to cover at least my back with the down comforter, like it or not. My new cotton blanket isn't as warm as the old one I had on my twin bed a million years ago.
It's a cloudy, coolish (for August) night in the field, and I think it's quite cloudy. It might even rain a bit.
July 29 It was another late night last night, but not quite as late as the night before. I got up at a reasonable hour, which means I'm tired now, and I knitted, but only one repeat.
When I got to the kitchen, it was clear we'd had a power failure, and just as my toast was finishing, we had another one, a nasty one that bounced the power several times before it went down and the generator came on. When I got to the studio with my breakfast, the computer was off, and when I turned it on, I got one of those nasty messages that said the computer couldn't start, and did I want to fix the problem. Well, sure, but after sitting and watching for 20 minutes or so - long after I'd finished my breakfast - it said it couldn't fix the problem. Geez. What good is that? It shut itself off, but when I started it again, it came up just fine, and I can see no signs that there was any problem at all.
As it turned out, it appears that the first power failure was only around 11:30 or so, so it wasn't bad. I called it in to the power company, and the power came back around 2:00, I think - I didn't notice. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon doing my surfing.
The only thing about the power failure was that the last picture from the camera, at 11:25, shows bright clear skies, and by the time I had the computer back together, it had clouded over and it looked yucky. It was like that for most of the rest of the afternoon. Darn. It wasn't supposed to do that. The temperature was nearly steady around 75º, which is ideal, and the humidity was delightfully low. The problem - and the reason for the power problems - is that we are having a nice blow. While the base wind has only been in the middle teens, the gusts have been as high as 35 mph that were recorded, and I suspect they might have been higher while the weather station was down. The wind has been out of the west or northwest, so it has been hitting the front of the house, and I was able to have the east side windows open. It was nice, and almost a little cool.
The guys went their own ways. I don't think they like the wind. Grayson did sleep on my lap twice, but I haven't seen much of Louie since this morning. He sits almost under my feet while I'm knitting in the morning. And he slept with me for a while during the night.
I guess the wind may die down some overnight, but it was kind of fun, especially when the sun was out. There were respectable whitecaps on the harbor, something we haven't seen much this summer. Of course, it's noisy at the north end, because the wind bangs around that corner of the house, but that's all right. I'll take the noise for the nice temperature and the low humidity.
Now it's a cloudy, windy night in the field.
July 28 I still don't know how I was so late getting to bed last night, but I was, and I didn't get up until noon. Then I knitted for a long time, but I have a good start on the right side edging. I haven't figured out how, even after all the times I've repeated that pattern, I still screw up, but fortunately, it wasn't badly. It's one reason I only knit in the morning, when I'm fresh, and I only knit lace when I'm all alone and there are no distractions.
Well, there are the usual ones. It still smells good, although today I was smelling something not so good that I think was just dust.
I was so late that I didn't do anything but my surfing. The chapel service was Responsive Prayer 1, but there was no homily and they added some stuff. I finally figured out who is the soloist a lot of these times. The Kantor (Mr. Hildebrand) plays and the Assistant Kantor, who has studied voice, is the singer. He has a lovely tenor voice. Evidently, all the special classes are over now, so the only people there are the seminarians who are taking summer courses. I guess a big one is Greek. You have to know Greek to get into seminary, and men who didn't go to a LCMS college probably don't have it, so they have to go to summer school to get caught up. There is one guy who sits fairly close to the microphone who can't sing, but most of the rest of them can. And they sing loud.
The weather was very summery again. Very summery. The high temperature was 83º, about 2:00, but it just barely got under 70º overnight, and it's been in the upper 70s to about 80º all day. The wind has been from the southwest, and there were gusts up to 22 mph. That was fine, if I could have the west side opened up, but I haven't fixed the screen yet, so it's been rather warm at the north end. It was partly to mostly cloudy all day, and they kept threatening thunderstorms, but they haven't materialized yet, and they keep pushing them ahead. Now it's 3:00 AM. The only nice thing is that for most of the day, the humidity was under 60%. That made it more tolerable, or at least I didn't sweat much.
The guys were sleepy, of course. Louie slept with me and when I went up to the north end to get a clean pair of underpants, they were both laid out in the bed, very comfy. Grayson didn't even come and sit on me after breakfast, but that's all right, because it was really too hot to have a warm cat on my lap.
Tonight I have to wash my hair, so we'll see when I get to bed. Now it's a partly cloudy, warm night in the field, and it might rain. Or it might not. Actually, we need the rain, so we can hope.
July 27 Well, I didn't get to bed quite as early as I'd planned, because I decided I wanted to replace the little light that died, and that meant I had to look at a lot of stuff on the website. Not that I found anything, but you never know. I have a great fondness for sewing tools, and I never know when somebody will come up with something I can't live without. Heh.
I got up around 10:00, but I knitted for a very long time. I finished the first side of the edging and set up the second side, so now I can charge ahead. Only nineteen repeats - 608 rows - to go. You may have noticed that about this time in a project, I find it getting boring, but I don't want to leave it unfinished, so I will keep knitting. I'm thinking about the next one, though. Those beads are calling me.
Other than that, I didn't do much of anything. I didn't really have time. There was church tonight, and it was nice. Trouble is, there were five kinds of pie, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I didn't get to taste all the ones I wanted. Mary Ann is a very good baker, which is odd, because she doesn't eat a lot of the stuff she bakes.
The weather was summery. We had our high temperature, 82º, at 10:00 this morning, but then it went down to 68º at 2:00 before it rebounded to 76º. I guess part of the reason was the wind, which got as high as 15 mph from the north. For most of the afternoon, though it was nearly calm. It was also very humid. Not my favorite kind of weather.
So we did almost nothing. The guys slept, I guess. I didn't see much of them.
Now it's a warm, humid and clear night in the field. The gibbous moon is shining in the south windows. And I am going to bed tonight. Really.
July 26 I'm going to bed.
Last night, I turned out the light about 10:00, but it was a while longer before I went to sleep. I was up several times, and I was having a weird potty dream when the alarm went off. It was weird partly because I really didn't have to go to the bathroom at all, so I don't know what that one was all about. Maybe my tummy was growling or something.
I got up and I did my morning thing, and I left around the time I intended. There were a couple of slow drivers - a couple of bikers - and I had to do some fancy passing before I got a clear road ahead of me. Being able to use Cliff Drive usually solves most of my problems.
Church was good. We sang well, even though we were a couple of people shy, and there was communion. Pastor's sermon was a good one, too, although he did get slightly sidetracked on Archimedes' Principle. He did his undergrad work at Tech, so he is sort of a tech geek. The only problem was, it was hot. In fact, it was so hot that Pastor didn't wear his robes. I was sweating before we finished singing. The car said it was 80º by the time we left, but it was humid as well, and you have to remember, we up here in the north country are just not used to temperatures over about 75º.
Driving home was a trial. There were a lot of people coming in this direction for some reason, and all of them were driving slowly. I had the A/C on, so I was relatively comfortable, but I really wanted to get home and take off all my clothes, and besides, some of those people were ridiculous. I did a lot of passing. Getting into an through town was hard, because there was a line of two R/Vs and four cars by that time, and they all take the hill down from the Mountain Lodge to the blinker very slowly and cautiously. I was glad to get home.
I didn't take off all my clothes, just most of them, and I had a little lunch and did nothing for the rest of the afternoon.
However, the high temperature for the day, 78º happened at 3:00 this morning and 10:00 this morning. By the time I got home, the wind had picked up from the north and the temperature had dropped to 74º, and it stayed in the low 70s for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, at the same time, the dew point rose into the mid 60s, so it has been very humid. Now wind, which was between 15 and 20 mph from the north all afternoon, has dropped to nothing, so it's not exactly comfortable.
The guys apparently do not like the wind in the open windows, unlike me. I think Louie spent the whole night in the hallway in front of the basement door. I don't know where Grayson was. They were around in the morning, and Louie got up on the chair in the powder room when I came home, but I haven't seen him since. Grayson came and went to sleep on my lap for quite a while this afternoon, so that was nice. They are funny little critters.
So it's finally summer here. I'm not sure I like it, even though I can have the house opened up. I don't like it warm and humid. However, having the windows open has enabled me to smell the out-of-doors, and it is more fragrant than I can ever remember. I can't exactly explain the smell. It's sweet and spicy, sort of like some fragrant hybrid roses, but not quite. It's heavenly, but at the same time, it's musky enough that it gives me a headache (I'm allergic to musk and sandalwood). I guess with the last two cool summers, I had forgotten how it smells here, or maybe this is something different. Every so often I will get a whiff of car exhaust or the exhaust from the boiler, and that isn't nice at all. Yuck.
