Sometimes it’s so nice just to be. We forget that. Well, I do, anyway.
This weekend was perhaps the nicest of the summer. We’ve been having glorious weather for the most part, but often way too hot. A few weeks ago, the southern Oregon coast sweated through several days of 100+ temperatures, and it got to at least 97 here. When it’s that hot it saps you, even when you’re huddled in the shady house with a ceiling fan spinning. I know you folks in the midwest and south have it worse; so no complaints, really.
But this weekend was everything a summer ought to be. Temperatures around 70. Cloudless afternoons after cool, maybe misty, mornings. A little breeze blowing. The kind of weather you don’t even have to think about because it’s precisely what weather ought to be.
In the mornings, I grabbed a pair of loppers, a squeeze-bottle of Off!, and a bucket and picked some lovely fat blackberries while the dogs hung out and ate their share.
At home, after ritual coffee, I trimmed the inside of the front door and started on the next 1/3 of the Infamous Ceiling. This section was originally going to be the fraternal twin of the bit I already did. When I realized how (pardon the pun) over my head I am, I figured it would be more like a half-sibling. Now I’m aiming for third cousin once removed. More drywall; less beadboard.
I do think that old beadboard would make better wainscotting than ceiling. Since finding the amazing Lost Vanity, my thoughts are turning to a nice wainscotted bathroom.
Today I started cleaning up Ye Olde Vanity. It’s coming back to life quickly and well. Some gouges I’ll never gracefully get rid of and one inlay piece is missing, which is beyond my ability to fix. But it’ll be close to its old self. That spare garage-sale sink I had out in the garden shed is going to fit it, of course. An hour of scrubbing the porcelain and scraping old caulk and that was like new.
An hour or two is all I’ve been doing. Just enough to resume steady progress while still doing other things and enjoying what’s left of summer.
No long, sweaty, achy, brain-hurting days of labor. No depression or anxiety* or self-doubt or anger. No being among the walking wounded. Just quietly getting things done, and even doing them reasonably (if far from professionally) well.
Yesterday I ended the day taking a long walk in the woods with furrydoc and her bounding lab mix — like Ava, 10-years-old but still unstoppable. Robbie trotted right along behind us. In June and early July I thought he was at death’s door. He’s rallied remarkably. But even with him doing a little better, we don’t usually walk so long these days, nor does he keep up as well as he did yesterday evening.
But then, he had his girlfriend to impress (he’s got a polite crush on furrydoc’s dog). He did a good job of it, too.
Days of contentment. They may not make for exciting, fiery blogging, but they sure make for good life.
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* Well, there was some anxiety a few days ago when I woke up at 1:00 to Ava rambling randomly about — and shortly realized whe was distressed by a bat swooping around the living room and kitchen. I was eventually able to shoo it out the backdoor and never came in contact with it, but those were some not-happy moments. I know this is the season when juvenile bats, not yet fully possessed of their bat-sense, get into houses. But all the doors and windows were closed. So clearly I still have some structural gaps to fill.
Sometimes you need that normalcy to remind you what “normal” is. Enjoy! And enjoy the weather, too.
We had a nice week as well. It was only 102.
If you have bats about, make sure the furfriends’ rabies shots are fresh.
Sounds delightfully normal. Wish every day could be like that, but then we’d probably not really appreciate the good times.
I had a classroom in a modern that had bats invade a time or two every year or two. One of the biology teachers had a net that he would use to catch them painlessly and take them to a safe place where other bats would congregate. I still wonder why my classroom was the one that had them fairly regularly–only a few others ever saw them. I was in the middle of a long row of rooms that were identical (no windows, no outside access–similar to prison cells!). Maybe they knew that Tony and I would be sympathetic to their plight.
Mary in Texas: I’m guessing the others did have them, but bats can be pretty good about not being seen. Maybe the other teachers just weren’t observant enough?
“No long, sweaty, achy, brain-hurting days of labor. No depression or anxiety or self-doubt or anger. No being among the walking wounded. Just quietly getting things done, and even doing them reasonably (if far from professionally) well.”
Sounds like the way I work these days. It’s taking me all summer to put a 24-foot long terrace on the part of my hillside that erodes easily. But you know what, who cares? It’s getting done, I’m not killing myself over it, and anybody who has a problem with that can shove it.
The part that’s done already has flowers blooming 🙂