June! YIKES! I wonder if the speed that time seems to have acquired lately can be attributed to my age, or if we really are more busy than usual. It's frightening to contemplate. I find myself fighting a panicky feeling, imaging a meshing of science fiction and real life, with someone aiming a remote on mine, their thumb pressed solidly on the FFW button.
The Little League schedule intensified this month, with two weeks of evening swimming lessons thrown in for good measure. While the big kids were at lessons I spent a lot of time with the two littles at the park. They took it hard when lessons were over and we actually stayed home in the evening.
The boys spent a couple weeks camping out in our yard, in lieu of an actual camping trip this year. It was a pretty easy way to get them to go "to bed" at night...I think. I may have seen flashlight beams dancing across the grass at strange hours of the night.
One evening when swimming lessons were cancelled we went to the library and scored a box of 40 discarded children's books for $10! We are now set with reading material for the littles for next school year!
My rain barrels never filled up this spring as they have regularly in recent years and much of the month we were in a "severe drought." The lawn has been varying shades of crunchy yellow, brown, and strangled green (which really is a blessing in disguise because our lawn mower is still in the shop awaiting parts, victim of the parts shortage). A couple of my new hostas are getting too much sun and have burn spots on their leaves, so I put folding camp chairs over them to give them some shade. Every other day I've been hauling the hose around, first to the veggie garden, where I let the sprinkler soak it for a good hour. Then I make my way along the driveway-long flower bed, the herb bed up by the house, the rock bed with the sedum and succulents, and the raised bed in front of the house. From there I carry water in buckets to the west side of the house where the hose doesn't reach and give my elephant ear hostas and stella d'oro daylilies, and the geraniums in flower boxes, drinks. As a child at home I always found watering to be a tedious chore, but thankfully as an adult have come to consider it one of the most satisfying. I will become that loony old woman listening to the flowers whispering to me.
We planted our first apple tree! It's a honeycrisp, one of our favorite eating apples, and it's doing really well. I'd like to get one more apple tree yet that's a good pie apple. Maybe next year?
I started babysitting an 8 year old boy a few times a week through the summer to help out a little with bills. He has a lot of boys to play with here and it has worked out really well. He's easy going, a good story teller, and keeps us all entertained. He also happens to have the same first and middle names as one of my boys, so we've had some hilarious miscommunications over that.
There have been a lot of new things happening this month. Despite fears about the used car shortage, we were able to find a new used Suburban that claims all the features we wanted in a new vehicle, fairly quickly. I spent quite a bit of time searching for-sale posts and trolling dealerships within two hours of us. When this one came available it was a recent trade in and hadn't even been detailed yet. We test drove it before it even hit the lot.
And the old Suburban was towed away shortly after. I cried, which I know is very silly.
I've been wanting to break my bottled water addiction for several years now, and have finally succeeded! I will be the first to admit that I'm regrettably a water snob, which I think has something to do with my OCD. It's definitely not a new issue. I can't drink most bottled water; it either makes me nauseous, or extra thirsty, or cotton-mouthed, and tap water is an absolutely no. I am very much the little girl "Bo" from the Mel Gibson movie, "Signs."
I had decided on getting a Propur counter top gravity water filter system--I told Eli I would stop buying bottled water if I ordered one--but they were out of stock. So I bought a big Berkey instead. We're still buying bottled water for Eli, but we have gone from buying four to five cases of water a week to just one. The Berkey will pay for itself in time.
A lot of summer projects have been getting checked off the to-do list. We ordered a new full view storm door for the front porch, and the old door will replace the garage door that's broke. I transplanted a lilac sucker and mulched around it to add to the growing hedge along the street. I also mulched the bird bath flower bed and added spiderwort to it. Eli made me a pyramid trellis for the clematis so it doesn't have to lean on the weigela anymore, and I got that stained. Addie calls it my "flower mountain!"
While I had the stain open I finally got the upper porch door and flower boxes stained so that they now match the deck. I picked up another pail of quick set concrete and finished patching the steps off the side porch and some areas of the foundation. I then spent an afternoon painting the foundation with jet black concrete epoxy while Eli took the boys swimming at a local lake. I need to take the old storm door back off and strip the paint on the inside door and stain it. We then have a full view door panel we will put in there in place of the old storm.
I got the picket fence repainted and added some daylilies and asiatic lilies to the struggling bed. I also bought paint to finish the back garage. With prices the way they were this year, a new roof has been moved to next year's to-do list.
And...I got my first tattoo. In my twenties I wanted one as a form of artistic expression, but there was never enough extra money to justify it. I'm so thankful I didn't get what I wanted back then. As harmless as it was (a butterfly), it had no meaning for me. Eli has tattoos and has wanted me to get one for the longest time, and I finally had a good reason to. For my birthday this year I made my total consecration to Our Lady according to the method of St. Louis de Montfort. "Ave Maris Stella" (Hail Star of the Sea) is one of the consecration prayers, and as it called for some sacrifice and a sign (usually a chain) to be worn as a symbol of belonging to Jesus, through Mary, I decided it would be appropriate to be tattooed with a symbol for Mary. The Latin "da hoc Deo et dimittas" means "give it to God and let go," a constant reminder to myself to actively thwart the anxiety I deal with, and my constant war cry on the forgiveness journey I embarked on a year ago. All together they take the shape of a cross.
I almost forgot about the elephant in the room.... She somehow gained four pounds this month. That is all.
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