The half moon is shining in the windows now and I'm tired. I read for most of the afternoon, and I'm about to start a new (old) story, so I think instead I will go to bed.
It's a clear, calm, warm summer night in the field.
July 25 So last night, I made it into bed by midnight, I think. I didn't get up until 11:00 or so, but I was up any number of times, so I really didn't get eleven hours' sleep. Not that I did anything with it.
I knitted for a long time. I finished the seventeenth repeat, which is the last one that abuts the center panel, so I had to unzip the end edging and get that ready to knit onto, and it took me a while, and several rows, to get it straight. Now I have just over one and a half repeats to go and I'll be finished with the first side. What I like about making a stole or scarf is that I don't have to worry about rows with 400 or more stitches in them. However, I think the next project is going to be a triangle. I still have a way to go on this one, though, and we'll see. I still haven't decided if the next one will be dark red or turquoise, although I'm leaning toward dark red. We'll see.
That was about all I did, except that I washed a load of dark blue towels, which are now in the dryer. I wanted to get that done before I put the sheets and dirty towels to soak, because I will have to soak them for four or five days to get them clean (if even that works).
Today was a nicer day than yesterday, but maybe it was because I didn't do anything much. The temperature did get up to 82º just a little while ago, but the dew point has gone down a lot. It was more humid this morning, but then the temperature was in the middle 70s, which was nice. My ideal temperature is around 75º with very low humidity, I think. It was mostly clear until around 5:00, and there are now some high clouds in the north and west. For most of the day there was a nice breeze out of the north, although that has died down now. Lovely. It's nice to have the house opened up, although I didn't get the screens patched yet, so I couldn't open up the porch. Tomorrow, maybe.
The guys were sleepy, of course. Grayson slept on my lap for a long time, and Louie sort of crashed by the door to the basement. Sometimes I can't figure out why he sleeps where he does.
So now it's the usual Saturday night stuff, and I need to get to bed early. I felt good for most of the day, but I'm getting tired again. It's a partly cloudy, warm evening in the field.
July 24 I was a little earlier last night, but not a lot, since I had to take a bath. I was so sticky and icky I didn't want to lie in my nice clean bed, and besides, I had to wash my hair. I finally got up around 10:00, but when I got dressed, I discovered that BettyAnn had left around 9:00 to go and let her neighbors' dogs out. So I didn't even get a chance to thank her properly. Oh, well.
All that meant was that I could have knitted and I didn't. And besides, I decided to see if I could sit through chapel and I couldn't, so I had to clean myself up. Sigh.
I am still so tired that I didn't do anything except wash what I soiled.
It was a good day to do nothing. The high temperature was 82º, and it was in the upper 70s or low 80s all day, with a lot of humidity and not much breeze. The day started out mostly clear, but by noon it had clouded up and it was gray and yucky all afternoon. It was a good day to do not much, especially when you sweat as much as I do. I finally opened the windows on the east side of the great room, and I guess I will leave them open overnight and hope the thunderstorms stay south of us.
The guys were sleepy today, too, and they didn't do much. Louie sat on me for a while, but I guess Grayson thought it was too hot. Mostly they just laid around. Not our favorite kind of weather.
So now it's getting late again and I am still very tired, so maybe I can get to bed at a sort of reasonable hour tonight. It's a warm, humid and possibly stormy night in the field. Yuck.
July 23 Now I'm really tired. Eight hours in bed (minus trips to the bathroom) just is not enough for me. Anyway, I got up around 10:00 and I didn't knit.
We ate breakfast, and after I went to the bathroom, we both enjoyed the chapel service. It really is almost like being in church, and it was nice. At the end of the service, President Rast conferred an STM (Master of Systematic Theology) on the Indian gentleman who preached a couple of days ago, which was nice. They wanted to do it now, because he won't be here when the seminary has its next commencement. I noticed President Rast when the service started - he was wearing his academic robes, and they are gorgeous. I guess that one thing you have to invest in if you teach at a university is a set of academic robes from your alma mater, expensive as they are. Anyway, it was a nice end of the service.
Then BettyAnn attacked the powder room, and it is now clean and nice again. Whew! We got at my bed after that, and changed part of it, but we had to wait until tonight to do the rest of it, because one blanket had to be washed. I haven't started soaking the sheets yet, but boy, are they ugly. Not to mention the pillowcases I drooled and sweated all over. I will do that tomorrow, because they need to be soaked for several days. So now I have a pristinely clean bed, which will be a real treat.
I went off to choir practice, and that was good. We know all the things we are singing for the next six or eight weeks, so we weren't there long. I had an interesting trip home. I had just turned onto Cliff Drive when I came across a flock of ravens on the road. Apparently somebody had run over something small. As the ravens took off, one flew in the wrong direction and slammed into my windshield. Fortunately, I wasn't going very fast. It fell onto the road, but before I was out of sight, it had picked itself up and flown off. Good. I would hate to kill something, even a raven.
Then, at the north end of Cliff Drive, I had to stop and wait two or three minutes because there was a Sheriff's car stopped in my direction, talking to a guy from a car going in the opposite direction. As it turned out, I had to follow the Sheriff all the way almost to the Mountain Lodge, and he was only going 61 or 62 mph, which is slower than I usually go, so it was a slow trip. Then, around Medora, we ran across a guy who was going 35-40 mph in the 45 mph zones and slowing down a whole lot on the curves. Aarggghh1!! The Sheriff turned off onto the Burma Road, which is just below the Mountain Lodge, and I don't know why he would do that. It might even be that he was trying to see where I was going? I don't know. The other guy pulled over around French Annie Creek and let me go by, but it was a frustrating drive home, particularly since I was hungry.
When I got home, we finished up the bed and I ate my dinner. I am tired, and I sweat so much today that I have to take a bath before I lie in my lovely clean bed.
The weather was nice, at least here, and if you weren't doing anything. It's very humid again. The high temperature, around noon, was 74º, then it dropped back into the upper 60s for the rest of the afternoon, as the humidity began to rise. There wasn't a lot of wind, but we were able to open a few windows and get some cooler air into the house. On the other hand, when I left Laurium this evening, it was 80º there. Yuck. There were some clouds in the afternoon, but it seems to have cleared up around sunset - maybe.
I might point out that we've lost 45 minutes of daylight. Oh, sigh. I do love the long days.
The guys were very interested in what we were doing today. Louie didn't get enough sleep, I don't think. When I stripped the comforters off the bed, he laid down on the corner of one and didn't move until I had to pick it up to put it back on the bed. Grayson was around all day, and every so often he would come around to see what was happening now. Grayson did get to sleep on my lap during chapel, but Louie just asked now to sit on me, and of course, he can't because I'm typing.
BettyAnn will finish up tomorrow, and she might even try to do something about the stove, but she has done some of the things I just can't do, like the floors, and I'm very grateful. I feed her, and I figure it's the least I can do.
Now it's a coolish (for July) possibly clear night in the field, and oh, I am so tired!
July 22 I tried to stay up all night again. I didn't make it, but I was ridiculously late. I got up around 11:00, not that I wanted to, and I knitted. I was getting dressed when BettyAnn came.
She was content to work by herself for most of the day, which was good, because my back and my legs were bad. It's still quite humid, and I suppose that's the problem. She did come and watch at least part of the chapel service and she enjoyed it, so we'll both go to chapel tomorrow. I can walk down the middle of the breezeway again, which is good. I managed to get the magazines and catalogs in the powder room sorted out, but there is still a lot of stuff in there that needs to be moved.
We went to Mariner tonight and had barbequed ribs, which were very good, and we brought enough home for dinner tomorrow. There were a lot of people, which I was glad to see. Evidently things are OK in the tourist industry this summer. I'm sure the lower gas prices are helping.
The weather was nice. It was clear all day. The high temperature was 70º, at 8:00 tonight. It was in the upper 60s all day. There was a breeze in the 10-15 mph range from the north for most of the day, although it has gone nearly calm lately, as it frequently does on summer evenings. Nice.
The guys were happy to see BettyAnn. Even Louie likes her, but he went off to bed - in my bed - and Grayson followed us around all day. They are funny little critters.
So it was a fairly productive day, and now I can begin to fill up the house with boxes again. I hope to get more done tomorrow. I have a long list of stuff I need to get done, but I'm not sure how much of it we'll get done.
