Finally, some motivation! I don’t know what it was but I was feeling so blah about work. I mean, I of course got it done but it was a slog. I even let some grading spill over into Saturday and well, I don’t like doing that at all. But thank God for that yacht rock station on XM. It’s so mellow I can grade and listen.

I don’t like the new window to write in WordPress. Where the heck is the option to do bullets? I don’t know why I can’t find it either. See? I take a month off writing and they change everything on me!

We’ve been busy lately with home projects. We had two large trees taken out last week and it was a pretty big undertaking. The yard is so different now! They were on one side of the house, one in the front and one in the back. This is a pretty tree-heavy area so we opened a huge hole in the vista when you look up. I love it but it also puts so much sun on this one area, I’m not used to it. The side deck where we came out the back door was almost always shady and now it is full sun until about 2 pm. So weird! I am happy though because the point was to get more sun on the pool and the back area where water tends to sit. Or at least, where it tends to be more wet.

After that, we went around and caulked up a bunch of places where wood and/or paint had cracked and we redid the kids’ bathroom tub surround. Add onto that a brew session of an amber ale and shaving off about an inch of the laundry room door so it would close over the new rubber mat we put down so people don’t break their necks on the tile coming in from the pool. I love getting projects done but it also makes me tired.

We have a skink in the garage and it doesn’t seem to want to leave. I haven’t seen it but my son has and I’ve heard it. The gross thing about that creature is that it moves like a snake with legs and makes a gross slithery sound when it flops away. We had a huge one in the house when we first moved in and I’d like this one to kindly vacate the garage so it doesn’t end up in my house!

I feel perfectly fine but I have this absurd amount of allergy-related mucus and it’s making one side of my neck on the front a little sore. It’s weird. Maybe it’s a lymph node. Maybe I’m warding off some sickness. Honestly, I hate that it seems like people can’t get regular sick; you can only get the Rona. And we all know that isn’t true. I saw someone on social media say that the other day – that they were a little sick but it wasn’t covid. You actually have to clarify that these days, you know? My county actually has the lowest death rate of all the Florida counties so that’s pretty awesome. And again, I’ve only known 3 people to have it and they had minor symptoms. And it was back in early July when we peaked. Who knows how all this is going to end but I feel like as soon as I feel a little sick, I get immediately worried. And then I calm down, realizing that even if I get it, I have a good chance of doing ok with it, you know? I don’t know; maybe I’m just trying to work through that idea. The idea I could get sick but not get this virus.

Anyway, let’s turn away from that. Kids start back to school in a couple weeks so I guess I had best go get supplies. I have a box of stuff we already have so that makes me feel good. None of them need shoes or clothes so we’re good there. Who knows if we’ll get through a semester even. Here’s hoping though.

I hope I can continue writing in the days and weeks to come.