It's Over

Summer.  Summer is over, finally.  I made the last mow of the yard this past Sunday, and didn't quite finish because I wanted to cut down a few remaining tall weeds before I made the last pass with the mower.  I was going to do this today, after school, because by the time I was finished on Sunday, it was sundown.

About an hour ago, it began to snow.

Okay, so it's only going to snow this morning, then it's supposed to clear up and tomorrow it will be back in the seventies again.  If I can keep the Emperor from proclaiming doom and gloom and taking my mower and putting it in storage today, I'll be able to finish up tomorrow and then be happy for the rest of the winter.  I won't have to look out of my bedroom window and see the one patch I didn't get to before I got hungry and went inside.

Ooh, it's really coming down out there.

On Thursday I'm heading back to San Diego, this time for a professional conference.  I'll make a short visit to my dad, mostly because there isn't anyplace for me to sit when I go over there.  I had originally wanted to bring him some of his favorite pizza, from a place that opened about sixty years ago when he and my mom were Young Things, but I can't get my head around how to do that in his current living conditions.  Well, we'll see what happens.  I also have emailed my dear buddy Miz J-- to see if she can come down from Los Angeles and hang with me for the nearly-whole day I'll have free.  If not, I've still got a list of stuff I can do all by myself.

Hang on a second, I want to get out my iPad and look at my weather app and see how big this storm is... oh, good, it looks like it's almost passed over.  It should stop snowing sometime in the next hour.

On Saturday I went out to do the grocery shopping, and made a stop at our local mall to pick up a grey and a navy shirt.  Those are the two colors I have most often wanted to wear but didn't have in my "basics" lineup, so I thought that I'd get them in time for my conference.  On the way in, I made a cruise-by of the jewelry store to check out their pearl earrings.  I was still trying to replace the ones I lost almost two years ago, and the Emperor had given me a generous gift card to do it with, so I wasn't too worried about blowing the budget.  Well, they had a pair that were pretty much exactly what I was looking for, and I bought them.  The Emperor was thrilled.  I even found the grey and blue shirts I needed.

How often does that happen, that a woman buys herself a pair of somewhat expensive earrings instead of buying groceries, and when she comes home her husband is thrilled?  While I do come here sometimes to sing the blues about my frustrations with The Emperor of the Garage, I do have to say that the entire rest of the time, he's a fine example of masculine humanity, a real feminist, and a lovely person.  I just wish that sometimes he'd help with the yard work.

Yesterday morning we were greeted with thumping and rumbling trucks, and found that a neighbor was having their roof replaced -- and it was a fairly big house!  The Emperor reported that the workmen were finished with it before mid-afternoon.  When we still lived on the other side of town, our across-the-street neighbor had her roof replaced.  It was a smallish house, and it took them nearly a week.  Well, I'll bet everybody is glad today that the work went so fast, from the homeowners to the workmen.

The second Emperor's Bed Sock is more than halfway complete!  I've been doing a little bit on it every night, and I can now do that Magic Loop thing smoothly enough that I don't need to struggle with it, or focus on it too much.  The pair will be done before the real cold of winter sets in, and at that point I'll decide whether I'll just pick up and finish an old project, or will start something new. 

It's really piling up out there.  I'm glad I don't have to be in the office for another hour or so.