Now it's a clear, calm night in the field, and I need to go to bed.
July 21 Aahh, I was much too late last night. I was reading and I just didn't want to stop. So I didn't get up until around noon. I knitted, and I have only four more repeats on the first side edging. It still annoys me that I had to fudge the pattern so much, but it looks fine, so I live with it. I doubt anybody will ever inspect it stitch by stitch anyway.
I didn't do much of anything. I had an accident so I had to clean up after that, and I washed a load of bottoms, which needs to go into the dryer. I did get my rice put away, finally. I didn't cut my strawberries, but maybe I will have time for that tomorrow. We'll see. BettyAnn will be here tomorrow around noon, and I don't know how that will work out. I may feel better than I did, but I still don't have any energy and there are too many things I wanted to do that I haven't done. Sigh.
The weather was nice. The high temperature was only 70º today, and the wind was mostly around 13 mph from the north. It was clear or nearly clear all day, as far as I could see. The camera hung up this morning, so there isn't any record of the sky between 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Nice.
The guys were sleepy, and Grayson is apparently having a bit of a problem with a hairball. When I went up to the north end to clean up, they were both asleep on the bed. Grayson got some lap time, but I had to dump him when I had to run to the powder room. Louie wants to sit on me, but he can't when I'm typing, so he's sitting on the laptop.
Oh, when I talked about the wildflowers out my bathroom window, I forgot the cinquefoil. There is one plant out there that has been putting out flowers like mad. It's pretty, and the flowers are a light, lemony yellow that is a nice contrast to the coreopsis. While there are daisies other places, all the daisies in that spot are gone, and the white things are all yarrow. Unfortunately, the tansy is beginning to come into flower. I hate that stuff. I wish I could walk well enough to spray it all with Roundup©. Unfortunately, I can't.
So it was another quiet day, and now I need to go to bed. It's a clear, coolish (for July) night in the field.
July 20 I was later than I wanted to be last night for no apparent reason except that I was reading. I slept well, and i didn't see any stars. I guess it was rather cloudy during the night. I got up around 9:30 - not enough sleep, but oh, well. I knitted and I got to go to chapel, although I had to stop it in the middle of the homily to change my underwear.
Then it was off to see Johanna, and I feel much better. My back was extremely stiff this morning, both lower back and neck, and most of that stiffness is gone now.
Tonight was vespers, and it was another nice service with nice people. I didn't do much but my surfing in between.
The weather was nice again, although it was a bit cooler than it was yesterday. The high temperature, 77º, was actually at 4:00 this morning. Why it spiked up to that warm, I don't know. For the day, it was mostly right around 70º. It was quite windy, with gusts up to 32 mph. The wind is dying down now. It was partly cloudy all day, with lots of sunshine, and it was cloudy enough when it got dark that while one picture caught the moon, Venus was hidden.
The guys slept. They both got a little lap time, but not much, and Grayson got two little pieces of my lamb chop. I think Louie might like some of the things I eat, but it would never occur to him to ask.
So that was my day, and I'm tired again. It's a warmish, partly cloudy night in the field.
July 19 I didn't get to bed until around 10:30 last night, for various reasons. I slept well until I had to get up around 5:30, and I had just about gotten back to sleep when the alarm went off. Grr.
When I was up around 3:30, what I saw was so interesting that I sat and watched longer than I should have. It was extremely clear overhead and to the west, Vega was shining in the window. I could easily see the star where the handle of the Big Dipper meets the bowl. But all the time I was sitting in the bathroom, I kept seeing lightning flashes, apparently way off in the east. It was quite windy, and apparently there was a thunderstorm over the end of the Keweenaw that had missed us. It was neat.
Anyway, I got up and ate and did some of my surfing. In fact, I did enough surfing that I was a bit later than I like to be getting back to the north end, and I was much later than I like to leave for church. There wasn't any traffic - or at least not much - in my direction, so I got to Laurium at just about the usual time. Taking Cliff Drive takes a measurable amount of time off the commute.
Church was good. We used the old service, minus communion, which I still like. We sang well, or I should say, Ted sang well. Both things we sang were mostly solos. The second one has some very beautiful words that I should have written down. It starts, "Sometimes the load is heavy, Lord, sometimes the road is long." So lovely, and so meaningful.
After church, I went off to Pat's and did more damage than I'd planned, and I don't know quite why. I need to look more carefully at my bill. Evidently Pat's has discontinued the thing where what you buy at the store can cause you to pay less for gas at their gas station, because there was nothing about that on my bill. Well, I can understand that, with gas as cheap as it is. It's down to $2.749 now. I got gas, although I only needed a bit over 14 gallons, because otherwise I would have had to stop on Thursday and I didn't want to do that.
Then it was off to home, where I had to unload and pack away. The freezer upstairs is so full I couldn't get any frozen stuff. I did get a nice lamb chop and enough whitefish for two meals, and I almost OD'd on fruit. I got a lot of watermelon - oh, how I love watermelon! - and they had local strawberries and not local blueberries. I think I will mix the berries together, and I got some honey Greek yogurt to have with them. I am always a little cautious about strawberries, because there were about two years some time ago when every time I ate them, I got hives, but that hasn't happened since. So now I try to wait until the local strawberries are out. They don't last long, of course, so it's not as dangerous. The blueberries are from California, and they are the big ones that aren't as flavorful as our local ones, but I like blueberries, so that's all right. When I mix them with the strawberries, the result is truly yummy. I may have to freeze some of them, though, because I have so much fruit.
I was eating watermelon all the time I was cutting it up. It always reminds me of the summer I was on chemo, when I would sit down with a bowl of cut up melon and eat until I was full - it was one of the few things I could eat that soothed my stomach. Even so, I haven't gotten tired of it. I wish we could get better cantaloupe and honeydews up here, but we are so far north that they can't ship the really ripe ones, I suppose. What I do is chop the melon into mostly bite-sized pieces, and then I can just eat and eat and eat. Yum!
The fridge is so full I couldn't get another thing in it if I tried. I'm not sure what I will do when I clean and cut up the berries. Of course, I still have the pot of rice in there, though. Maybe I can take care of that tomorrow, although how I'll get it into the freezer, I don't know. Ah, well, I'll just have to get creative.
The weather was glorious. That's the only word I can think of. The high temperature was 78º, for several hours this afternoon. It was rather windy, with gusts up to 28 mph from the north. There were almost no clouds and it's been completely clear since about 6:00. There were a few whitecaps on the harbor, and I don't imagine I would like to have been on the Isle Royale Queen, but it didn't bother me here on land. All afternoon, sitting in front of the open window, it smelled like perfume outside. Aahh!!
The guys were sleepy, mostly, although Grayson followed me around some and Louie wanted to chew on the plastic bags. Grayson got some lap time this morning, and Louie got some this afternoon.
I have been forgetting to mention the progression of the wildflowers. The lupines are gone and the daisies are almost gone from my yard. When I look out the bathroom window, there is a nice area where there are a few pink and magenta Sweet Williams and a whole lot of tickseed coreopsis, as well as yarrow and St. John's wort. On the roadside along Cliff Drive, the black-eyed Susans are out and the daisies are still blooming. It seems to me that the cow vetch around Copper Harbor came and went rather quickly this year, but there is still a little. There seemed to be fewer buttercups this year, too. The pin and choke cherries are beginning to ripen, and the thimbleberries are beginning to grow. I have been looking longingly at my little patch of bilberries, but I haven't noticed anything that looks like a berry yet.
So that was a lovely summer day. Tomorrow I have a massage and more church, so I want to get to bed at a more-or-less reasonable hour. Now it's a warm, clear night in the field and the wind is dying down.
July 18 So I fiddled around for a while and it was later than I planned when I turned out the light. I slept well, except for the hour and a half I was on my right side. Sometimes I can sleep that way and sometimes I can't. I got up around 10:00 and I knitted, of course. I didn't even look at the clock when I went to get my breakfast, but it must have been early, because I was through with everything by 2:00. Then, instead of doing anything useful, I just fiddled around, but I didn't get enough sleep and I got very sleepy in the middle of the afternoon. That was partly because it got very warm in here.
I had to giggle at the Weather Underground, who was assuring us last night that today would be cooler than yesterday. Hah. The high was 79º, which was a degree warmer than it was yesterday. That happened around 3:00, but by 5:00, the temperature had dropped to 66º, for no apparent reason. It's recovered now, to 70º, but that was weird. It was very humid again today, in the 70% to 80% range. It was cloudy this morning, but by noon it was clearing up, and the afternoon was almost clear. I saved a couple of the pictures from early this morning, just to show what can happen when the sun rises and the humidity is 93%. Would you believe those two pictures were taken 15 minutes apart? I'm sorry I was sound asleep. It must have been fun to see live. I particularly like the second picture, even though orange isn't my favorite color. Or maybe you can call that apricot.
