4th of July 2026

Welllllll, last night I actually looked again at the calendar and found out, to my rude shock, that the POD will be picked up on Tuesday morning, not Wednesday as I thought. Which means I will be heading out on Wednesday morning around 10 AM! Which propelled me into starting to load a good bit of stuff into the POD. YIKES! Anyway, I am thankful I will only need help loading a small desk, which is nevertheless quite heavy. And the mattress, which awkwardly has no handles on the sides of it.

So I got a text from SiL last night saying that they would come over Sunday evening to help me load the POD. Huh! I said okay, though there is not much help they can give me except for the things I just noted. I said that I really need them to bring rope and help me tie down as much of it as we can. There will probably be shifting of stuff, I'm sure, but not very much of it is breakable. I did sweat a lot last night doing the loading, but thankfully since I was very aware that I would be unloading it on my own, I have kept it to loads I can trolley off or carry off by myself. And I made sure to stop and re-hydrate periodically! Overall, it wasn't as difficult as I anticipated. HOWEVER, I did find some more spots in the house I had to go through to make sure I wasn't missing anything important. I found more stuff to bring to the shredder,and things to donate to the thrift shop, like LOTS of Winter wear and gear I will not be needing in Florida! And I discovered I have some more things to pack and put in the POD. And I STILL have to go down to the shed and see what I HAVE to take with me, but I suspect there are lots of things I will leave behind!

Okay. Tinker is downstairs looking out the window and squeaky-barking. It is just after 10 AM and I need to get dressed and go about my sweaty day. I WAS going to shower and shampoo, but I hardly see the point in that now, since I will just be getting sweaty all over again. Nobody here to complain about my 'grossiousity' anyway, so PPfftt!

Later! Hope everyone has a satisfactory 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! It's sunny and partly cloudy today, it will get to about 67 today. No plans for today, other than going to mow eldest ds's lawn for him. Then we will hunker down at home, while neighbors around us set off tons of fireworks. I think ds is going to bbq some ribs. Luckily the dogs don't seem to mind all the noise. Our last dog really suffered from anxiety around the 4th.

I've been trying to catch up on email and projects for the master gardeners. I still need to write the newsletter for this month, but I am blanking on topics. I usually do a "plant of the month", some master gardener event, and some helpful tips. But, I am stumped.

I picked our blueberries for the first time this year, and was sorely disappointed. The crop yield is way down, and there were tons of little snails on the bushes eating the berries. Yuck. I gave the munched on ones to the dogs and they didn't seem to mind at all.

Here is a picture of daylilies that a fellow master gardener shared. She is have show coming up, and I used this photo to make a flyer.

dianah~ Thanks for the energy push; I really can use that! I think I ought to take advantage of it immediately!

The more I look, the more I find, and I have yet to approach the shed, because it is metal and it gets the sun on it pretty much ALL DAY. It is so hot and humid at 101 degrees and they say it 'feels like 110 degrees'. The task(s) seem endless and I feel half-way like crying, but I don't think I can summon any tears because of sweating so much.

Welp, it isn't too much longer until the sun STARTS to THINK about going down s-l-o-w-l-y in the West, so maybe by then this cup of coffee and the tuna sandwich with a huge tomato slice on it will refuel me and perk me up a bit.

TOO MUCH STUFF!

It's amazing how much stuff there is.

Stars, don't pack up all you Winter clothes. People are surprised to find out we get "cold" here too. But being from New England you're pretty hardy.

I'm reading about all the recommendations to keep air conditioning at 78 so as to not overpower the grid and how people can't handle that kind of heat. I'm sitting in my 80 degree cool house. :)

Had a busy day but I've had worse. We had a nice pot luck and plenty of good food and sweets.

dh and I battle over the thermostat all the time. I think 80 is the ideal temperature. He thinks 50 is. It's probably that we don't have AC.

I found a card, the photo on the front is a mini-doberman looking straight at the camera with an accusatory squint, and the words under it says: "Who touched the thermostat? WHO!?!" I had stuck it up over the thermostat, and when the maintenance guy came to do his 6-month thing, he got such a kick out of it, he had to take a photo on his phone so he could show it to all his co-workers.