Catching up as summer slips away

I've really not done much blogging this summer, at least not as much as I'd planned. All this time off has been filled with housekeeping projects, cooking, reading, watching tv, and spending time with the dogs. It's been really nice, actually. I'm not ready to go back to work yet; it feels like the summer just got started, and yet it's already almost over. I have two weeks left. I've worked hard to finish up the list of tasks I had set for myself this summer. Among them are things like:

• Cleaning the porch. The wooden beams were dirty and cobweb-y, and the tile floor was really dirty. I spent a whole afternoon washing down the painted wood and mopping. 
•  Rearranging the kitchen cabinets, and unpacking and storing the china my grandmother gave me before she died. I have some really fancy large collections of two patterns complete with teapots and serving pieces. I guess I'll have to have a tea party one day! Ha.
• Cleaning and oiling all of our wooden furniture. We have a beautiful teak dining table and credenza that were badly in need of it, and several other pieces (end tables, nightstands) that I took care of too on the same day.
•  Organizing and decluttering the laundry room. 
•  Giving all of the floors in the house a good cleaning. We have pretty original hardwood floors in most of the rooms, with the exception of the den which has laminate floors (which are also very pretty). 
• Washing all linens in the house, which included a trip to the laundromat for machines big enough for bedspreads and comforters. I just did that yesterday.
• Plenty of yard work. Gregg has done all of the mowing and most of the weed-eating, but I've trimmed hedges and taken truckloads of yard waste to the dump. I've also pulled weeds and regularly scooped up dog poop from the back yard.
• Cleaning out closets, although I didn't get as far with this one as I'd hoped.

Almost every day, I've given myself tasks to do over and above ordinary maintenance cleaning. Which is all I plan to do for the next two weeks before I go back to work--maintenance. I want to enjoy these last few days of freedom as much as possible. 

I got a new phone yesterday! I finally dropped mine one too many times, and it was toast. We had had our phones for years, and they weren't the latest thing when we first bought them. So now we have the latest Samsung Galaxy--the S10. It will take some time to get used to it, but already I'm loving the extra space, the much improved camera, and the longer lasting charge. Speaking of the camera, here is a video I took of a hummingbird visiting our back porch feeder with it yesterday: 

And here are a couple of pictures of our Crepe Myrtle trees, which are covered in blooms:

We have a line of five of these trees along the southeast side of our house. I just love them.

I'm reading a new book: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. It's set in Old Testament days and is the story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob by his wife Leah. If anyone asks if I've done any traveling this summer I can tell them "Yes!"....time travelling, that is! Between the Philippa Gregory books about the Plantagenets and Tudors, and now this, I've been living halfway in the past these past couple of months!

I've also gotten hooked on True Blood and try to watch two or three episodes a night. It's dark and funny and outlandish--vampires and shapeshifters, maenads and werewolves, anyone?--but it's so much fun! It's bloody and sexy and soapy...a perfect summer tv series, in my opinion. And the music is good, too. I've been having a good time watching it.

Weather wise, the past week has been wonderful. Cooler and less humid, with blue skies and pleasant breezes. Of course, it would cool down as soon as our a/c was repaired. :)  It's funny how around here 90 degrees F for a high and 68 for the low feels almost like the onset of fall! All of a sudden it's nice to sit out on the porch in the late afternoon, again. We've been enjoying it out there each evening, sitting with the dogs. They're going to be so unhappy when I go back to work. They're more spoiled than they've ever been right now!

Well, that's about all I've been up to. What about you?