The guys were their sleepy selves. Grayson did come and sit on me once, but that was all. I think Louie spent the whole day in my bed. He woke up a while ago, while I was making dinner, but now he's gone off again.
I was so tired that I have had a headache for most of the afternoon, so I will be going up to the north end soon. I have to get ready for tomorrow. I did wind four skeins of yarn into balls, because that will be my next project (even though I have the better part of a month's worth of work left on the current one). The next project will be a triangle shawl with beads. I haven't decided yet whether to make it in very dark red or turquoise. Probably it will be red, but we'll see. I may have to fudge it a bit, because the pattern calls for fingering weight yarn and I have lace weight, so I will be using a smaller needle, but we'll see what happens there, too. I only have two skeins, so I will have to try to fit it into the amount of yarn I have. Well, that's a future. For now, I'm still knitting edgings.
So that was a very quiet day. Now it's a lovely, clear, warmish evening in the field and I should be able to see Venus tonight.
July 17 Oh. Journal. Sorry. I was writing on George, and I almost forgot that I had to do this. Then I got completely discombobulated because it's after midnight here, and I couldn't figure out where July 17 went. Heh.
I wasn't as late last night as I will be tonight, but it was sometime around midnight when I got to bed. I slept well, with the usual wakeups. When I was up in the middle of the night, I realized that it was raining hard, and yes, it was. We had 0.55" of rain between 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM. When I got up, around 10:00, it was so humid that there were still raindrops on the windows and it was very humid all day. Not my kind of weather.
I knitted and I watched my chapel service, although I had to stop it in the middle and I still had an accident. Today it was Matins, and I like that service. The homily was by a professor I haven't heard before, and it was a good one. I wish I could talk to some of those men!
Other than that, I didn't do much except wash all the pans that were in the sink so that I could soak my dishes. I knitted some on the other shawl while the talking was on, but I had to stop because the joint at the base of my left thumb got so sore.
Suzanne stopped by to say good-bye, and I got my Schwan's order and gave them back all my chicken. There is a recall on all the stuffed chicken I had. I've eaten some of it with no problem, but they really seemed to want it back, so I gave it to them. It's very inconvenient for me; I like to have those things in the freezer for when I run out of other ideas. But there was apparently the possibility of salmonella, and I don't want that. Anyway, even without that, the freezer is so stuffed again that I'm not sure where I'll put all the rice I cooked. That's for another day when my joints feel better.
After the rain, it was an open-and-shut day. It was mostly cloudy this morning, but it cleared up pretty much by 3:00 this afternoon, and it was fairly clear at sunset. The high temperature actually got up to 78º at 8:00 PM. No wonder I was so hot while I was making dinner! It's cooler now, but it's still very humid. Yuck. For most of the day there wasn't much wind.
The guys were sleepy, although Grayson sat on my lap a lot and he followed me around for most of the day. When I went up to the north end to clean myself up, they were both asleep on the bed again, but not very close together. Now Louie is sitting on the laptop. He would like to sit on me but he knows he can't do that when I'm typing.
I decided to try to get some of the episodes of George typed into the computer, without trying to tie them together. I got four of them in, and now I can go on and try to get closer to what I've been thinking about lately. There's one more from when George is in high school, and then I can go on. At least if I get something written, I won't worry so much that I've forgotten something. I can't really ever think of publishing this one anyway, because there are too many things I have no way to research. So I will write what I know and be vague about what I don't know.
Now it's later than I wanted to be and I'm tired. As soon as the Haydn quartet finishes, I'll be off to the north end. It's a warmish, sort of clear but very humid night in the field.
July 16 I actually got to bed before midnight last night! Will wonders never cease! I was up several times, though, and I had one wakeful period in the middle of the night, but it didn't last long. As a result of all the time I was awake, it was 10:00 or so before I got up. I knitted, of course, but I had some problems with the spacing of the rows, so I had to do most of the second half of the repeat over again. I still don't know what my problem was, but unknitting back to the middle and doing it over solved the problem. As I've said before, if the spacing of the rows of the edging doesn't come out right, the whole edging will be off.
I watched my chapel service, but I had to stop it in the middle while I had an accident and cleaned up after it. The Thursday service has been the "Service of Prayer and Preaching" and they have gone through the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, with the explanations in the Small Catechism which, conveniently, is in the hymnal. Prof. Grobien gave the homily again, this one about prayer, and it was another good one. It's just so great to be able to go to church every day!
Otherwise, I was late enough that I didn't do much of anything else. I paid a couple of bills and recalculated the balance in my checkbook, which had gotten completely screwed up. It's OK, though, because I have a few more dollars than I thought I did. That's a good thing, because I had forgotten to enter one debit. Well, Social Security Day is next Wednesday, and then I should be OK for another month. And I haven't so far charged very much to my credit cards, which is another good thing.
There was choir tonight, even though Pastor and Marcy weren't there. We went through everything we have music for, and I guess we're ready for Sunday. Poor Ted. After having to lead the service on Monday, he has solos in both pieces we're doing on Sunday. He's a good sport about it, though. He is another one of those wonderful Christian people with multiple talents who is very modest about it. Anyway, we only practiced for about an hour, and we didn't spend too much time on the things that we won't sing until later in August, so I was home by 9:00.
Geez! It's the middle of July already and we're thinking about August. Where does the time go?
The weather was so-so. It was warm enough - the high was 75º and it was in the low 70s for most of the afternoon - but it was mostly cloudy and sort of blah. There wasn't much wind. There is some rain headed our way, or it may be. It may split the Keweenaw, though, going north and south of us. We'll see.
The guys slept. Grayson got some lap time, but Louie hasn't been around yet.
So that was another quiet day, and I didn't have time to do much of any of the things I wanted to, except to pay a couple of bills. Now it's a warmish, calm night in the field, but it's cloudy and there may be some rain.
July 15 Happy
Birthday, Phil! Oh, I was too late again last night. Sigh. That meant I didn't get up until after noon today. I knitted, and I finished the ninth repeat of the edging.
I got to look at my chapel service without too many problems today, except that the preacher is from Brazil and he was very hard to understand. It was nice, though, and there were enough people there that they could have held it in the big chapel instead of under the organ loft. They used setting one, which we haven't used, and I like it. Dean Grime was the officiant, and he is closer to what I am comfortable with, except that he served himself communion, which I don't like. And while I wouldn't say he has the best voice, its good, and he stays on key very well. It was nice. I enjoy going to church every day.
The dishes got washed overnight, and since I had to make rice today, I unloaded the dishwasher while the pot was coming to a boil. It's nice to have a clean dishwasher, and maybe I can be a bit better about keeping the dishes out of the sink and in the dishwasher. Right now the sink is full of a bunch of pans that needed washing and the top of the cast iron Dutch oven, which was dirtier than I thought.
The weather was nice, too. It didn't start to cloud up until around 4:00, and the high temperature was 70º, right around then. There was very little wind. I have the window open again.
The guys were sleepy, but Grayson came and sat on me three times, for what reason I don't know. When I got out of the shower early this morning (ahem!) Louie was sitting on the tub surround talking to me with a new sound that I haven't heard before. I wish I knew what he meant, but it sounded like he wasn't real happy about me going into that box and getting all wet. He spent the rest of the time I was asleep curled up in the window seat until right around the time I was getting up. I must just get used to the idea that they want to be around me, wherever I am.
Now have a pot of rice to put in the fridge. I don't think I will try to divvy it up tonight. That works better when it's cold. I need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, so we'll hope for that. I need to start writing down some of the episodes of George's story that I've been thinking about, but not tonight. I've decided not to try to get it into a coherent story and just write the episodes down so I don't forget them, which is something that has happened to me in the past. Since I would never consider publishing it, that's all right.
So it's a coolish, cloudy night in the field (and no, nobody forecast the clouds).
July 14 I thought I was going to bed at a relatively reasonable hour last night, but it was very late before I turned out the light. I'm not quite sure what happened, but part of it was probably that I sat and stared at the floor for a long time. I didn't get up until noon, so my day has been rather truncated. I knitted, of course, and I'm almost halfway up the first side. One repeat takes about an hour, and I'm beginning to get the pattern in my fingers.
