Midsummer Madness

July is invariably the month where money becomes extremely tight.  There is a lull after spring work and before harvest.  Naturally this lull translates into less work and less money.  I have already been off work for a month and so my income is also seriously curtailed.

This year I have decided that I am not going to spend undue time stressing about the situation.  Instead, I am looking around for projects that I can do that require no cash outlay.  Looking for projects to do that require no money has kept me diverted for quite a while. Some ideas are easy--weed ALL the flower beds.  I have some that are nothing but weeds.  I know what I want to do with them and getting them weeded and prepped this summer is a good start.  And I want to make some new flower beds as well.

I want our property to look clean and more attractive.  Again--easy.  I am going to start at the gate and start killing the weeds and preparing the roadside strip for maybe lavendar or wildflowers.  I have plenty of "scrap" 2 x 4's to edge my raspberry bed.  I have a small sitting area in the front yard with a "spool" table and two adirondack chairs.  I want to have it look neater and more appealing.  This one just requires elbow grease.  Kent brought me home a stack of pallets and I am going to construct a deck out of pallets.  I plan to put dirt between the slats and grow a high-traffic ground cover in the cracks between the slats.  I have also started to make a pallet deck in tha back yard where the barbecue is. So far, I have one in place...

I also have fabric on hand and patterns.  This week I completed one shirt and started and finished a second one.  I still have fabric for at least three or four more shirts.  And since I am in dire need of new shirts, I will  get started on their construction.

I have plenty of glass to play with, so I will start doing some more experimenting with my glass.  I started making disc flowers that I then pinched with pliers to look like poppies.  I start making discs and then I quit and then when I start again I cannot remember why I quit making discs the last time.  Well, THIS time I remember why I quit.  For some reason I have great difficulty keeping my discs warm.  As they cool they tend to shock and I have little bits of hot glass flying around.  Very disconcerting...I have decided that I'm just going to keep practising until I can manage to keep my beads warm enough that they don't shed bits of themselves everywhere!

I also ordered some silver leaf some time ago and I'm quite certain that it is now ripe enough to use.  I, just this week, found all my little mini punches to use with my silver leaf, so I have that to try out also.

This has been rather an exhausting week.  The guys are all out of town--leaving just us "girls" behind to keep everything together and to also dogsit Brent's two dogs.  The night before the 4th we thought that maybe we were going to have a relaxing and not too stressful time.  There were few fireworks and the only dog upset was Kent's and I was able to keep him fairly calm.  Well, this was a fond misconception.  There were plenty of fireworks on the actual 4th and ALL the dogs were distraught.  It took three attempts to get them to bed before they finally settled down (at 11:30).  There were no fireworks last night and everyone still didn't want to go to bed.  However, the humans were rather tired and became slightly more insistent that they go to bed much earlier.  They did under great protest and retaliated by insisting that it was time to get up at 6:00...

So today has been one of those days...I feel like I'm moving in slow motion and I haven't even attempted to accomplish much at all.  And with the temperature heating up, there may be no more work done; we might just spend the rest of the afternoon in our pool.