Week 31 - Heat and Sweat

The worst of my jet lag was over and my cold was almost gone so I was looking forward to a week of nesting and catching up. But holy crap! The weather was crazy hot to start the week.

It felt like 114 on Monday so going out was off the table. I was madly crocheting the border on a baby blanket that I wanted to enter in the fair and entries were due that night so I spent most of the day on that. I got it finished and into the wash right before the contractor came to go over some changes. I'd asked for bright shiny chrome and he'd installed all brushed chrome and the paint needed some touching up. He was great about it so that was a relief. This contractor will be doing more work at my house for sure. Anyway, I pulled the blanket out of the dryer, attached the fair labels and had my entries dropped off before Monday Night Knitting. I picked up a few things at the local market and called it a good day.

It was almost as hot on Tuesday so I stayed inside again. I talked or zoomed with my sister and friends for most of the morning and then got busy cooking. After weeks of mediocre food on the trip and living out of my freezer since I got home, it was a joy to cook. I had picked wax beans from my garden so made 3 bean salad, potato salad, turkey dinner casserole and mashed potatoes for a future casserole. I had a Ripples Project zoom at 6:00 then ran to the fair to check my ribbons. While my colorwork cowl won best of lot and best of division, like last year I missed best of county, which is the best craft in the fair and gets to enter a special category in the state fair, by one. It was reserve best of county. Will I ever win that? I'll keep trying. I stopped at my friend Lorri's to pick up some beets from her garden. It was another good day at home.

The temp wasn't as high on Wednesday and I tried to go outside to give my garden some love but it was still super muggy so I was dripping sweat within minutes. After that sweaty hour, I went out in 10 minute stints over the course of the day and at least got my containers looking better. I unpacked all but the breakables in the bathroom, hung my new shower curtain and called it a day. I made zucchini butter pasta, which was easy and delish, and had it with some wine. 

Thursday was a Lincoln day because I had a post-trip OT appointment because they were concerned that my trip would exacerbate my lymphedema, which it hadn't. Of course I had many other things planned since I'd be in the big city but I had already decided not to swim so I could do a big grocery run. I started with meeting Cindy on campus to pick up some sock yarn she'd scored for me at an estate sale (yay!) and had BBQ on East Campus (the last BBQ of the summer) with Darla before heading south for the appointment. I was officially done with OT but they didn't close my case so will call in 2 months and if it's still OK, they'll close it then. Of course I thrifted a bit (found $1 bags of yarn - mostly acrylic for Dottie) and hit Aldi and Russ' so had loaded up on groceries. All good.

Finally I was home on Friday to work outside in the much cooler weather, although it was smoky from Canadian wild fires, which had me coughing. The kid who mows for me had done the grass but I had foot high weeds in my driveway cracks so that was my focus for the day. I also wanted to weed my veg beds. I spent hours outside and was only half done with the driveway but did get the veg beds done. I was toast so took a shower and got stuff done inside like bleach testing the mystery sock yarn (almost all of it had nylon), doing the July tally for my Ravelry sock group and catching up on some shows. I felt good with my progress.

I was sore on Saturday so didn't get outside until the afternoon and it took most of the rest of the day to get the driveway done but I did it. Done! I had just dropped the weeds when I pulled them for them to dry out so had piles all over the driveway. I was watching the news first thing Sunday and they said it might rain so I went out in my nightie and swept the piles to the side of the driveway. I had to go pick up my fair entries and didn't want to drive over them. Good thing it was 6:30 am so no one saw me. Ha!

Andrea was at my door after mass and had picked up my fair entries so cross that off my list. Lorri stopped by after church so I had a nice, chatty morning and didn't have to go out again. I did more cooking and caught up on more streaming. I was very disappointed that it was so cool out that they never opened the Lincoln pools so my water aerobics was done for the summer. I love the Sunday class so missed out. Oh well.

I'd still call it a lovely week. I was completely over my jet lag and felt back to normal having caught up both inside and out. Just cooking again was wonderful. Two more weeks before I head to Rhode Island. Hopefully they'll be nice weeks too.