When I went to go to my chapel service, the website was down for maintenance, so it was after the talking that I tried to look at it, and then there were some transmission problems. They were compounded by the preacher being from India with a fairly thick accent, but that wasn't the whole problem. I think most of it was due to various transmission problems, because when I tried to look at just the homily a while later, it kept going into a loop. Too bad, too, because what I could hear sounded like it was a good one, based upon Romans 8. Maybe I'll try it tomorrow again.
Then I got notified that the monthly Microsoft updates were ready, so I did that. It took a while, and there were some more transmission problems while I was doing the laptop, but I finally managed to get everything up to date. While my dinner was cooking, I got the dishwasher almost completely loaded. I used the last bowls tonight, including one with a defective pattern that I never use, so this is the night. The dishwasher is bulging. Why didn't I run it earlier? Who knows. I don't.
I finally finished the load of bottoms I've been trying to wash for the past couple of days, with some additions from the accident I had because I just didn't move soon enough. The load will go into the dryer when I go up to the north end.
The weather was cool but mostly sunny. It finally got up to 64º around 8:00 this evening, but for most of the day it was in the 50s. There was some wind early this morning, but it soon died down. It was from the north, of course. The skies were mostly clear, although there are a few clouds now.
The guys were mostly sleepy. Grayson sat on me a lot. When I went out to the kitchen to get my dinner, I discovered the hind end of a little mouse under the dining room table, so it's no wonder they were sleepy. Louie spent most of the night with me, and at least once, I had to move him because he wanted too much of the bed. I didn't know either of them actually ate the mice they catch, but obviously somebody ate part of one. I do wish they'd either eat the whole thing or leave it all. These parts are sort of gross.
Now it's a partly cloudy night in the field, but it isn't dark enough for me to tell if I'll be able to see Venus tonight. The last picture from the camera a couple of nights ago showed it very low in the west. I don't know where Jupiter is, but probably it has set, since it was on its way down, and Venus moves rather quickly.
Speaking of that, I guess New Horizons is OK and we should be getting even better pictures of Pluto tomorrow. What a neat thing!
Now it's a cool, almost clear evening in the field and maybe our rain is over for a few days.
July 13 I was very late again last night, and I have no good excuse. i wasn't even listening to music. Of course, listening to the silence was nice, too, but I just didn't seem to want to get up and go to bed. So I was late getting up, and I didn't have much time to do anything. The dish situation is getting critical, but I probably won't wash dishes until tomorrow now.
I did have time to watch my chapel service, and the preacher was really good. I was concerned, because usually they post the service folder in a pdf file and it wasn't out there, but I suspect it might have been because Dean Grime conducted a Sunday morning service for the girls who are there to investigate becoming a deaconess. It was all right - they list the order of service on the screen both before the service starts and while it's going on.
When I got to the community center tonight, Pastor's car wasn't there, and when I went in, Pastor wasn't there either. His father finally died over the weekend (Alzheimer's) and he and Marcy took off for Ohio right after church yesterday. So Ted had to do the service and his wife Barbara had to work the music CDs. They were both really nervous about it, but it came off fine. There were quite a few people there, although not quite as many as we anticipated. They included the president of the Illinois district and his wife and another minister and his wife, and there may have been a couple of other ministers as well as some teachers and some kids. Ted did just fine, although he had some trouble reading Pastor's chicken scratches in the sermon. And there were all kinds of goodies for afterwards, including two kinds of cheesecake. I ate so much that I got a sugar high, and that was all I had for dinner. Well, there's some protein in cheese.
The weather was miserable, although it was a bit warmer than last Monday. The temperature was around 65º, plus or minus, all day, and there wasn't any wind. The trouble was, it rained between 10:00 and noon and again between 5:00 and 10:00 (or maybe later). There was a little drizzle early in the afternoon. The humidity was over 90% all day. I prepared by taking some Tylenol this morning, so I wasn't sore, but I was certainly very creaky. It has been very foggy, especially lately.
The guys knew what to do: they slept. When I came out of the bathroom this morning, Louie was in my bed - he actually woke me up by taking a bath - and he was sound asleep, lying almost on his back with his front paws all curled up. He looked so cute. Nobody can relax quite like a cat.
Anyway, maybe I can be a little earlier tonight, but you never know.
Now it's a cool, damp, foggy, rainy night in the field, good only for sleeping.
July 12 I didn't get to bed as early as I planned last night, for no good reason. It was about 1:30, I think. I slept very well. It was very nice not to be hassling the cover on the body pillow when I had to turn over. When I was up the first time, there were stars, but when I got back in bed, they had gone away. I also noticed that it isn't getting light at 3:30 anymore. Sigh. We're on the downward leg now, even though the days aren't getting short very fast yet. I didn't get up until around 11:30, so I guess I had enough sleep!
I knitted, without any problems, and I finished another repeat. I wish I could do more, but it takes me at least an hour to do the 32 rows, even when I don't have any problems. It's going to be another pretty one, but it's not going to be quite as wide as I wish it was. The only way to have fixed that would have been to do another stitch repeat of the center pattern, and I will not rip out the entire thing just for that. If I ever block it, I will just have to block it as wide as possible. And I do like that yarn.
I didn't do much of anything else. I had an accident and started a load of wash, but I forgot I had the load size set on "extra large" and it didn't spin out, so I will probably have to wash it over again tomorrow. I felt tired and headachy all day, probably because of the weather. I need to wash dishes, but I'm not sure I will get that done tonight. The dishwasher isn't loaded yet. So we'll see. I did get both Norton and Windows updated on the laptop, but that's a no-brainer.
The weather was nice, if you were a tourist. It was mostly clear until around 6:00, when it got cloudy. The high temperature got up to 80º for a couple of hours, between 6:00 and 8:00 this evening, but for most of the afternoon it was in the upper 60s - or at least it was at the weather station. It was warmer here. Between 3:00 and 4:00 the temperature went from 65º to 79º when the wind shifted to the southwest. The problem is, it's very humid. Even sitting quietly, I sweat, and when I move around, I sweat even more. Yuck. And I just noticed that from 3:00 this morning to 1:00 this afternoon, it was calm - no wind at all. Yuck.
The guys were sleepy, and it was warm enough that nobody wanted to sit on me. When I came out of the bathroom on my way to breakfast, Grayson was laid out full-length right in the middle of the bed, only crosswise. I didn't see Louie this afternoon. He was probably someplace cool.
So it was a quiet day. I'm sorry I missed church, but at least they had a nice day for their picnic. I'm sure it was hot and buggy.
Now it's a warm, humid night in the field, and the breeze has dropped to nothing again.
July 11 Well, last night it was the music. After the symphony concert, there was some other nice stuff, including a Beethoven string trio with Perlman, Zuckerman and Harrell, that I'd never heard before. In my opinion, there aren't any violinists (or violists - Zuckerman was playing viola) in the world today who can stand next to Perlman and Zuckerman. Perlman's tone is just astonishing, and so is Zuckerman's. It was quite long, but it was very lovely, and in fact, I almost bought the CD. And I still might.
So I was late getting to bed, but not as late as I have been this week. I got up around 11:00, and I knitted. I didn't have very much trouble with the pattern today, although I had to do some recounting on a couple of rows. I finished another repeat, and now I'm set up to do a whole repeat every day that I knit.
I was so late that it took the rest of the afternoon to do my surfing. But since the days are so long, after that, I sat down at the sewing machine. I cut down the two covers for my body pillow that I bought ever so long ago. The cover I had split apart almost the whole way down to the zipper, and it has been driving me nutty for quite a while. When I bought the new covers, I didn't realize until I had them that they don't make the shorter (60") body pillow like I have and the covers were too long. I just never seemed to get around to shortening them, but fiddling with the cover I had was bugging me, so I finally did it today. There were also three pairs of underpants that had a lot of stitching that was coming loose. I have worn that brand of underwear for at least 50 years, but ever since they had to outsource the manufacture to other countries, the quality has gone to pot. The worst problem is that the stitching is too tight, so when the leg bands and waist stretch, which they do when I put them on, the stitching pops. There was one batch that had waistband elastic that was too short, but I sent most of those back. Anyway, I have spent a certain amount of time restitching my panties, and there were three pair that are otherwise in good shape where the legs and waist were beginning to come apart. So I fixed those, too.
