..................August Already????

I can't believe that tomorrow is August. School will be starting soon and I simply do not know where the summer went. I guess it is better than having life drag on slowly, but this is getting ridiculous. It really hasn't felt much like summer either. Our weather has remained quite cool with foggy mornings. Our normal heat shows up in September and October so it may still come. I read about so many having extreme heat or rain and cool weather situations. Who knows what is happening, but it certainly doesn't feel like glo*bal warming here.

We enjoyed a delightful visit while my cousin and his family were here. Their children had so much fun with our grandchildren and, once again, we had the use of the pool next door. It is such a delightful way to spend the day and the children positively love it. We get to "babysit" the pool again next week too. Yeah! It's a tough job, but someone HAS to do it.

Iowa guests.

The one big disappointment was that the sewer line backed up while they were here. With house guests it is always an inconvenience, to say the least. The plumber snaked it and things appeared fine. The following day, after company had left, I started the gazillion loads of laundry. After three loads I walked through the entry and the wood floors were under water. Apparently, the water from the washer came back up through the guest bath and flooded the place. Needless to say, the wood floors are badly damaged and will need to get attention.

The real issue of the backup could not be assessed until Tuesday when our regular septic guy could come out. With camera and mirrors, he discovered that we have a "tweaked" pipe heading from the house. It will need to be replaced which cannot be done until the beginning of next week. I just love "camping out" in my own home. He powered washed out the pipe and it is now okay for liquid only so at least I have running water. Ahhhh....the simple joys in life.

On Monday we had the "thrill" of babysitting our son's lab. Look at this peaceful, happy dog. Is this the perfect picture or what??? Grandpa's found slipper and a good nap......

What you don't get a picture of is what this dog did when we slipped out of the house for an hour on Monday evening. The dog turned into the "beast" and took the bedding off every bed, removed all the pillows on the sofas, walked on top of the dining table, scratched up the front door and chewed the wooden blinds off two of the windows. Don't ask me why as she has been to our house a million times and has stayed with us before. My thoughts immediately turned to the possibility of perhaps the mountain lion had returned. I really needed a little more chaos and cleanup in my house. Fortunately, her family returned early from camping due to an encounter with bears eating all of their food.

Our wild animal stories continue. Tuesday morning I let our other dog out. She was enjoying a nice nap in the sun on the door mat when out of nowhere a large coyote came right up to the door. I was sitting right there and leaped from my chair. I opened the door and let the dog inside. ( I should say she "flew" inside.) This thing was not at all intimidated by me and stood there staring at me. I finally decided to grab the camera. What else would a blogger do? When I came back to the door it had walked away. I pursued it until it finally jumped the fence. The poor dog was just shaking like crazy. We have only just this week managed to get her to walk out onto the grass to do her "duty" from the mountain lion attack.

I'm not sure you can spot the coyote, but it is right behind the volleyball pole.

There was also a large article on the front page of the paper this a.m. about the repeated mountain lion attacks. Thankfully, folks will FINALLY be advised of what is going on around here. We have lived here for twenty years and have never experienced such behaviors. I am thinking it may be due to the lack of rains for the past few years.

So........if you can't clean due to limited use of water, what does one do????? Sew....of course. I have been playing around a bit with the machine embroidery. One of the granddaughters, Ms. H, had her ninth birthday this week and loves her horse. I added a pillow case to her package and she loved it.

Ms. H and Ms. M in the arena with Gracie and Rudy.

I also did a really cute embroidery on a little romper that I made. On my next one I will merge the name a little lower because this one is too close to the cute embroidery design. These are little bug bottles where vinyl is used to make it appear like a jar. Very cute designs.











Any of you sewers out there need to check out Tonya's blog. She is doing a Q-U-I-L-T Bingo game and it sounds like fun. You play for fat quarters. There is still time to sign up.

The garden is doing great and we have been enjoying everything there is to do with tomatoes - salsa, herbed tomatoes, gazpacho, sliced, BLTs, etc., etc., etc. I love this time of the year for the fresh produce.

I am hoping that we have had enough excitement around here to last for some time. Another normal week would be most welcome. Pipes will get fixed, repair projects will get done and life will resume to the everyday "stuff" that I love. Meanwhile I will continue to rejoice in the fact that my mother continues to do well, the children and grandchildren are doing great and we remain healthy. How much better does it get? Life is good.