Dog days of Summer

I don’t know exactly when the astrological “dog days of summer” are supposed to occur this year, but I’m hoping they are just about over. We had a record setting month of July with 10 days of 100 degrees or better (and quite a few high 90’s that didn’t quite make it). At the half-way point of August we’ve only had one 100 degree day so far (it was 99 today), and for that I am thankful. I wish it would rain. Our grass is looking parched despite the best efforts of our automatic sprinkler system. I look forward to the changing seasons, and this year especially I am looking forward to fall.

July was a good month for outdoor projects. On the July 24th holiday (Pioneer Day) I had off from work. I spent the day re-edging and turning two front flowerbeds that had been somewhat neglected and were rather ratty looking. During the project I managed to fall head-first onto our trash can as I was moving it, and as a result had possibly the best bruise of my life (if there is such a thing). During the next week I proceeded to use the $1 manual lawn edger that we got from great grandma’s estate auction to edge the entire yard. Since the yard hadn’t been properly edged in a decade, or perhaps ever, I royally jacked up my neck/shoulders in the process since it was like cutting a trench into dirt with a dull knife. It sure does look nicer now though, and my back/neck/shoulders have generally recovered. Another July project was to reset the stones for a flower-bed edge. The stones had gradually settled into the lawn, and some of them were completely covered with dirt. I basically pryed them loose, poured an inch or two of sand under them, and then re-set them in the ground. It went pretty quick, although I managed to break my favorite hand-spade in the process. Now we are down to our last big yard project of the summer: reclaiming the garden. Our current garden area is about 4x larger than our former garden, however it is currently completely overtaken by raspberries, weeds, a wild rosebush, a giant peony, and a small army of snails. Between the weather being too hot and William wanting to “help” (i.e. steal whatever tool I’m using out of my hands) the garden demolition has started off rather slowly. Getting to the bottom of this mess will likely be a 2 or 3 season project, but it sure will be an exciting transformation. I think the only large fall projects remaining are to possibly start building a small shed and to decide whether we should dig a hole for the pond this fall or wait until Spring. We don’t especially have extra money for projects right now, so I’m not sure how much more we should commit to this year.

Speaking of money, we’re feeling poor due to unexpected car expenses last month. The joys of car ownership and “first world problems” as they say. After our latest experience we might be looking for a new go-to shop. First, Jason took his car to the dealership for some factory recall stuff (free), but they told him it was time to replace his rear brakes. We had our regular shop do this to the tune of $120. Since we were already there, we had them take a second look at my car which for a couple months had been making an unusual rattling noise. We had replaced some clips on the skid plate without successfully fixing the noise. Upon further inspection the shop told us I needed new struts. $850. OUCH! Naturally we got a second opinion and they said the SAME thing. Gah. So I got new struts. AND IT DIDN’T FIX THE NOISE! (At least now it was loud enough Jason and I could both hear it). Now our shop says something is wrong with our transmission, and sends up to a transmission specialist. So I’m seeing dollar signs and I want to hurl. The good news is the transmission place fixed it for FREE because the idiots at the shop hadn’t tightened down something in the strut mounts correctly.  I hope I needed new struts in the first place. I got two opinions so I can’t do much about it. Thankfully after several months of annoyance the noise is gone. I drove home smiling like a fool.

I LOVE our new neighborhood. Have I mentioned that lately? We have awesome 4th of July fireworks for everyone to see. We have a neighborhood watch with a directory of all our block-members and their contact information. I have met almost all of our neighbors and they all seem really friendly. Last week a woman was going door to door with her extra tomatoes. The gal across the street who watches our house when we’re on vacation always pulls our trash cans back up the driveway on garbage day. We had a block party during “Harvest Days” and most everyone came. The city council people came by as well as the ambulance and fire truck for the kids. It is wonderful. I didn’t mind our old neighborhood, but this one is amazing.

William is basically running these days. Earlier this week when I went into his room to get him for daycare his first word was “mommy” and his second word was “outside!”. This pretty much sums up life with William. He wants to be outside about 14 hours per day. This will serve him well when he starts going on adventures with his daddy. We recently took him to his first parade which he really enjoyed. He is really smart and starting to string 2 words together. This morning it was “my socks”. He will emphatically wave his hands and yell “me! me! me! me!” when he wants someone to come with him (“come with me”), he is disappointed that our neighbor’s dog doesn’t understand his enthusiasm. He had his first Cheetos and his first ice cream cone this week. What a mess! Thank goodness it is summer and I can just hose down the patio when he’s done. He will be 17 months at the end of this week so there will be another monthly picture coming soon. We found out that he really likes tapioca pudding “yo-ka” and you can trick him into eating almost anything with tapioca mixed in. He is aware of where we keep some of his favorite foods and will stand by the fridge telling us “dee!”=cheese or “‘nacks”=snacks. Poor guy wants enough cheese to be stopped up for weeks. In celebration of my mom’s birthday, he popped through 2 eye teeth bringing our tooth count to 14. I will be so glad when we’re done teething for awhile although it seems to bother him less and less as we go. William and Kiki are trying to develop a relationship. He really wants her to play chase with him like the kids at daycare. She really wants to like him except for his version of petting is still pretty rough. I think eventually they will be great friends. And a few more pictures to finish…

PS. Hooray for FOOTBALL SEASON!