It felt so good to sit at my lovely new sewing machine and sew, especially now that I can see. I really need to do some more sewing, but in order to do that, I need to do some serious cutting out, and in order to do that, I need to get back down into the basement and find a couple of patterns, and then I need to set up the dining room table for cutting (and blocking, by the way). There are always things I have to do before I can do what I want to do. I know when I was sewing a lot, I would sit myself down and cut lots of garments at once. I don't particularly like the cutting and marking, so I tended to do it in big batches. Then I could sit and sew to my heart's content. I must try to do that. I still need to make some new nightgowns and, if I can find the fabric and pattern, I would like to make some dress pants that fit me properly. I am getting tired of all these store-bought pants that don't fit very well and are very uncomfortable.
What I have noticed is that since I've been taking the higher dose of thyroid medication (0.012 mg more!) I already feel much less tired, so maybe I can actually do some of the things I want to do. Of course, that assumes I get to bed at a reasonable hour and I get enough sleep and I have time to do something during the daylight hours. We'll see how it works out.
The weather was not my favorite. The high temperature was 78º, but that was at 9:00 this morning, and by 10:00 it was back down to 69º. It stayed between 65º and 68º for the rest of the day and it was so humid that it was very hazy down the harbor. It was sunny this morning, but by noon it had clouded over and it was rather dull and gray for the rest of the afternoon. There was a 15 mph wind around noon, but then it went calm. Sort of yucky, actually, although it was warm enough in the house that I have the fan on in the studio and the great room patio door open.
The guys slept. They only came around when I started doing something. When I sat down at the sewing machine, Grayson had to come and see what I was doing, but it didn't look very interesting to him, so he left.
So now I think I will go up to the north end and try to get to bed at a reasonable hour, even though I don't have to get up tomorrow. I'm so used to going to Laurium on Sunday that I kept having to remind myself that I'm not going this week. This is the church picnic, and I just don't do picnics. I have a hard time walking on grass, and there is sun and bugs and all that. So I will stay home. I'll be going to church on Monday anyway, so I actually won't miss a week. And of course, there's been chapel at the seminary. Even though I don't watch it live, I still feel like I'm going to church, and I did that every day last week. I've often thought that if my beliefs had been different, I would have been happy as a nun. Missouri Synod Lutherans don't have nuns, so I do the best I can.
Now it's a cloudy, warmish night in the field.
July 10 Oh, sigh. I just sat around last night, even after I turned off the music. It was ridiculously late by the time I got to bed. I got up around 10:00, but I didn't get nearly enough sleep. Oh, sigh. I woke up for the first time around 8:00 with a very sore neck because I had fallen asleep on my back with no pillow behind my head. It went away as soon as I sat up, though. Maybe I will have to lie on the pillow when I say my prayers, but I don't like to do that, because lying flat on my back with no pillow straightens out my back better. Since I don't move when I'm asleep, I was just stiff from not moving around.
I knitted from the new ball of yarn I wound yesterday, but I messed up the join between the edging and the body, so I had to knit it twice and I only finished the repeat I was working on yesterday. I have to make sure I don't miss any rows in the center, or it won't come out right at the other end, and since there are 19 repeats, I am counting one repeat at a time, but obviously I didn't count enough. Have I said there's a lot of counting when knitting lace? In the edging, every pair of rows is a different length, and then I have to make sure the edging and the center line up. That's the reason I only knit lace when I'm fresh (although I didn't feel too fresh this morning) and when it's quiet and there's nothing to distract me. And even then, I mess up. I think it's good discipline.
Anyway, I was late getting to the studio and I didn't do anything much. I knitted on the other shawl while the talking was going on and I finished another triangle and started the next one. There is counting on the cast-on row, but after that, it's sort of mindless. Only there are 17 triangles, and I've only started the 7th one. The colors of the yarn are beautiful - all my favorites - but I don't like the yarn. It's scratchy and it's over twisted, so it kinks. And there was a big blob in one spot that I just ignored. I don't think it will show much.
Jon came by tonight and finished the installation he started last week. I could see him in the camera preview, but he cannily avoided showing up in the pictures.
It was a very nice day. The high temperature got up to 79º briefly at around 7:00, and it was in the low 70s for most of the afternoon. It was mostly clear until around 4:00, when it clouded up. Still no stars! Boo! There wasn't much wind - not more than 12 mph - from the north. It was nice, although it's still quite humid.
The guys were their usual selves. Grayson got some lap time, and Louie is sitting on the laptop right now, waiting for me to stop this stupid typing so he can sit on me. They had eaten every crumb of their dry food by this morning. I didn't fill the dishes yesterday because there was a lot of kibble on the floor, so sometime during the night, Grayson took things into his own paws and scratched a hole in one bag so he could get some. He did that before, because the new variety smelled good to him, but this one was a big bag of another variety he likes. He's very resourceful. Louie is more used to having people to wait on him.
So that was a quiet day. I should go to bed, but they are playing Beethoven's Third right now, after they did the Choral Fantasy, which is one of my favorite Beethoven pieces. The Third is one of my favorite symphonies and they don't play it much on the radio because it's quite long. So I will have to listen until it's over, and then I can go and crash.
It's a warm, cloudy night in the field. July 9 I was thinking about bed last night, when I looked around and discovered that I hadn't taken my evening pills. Well, I took them then, and I sat around for a while longer before I went up to the north end. It was much earlier than I have been for the past two nights, at least when I turned out the light, but then my feet were bothering me and I couldn't go to sleep. I sort of laid there for about an hour before I finally got up and turned over, and then I was all right. I got up around 10:00, I think.
I knitted and I finished another repeat of the edging - it looks like I'll be able to do one on most days when I knit - and I continued on until I ran out of yarn. So after I did my surfing this afternoon, I cleared off the end of the desk - don't ask about the rest of it - and set up the ball winder and swift and I wound another skein of yarn. I also emailed the place I got it to ask if they take returns, since I'm going to have another skein that I won't use. I love the color - shades of rose and lavender - but not enough that I want more than one garment out of it. None of my winter coats are colors that those shades go with, so I don't need a scarf that color. We'll see what they say.
There were software updates, so I downloaded them, although I still have to do the laptop, and of course I had to reboot. I just discovered that the camera hung up around 7:15, which does not bode well for the reboot, but if I recall, that sometimes happens when there is a software update. Well, that's for tomorrow.
We gathered at Harbor Haus at 5:30 - in fact, I followed Suzanne and Paul into town - and I am happy to report it's just as good as it ever was. The management may be different, but a lot of the wait staff is the same as it always has been, so that's nice. It was a very good dinner, and there was enough that I brought another meal home with me. We had a nice conversation, but since we were so early, we didn't stay long. It was just as well, because as we were finishing up, a party of at least 20 was seated right behind us, and some of them were already rather rowdy. This is the time of year for clan gatherings, which this clearly was.
So I got home early enough to listen to the end of the talking and do some reading. Tonight it's hair again and maybe I won't be so late again. I did take my pills.
It was a rather nice day, sort of sunny, but with high clouds and it wasn't all that warm. The high temperature was 65º briefly. For most of the afternoon it was in the low 60s. There was some breeze, up to about 15 mph, from the north, until it began to get dark. No stars tonight again, I guess.
The guys were acting like the weather was pretty good. Grayson got some lap time, but I ignored Louie when he came. They didn't like it when I went away, but they were happy when I came back so fast. I guess they thought I was going to choir and it would be dark before I got home. Well, they'll just have to learn that with mama, you never know.
So that was a quiet day, with a nice end to it. Now it's a coolish, cloudy night in the field.
July 8 I thought I was going to be much earlier last night, but as it turned out, I wasn't. I'm not quite sure why, but I did have to wash my hair (finally). As a result, it was after noon when I got up again. Sigh.
Then I started knitting. I had a terrible time with it, but I finally finished another repeat of the edging. The chart is now as correct as it's going to be (with one small change), so that wasn't the problem. Part of it was counting, and part of it was that I dropped a stitch at the very edge and had to rip back to fix it. So I was eating something right around the time the talking started. Heh.
As a result, I didn't look at my chapel service until after the talking was over. It was nice. There was communion today, and the preacher was good. There were a lot of people there. One of the professors, who has preached in the past, is there every Wednesday. He is an older man with white hair, and he is very tall, so he sticks out. There were a bunch of wives and kids there today, too. I guess the course in Greek is still in session, so there are still people on campus. Evidently, you have to know Greek and Hebrew to enter the seminary, so men who didn't do pre-seminary in college have to take some summer courses to get up to speed.
Suzanne stopped by and we are going to dinner tomorrow. The church picnic is Sunday, and I don't go to that (walking on grass, sun, bugs, etc.), so I don't need to go to choir tomorrow, so I'm free for a good (I hope) dinner. She was bemoaning all the changes that have taken place in the harbor over the past year, but hey, stuff like that happens. We might as well accept it and move on.
It was a nice day today. It was clear and sunny until around 2:00 when the clouds started to move in, and we won't see any stars tonight. The high temperature was 69º, at 11:00, and then it zigzagged slowly downward, and now it's 60º. The humidity wasn't bad. There was almost no wind. The rest of the week is likely to be nice, too, although they keep changing their minds - or maybe the weather gods keep changing theirs.
The guys were mostly sleepy, but they kept following me around. They both got some lap time. When Suzanne came, of course Louie beat it, but Grayson jumped up on the desk and he actually said "mew!" (or "HI!" in cat) when she came into the office, and she petted him. Grayson is a very sociable cat. I suppose he learned that when he was a stray.
So it was nearly a lost day, and tonight I'm not going to be as late - promise. It's a medium cool, cloudy night in the field.
July 7 Oh. Journal.
I pulled an all-nighter last night. I don't know why, except that I didn't feel very tired and the music was nice. So I listened and read until I could hardly see, and it was light when I went to bed. I only got about 7 hours of sleep, so I am tired tonight.
I had forgotten to take my charts with me, so I finished the repeat of the edging without it, but I couldn't remember exactly how the repeat starts, so I had to stop that stuff. I didn't do much else.
Late this afternoon, Debbie called to tell me our oncologist has retired. He's only about 55, but I can understand why he might. That has to be one of the most thankless specialties there is. I'm so sorry, but I can't say it was unexpected. In fact, I'd been thinking about him lately and wondering when he would retire. Now I know.
The weather today was much nicer than yesterday. It was still a bit cloudy this morning, but by 10:00 it had cleared up, and it was sunny and lovely this afternoon. It wasn't too warm; the high temperature peaked at 64º, but for most of the afternoon it was 60º or less, and there was a bit of a north breeze. It's still fairly humid, but nothing like yesterday.
The camera caught Venus and Jupiter, but they are quite a way apart again now. I'm sorry I only got one glimpse of them when they were so close, but that one glimpse was lovely.
The guys slept, of course. Grayson got some lap time, and he got brushed, which he didn't seem to mind. Louie is now sleeping beside the monitor, since I won't let him on my lap. When I went to get my dinner, he was asleep in the navy blue chair, in the corner, but he was almost on his back with his belly in the corner. He looked very comfy, but he was all bent backwards. When I woke up this afternoon, Grayson was in bed with me, in the middle of the bed behind my knees. They don't like it when I don't follow the script.
So it was a quiet day, and I suppose I'd better go to bed sometime tonight. It's a clear, cool night in the field.
July 6 I guess it was 11:30 by the time I got to bed last night, and I don't quite know why. I really crashed, and while I was up several times, I had no trouble getting back to sleep. I didn't get up until 10:30 this morning, and after the Tylenol cut in, I haven't felt too bad at all. Of course, I had some trouble walking, and I had trouble getting up at church tonight, but that's to be expected.
I knitted, and after I did almost another repeat of the edging, I decided I didn't like how the first half looked, so I ripped it all out. I'm still fiddling with the pattern. There is still something wrong with it, and I only hope I've fixed it. I can see why the designer used double yarn-overs - it solves some of the problems I'm having. I just don't want holes that big. we'll see how this iteration works.
I was so late getting to the studio that I didn't do much except look at my chapel service and do my surfing. And fiddle with the stole pattern, of course. Tonight was the first of our summer vespers services, and it was nice even though there were only about a dozen of us. The sermon series is about how the Old Testament foreshadows Christ, and it's going to be very interesting.
The weather was truly miserable. The temperature went steadily down from its high yesterday until it finally settled down around 50º late in the afternoon. It rained all day, starting around 5:00 this morning, and it didn't let up until around 8:00 tonight. The total was 0.73". There wasn't much wind. Of course, the humidity was around 100% all day, which is not good for my joints even when I don't hurt very much. Tomorrow is supposed to be better. I hope so.
The guys slept. Not that I can blame them. They both got a little lap time, but not a lot. Grayson had to get off so I could get to the powder room before I had an accident, at which I succeeded. Louie had to get off tonight so I could type this. If Grayson is any indication, the barometer is starting to rise.
So that was a quiet day and I didn't do much. Tonight I have to wash my hair, but I can be late, because I don't have anything to do tomorrow except knit. Its a cold (for July), damp, nasty night in the field.
July 5 I turned out the light at 10:00 last night, but I had some trouble getting to sleep, because my neighbors (who snuck in so quietly I wasn't sure they were there) are the ones who have to set off their own fireworks every year, and a lot of them are very noisy. I was sort of asleep when there was a big "boom!" and I sat up - and there were the first fireworks!
The show was a really good one, the best in several years, I think. Some of the rockets didn't go very far up in the sky, but there were lots that did. There were several new things, including several that exploded red, white and blue in order - very pretty. There were some of those Saturn things, which are neat, and the ones they had last year that explode in little clusters, each of a different color. It lasted half an hour, and the finale was spectacular. I did have to chuckle, because there were people up on Brockway's nose trying to take pictures with their point-and-shoot cameras and I could see their flash bulbs going off.
I found that the view from my bedroom is probably even better than the one from the studio, except for the crossbar on the windows. I had to contort myself a bit to get the best view, but it was worth it. The minute the show ended, I took a trip to the bathroom and then I crashed.
I still was not ready to get up when the alarm went off, mostly because I had been up about 45 minutes earlier. And besides, I was dreaming about ordering Chinese. I guess I must have been hungry? I got up and I managed to get out of the house, but not as early as I wanted to. It didn't matter. I got to church in time to practice, and I was glad I did, because my voice was rather creaky and flat until I warmed up. We sang pretty well, I think, or at least Mary thought we did.
After church, I went off to Pat's and I didn't do as much damage as I might have because they were out of a lot of stuff. I got the essentials, though - OJ and JD and eggs. Some lettuce, too, and half a small watermelon, which I cut up tonight.
I got a sandwich, and I thought I might not eat my lamb chop, but I was getting hungry, so I did, even though I could have sat and eaten just watermelon. Oh, how I love that fruit! It's in the fridge now, but I doubt it will last very long. Yum!
The whole exercise was very difficult. It was warm but it was very humid today and my joints were really bothering me. By the time I got home, I was having a hard time walking. Besides, it was so warm I was sweating profusely.
How warm was it? It was 82º when I left Calumet. That might not seem warm to you in other parts of the country, but it's a whole lot warmer than it's been around here so far this spring. Here in the harbor, the temperature spiked to 78º around noon, but then the wind dropped and at 1:00 it was 58º. By the time I got home, around 1:45, it had dropped another couple of degrees, but then it began to warm up again, and the high for the day, 81º, was at 7:00. Now it's dropping off again, slowly, but it's still 73º with almost no wind. It's supposed to continue to drop, and it may even be cold tomorrow, with thunderstorms. There was some wind this morning, but it was calm or nearly so this afternoon. It was not clear. There was that high haze of clouds all over everything again today. I don't like hot weather. I've said that before. I was sweating so much by the time I got my dinner that I was toying with the idea of taking a bath tonight, but I'm cooling down now and I think I will just wait until tomorrow.
The guys don't like the heat either. They both got some lap time this afternoon, but they are two little warm bodies, and it's harder for me to stand having them on my lap when it's hot. I think they were both trying to tell me they thought I should feed them, and they haven't been around as much since I filled a couple of the bowls. I was trying to get them to eat what's on the floor, but they wouldn't this time. Humph.
Now I am very tired. I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night, I hurt and I forgot to take some Tylenol this morning and I'm having a hard time walking. I need to go to bed. Soon.
Now it's a warm, calm, cloudy night in the field. Oh, it's summer in the Keweenaw at last.
July 4 - Independence Day I'm going to do this early tonight, go up to the north end, get ready for bed, and if it's early enough, I will go to sleep. If I wake up in time to see the fireworks, so be it. If I don't - eh. I was up too late last night anyway.
I got up around 9:30 this morning, and I think I've finally gotten the last kinks out of the edging on the lace shawl. At least I did one whole repeat and it looks OK. Maybe not perfect, but there are some things you just cannot do with yarn and needles. So later today, I charted it on the computer and printed it out. Now I can use up the end of the skein of yarn and hope I get the next one wound into a ball before I need it. If I don't, I will just use it unwound, which I don't like, but it does work.
I washed. The washer was hanging up on the last spin again, but I was using it on "extra large" for the first time in a while. Second rinse worked fine, or it did with the first load. Anyway, the second load is ready to go into the dryer now (or I hope so). I located my white jeans, so I have something to wear tomorrow. Around the Fourth is the only time I wear red, white and blue these days. I have a really loud plaid shirt that is mostly navy and white with a narrow dark red stripe in it that matches a tee I have. It makes a nice outfit, but a little more garish than I usually wear these days.
That was about the extent of it. I managed not to have an accident today, which was a plus. The pill dispensers at the south end are refilled, and I will do the others when I go up to the north end.
The weather was pretty good. It was not clear like they said it would be. There was a film of high clouds over everything all day which got thicker as the day wore on. However, it got a lot warmer than they predicted. The high got up to 70º around 4:00, and there was almost no wind. The humidity, which was extremely high overnight, got better during the day, because the dew point was almost steady while the temperature rose. The temperature rose from 56º at 2:00 to 70º at 4:00. No doubt it surprised the weather people, who hadn't predicted anything like that. Anyway, it looks to be a good night for the fireworks. It was very foggy this morning, but that all went away by about 9:30.
The guys were weird. Grayson wanted to sit on my lap all day, and Louie spent the entire day on the box under the window to the porch. I hope they aren't sick.
I still have a house full of mosquitoes. I killed a couple in the bathroom and three in the powder room and I have evidence that there are still more of them in here. And I have a new crop of bites, mostly on my hands, to prove it. I must let them in when I go out into the breezeway, and of course they get in from the garage when I have the door to the breezeway open. There isn't any way to avoid that except by spraying with something so toxic I don't want either the cats or me to breathe it. So I itch, for only three or four days. At least the black flies weren't too bad this year.
So now I'm off to do my chores. If I see the fireworks, I'll report on them tomorrow. It's a warmish, cloudy evening in the field.
July 3 I don't remember exactly what I was doing last night, but I was late going up to the north end and I had to wash my hair, so I was late enough that I set the alarm for 10:00 and I didn't get enough sleep. I got up and knitted a few rows on the other shawl, since I hadn't had time to fiddle with the lace pattern. While I was making my breakfast, I elbowed a two-cup measure and knocked it onto the floor, so I had to clean that up. Drat. It was one of my old favorites. I don't like the way they're marking glass measuring cups these days.
And after I ate, I was a tad late getting to the powder room and while it wasn't a bad accident, I had to change my underwear. I also wanted to write a couple of checks, so I was a little late getting to Johanna's, but it was all right, since I was her only client today. I feel much better for my massage.
Then I stopped by the fish market and got some of Jill's good scones as well as a lovely piece of fish for my dinner, and then I went by the post office, where there wasn't much mail, but the American Spoon stuff I ordered on Tuesday was there. I wish they would ship UPS or FedEx, but oh, well. At least it came.
Then I ran home. Aarrgghh!! The weekend people are arriving. In fact, there was a small car following an ATV from the fort out toward our road that was going only 20 mph, and the car refused to pass the ATV. They went on, and by the time I stopped to get my papers, there were three cars following the ATV. Aarrgghh!! Oh, yeah, and when I was getting out of my car at the post office, a truck pulled into a parking place a car away from me and I heard the guy say, "we're going to the restaurant part!" Egad! This is in a parking spot that has "10 minute parking" stenciled on the ground. The restaurant is the Pines, which is half a block away and has plenty of parking in front of it. Aarrgghh!! I hope that by the time I have to go out again on Sunday morning, things will have settled down some or it will be too early for most of the tourons.
The weather was nice, although it didn't start out that way. It got very windy around 6:00, and then between 8:00 and 10:00 there was wind and 0.18" of rain. There was one grumble of thunder - it sounded like somebody up there clearing his throat - and that was all. So it was very humid this morning, and while the dew point stayed nearly steady as the temperature rose, it's cooled off enough that it's humid again. The middle of the day was nice, with fairly low humidity, a breeze, and a temperature that got up to 73º and hung in the low 70s for several hours. Nice. It bounced around late in the day - down to 55º, up to 68º and now it's down to 60º again. It was actually mostly cloudy, although there was some sunshine between 12:00 and 3:00. Even then there was a high haze of clouds in the sky that shows up on the MODIS imagery. It was still a nice day.
The guys were sleepy, but both of them got to sleep on me for a while.
I still haven't had time to work on the chart for the lace stole, so I will work on the other one tomorrow. I have a lot to do tomorrow. It's washday and fill-the-pill dispensers day and I have to get ready for Sunday. Of course I want to see the fireworks, so I already know I won't get enough sleep, even though I plan to take my bath early so I can crash right after the fireworks end. We'll see how it all works out.
Now it's a mostly cloudy, warmish night in the field.
July 2 So I went up to the north end a bit before midnight, but I stared at the floor (and my knitting), and thought about George, for far too long. I slept well after I got to bed, and it was 10:30 before I got up. I am still struggling with the border. I think I have it almost worked out, but not quite. I will probably not have time to work on it tomorrow, since I have to see Johanna, but I'll fiddle with it as I have time. I suppose it might be better if I just used the chart that came with the pattern, but I don't like those double yarn-overs. I'll work it out somehow.
That took more time than I thought it would, so I was late eating and looking at the chapel service, and then I had a small accident and spent a whole lot of time in the powder room reading.
Then, except for washing out a pot while my dinner was cooking, I didn't do anything.
The weather was nondescript again. The temperature briefly got up to 68º, but it zig-zagged around in the low 60s for most of the day. Better than yesterday, for sure. Again, there was almost no wind, and it came from all over. It was cloudy or mostly cloudy all day, so it was dull and blah. Blah.
The guys were their sleepy selves, so nothing to report there, either.
Now it's a cloudy, warmish night in the field.
July 1 Well, I got to see Jupiter and Venus last night. Jon had to come back, and while he was working on the porch (you can see the temporary box he left there in the camera pictures), I broke out the binoculars and took a look. Once it got dark enough, I could actually see them with my naked eyes, although they weren't hard dots. There are enough problems with my corneas that there is a little glare around them. It was neat, and we both agreed. Jupiter was above Venus, but quite close, and much dimmer. My problem is that I've gotten used to mostly looking at star charts and I keep forgetting just how big things are in the sky. They're close, but not on top of each other.
Then I just fooled around and fooled around, and on my way to bed, I had a really nasty accident, or maybe two accidents, that meant, among other things, I had to clean up the floor in front of the closet. And I sat and stared at the floor once I got to the bathroom. So it was extremely late when I got to bed. I got up around noon, I think.
I tried to knit, but there is one row of the new pattern that I just can't get right, so I gave up. Maybe I will have to get the other shawl up to the north end, at least for a while, so I have something to do. I have been working on the pattern, and I will get it right eventually, but it will probably take some more hard work. I have a printout of the pattern now, and it will take some fiddling with a pencil. It's frustrating, but on the other hand, I am almost through with the first skein of yarn, and I have to wind the next skein into a ball before I can use it, so maybe it's better that I'm not doing much knitting. I need to clear off the desk so I can put the ball winder and the swift on it, and I haven't done that, either.
Tonight while my dinner was cooking, I unloaded the dishwasher and washed up the pots and pans that were in the sink. So now I should be able to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher as I use them. Hah! Somehow, I start doing that and end up not.
The weather was more or less nondescript. It was clear this morning until around noon, but then it clouded up, and I doubt I'll see Venus and Jupiter tonight. The temperature got up to 58º briefly, and it was in the middle 50s for most of the day. It was quite humid - but my back told me that - and the winds were very light and have now gone calm. Meh.
The guys were sleepy. I didn't see Grayson when I got up, but later on he came and sat on me while I started watching my chapel service, and that's probably most of the reason I had another accident. It gets old. He wanted to sit on me all day. Louie came around later, and he wanted to sit on me, too, but I think it was while I was eating. He got to sleep with me all night anyway.
When I was outside talking to Jon last night, I got chewed alive, but I think they are mostly mosquito bites and will subside in a couple of days. Tonight, Johanna called to say she couldn't get a baby sitter, so I don't have to worry about getting to her place by noon - that will be Friday. Since we don't have choir tomorrow, I don't have to do anything. What a nice prospect for a Thursday!
Now it's a coolish, humid night in the field, and I will take a bath whenever I get up to the north end. And the second half of the year has started. Sigh.
Last updated 08/01/16 11:13 PM
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