Ending June, Starting July

Garden Flowers

The first half of the year is over and done with!  The second half of the year has already started!  Seems to me that the year is just whizzing by!

The vet called me on Friday afternoon to go over Dancer's blood test results.  His blood pressure was a little high, she said (well, of course it would be, he was upset about having to go to the vet's in the first place and was hyperventilating in the car!); she understands that it might be due to being at the clinic and it was not high enough to be over concerned.  She will want to check his pressure in about 6 months.  But, his thyroid levels have not improved and so, she wants to increase the dosage strength.  She said she will call in the new prescription to the pharmacy and I suppose they will let me know when it is ready to be picked up.  In the meantime, she wants to see him again in a month from when he starts his new medication.  

Gardener M was here on Friday evening to tend to the garden and he fertilized the fruit trees and watered the garden.  He also brought me two tiny new plants - a striped aloe ("Because your aloes are thriving") and a dwarf jade:

New Aloe and Jade Plant

They are sharing a 2" square pot, right now, but we will pot them up separately, later.  

June ended on a nice warm note (finally!) and July started out with summer like temperatures, with a high of 90F.  I started off the day in a long sleeved shirt and switched to a short sleeved blouse in the afternoon and the socks came off, too!  You know it's summer when I go barefoot!  Today's high is only 84F and I still have my socks on!  

On July 1st, I made milkrice and seeni sambol as is my custom, picked some red roses for the altar and the mantel, and lit incense to cleanse the air. 

After brunch, I did a load of laundry (sofa dust sheets, the towels Dancer lies on, etc.) and recovered the sofas with the spare dust sheets.  I  fluffed everything in the dryer, on air/no heat, for 10 minutes to get any Dancer fur out of them and then, hung them up to dry.

Later in the evening, I watered parts of the back garden and picked some chillies, green beans (two kinds - flat Italian and round French), and a handful of blueberries:

Garden Harvest

The tomatoes were picked on Friday, when M was here.

My cousin R called me on Saturday; she has recently retired from being a special education teacher and is planning to go to Scotland for a few weeks (her husband is Scottish and they have a house there, as well).  She was calling to let me know that she has been cleaning out her closets (again) and has a bag of clothes set aside for my daughter and me!  She wanted to know if I wanted to pick up the clothes now or wait until she returned from Scotland and I said I'll pick them up later as I'm sure she is busy getting ready to leave, later this week.  I still have all the clothes she gave me at the end of last year!  Some of them have become favorite pieces of clothing.  I will have to declutter my closet to accommodate the new clothes!  What a blessing, though!  I will share the clothes with my daughter, of course.  

While I was out watering in the garden, I missed a call from my oldest half-brother.  He lives in Sri Lanka, but, he is visiting his daughter in North Carolina, having made the trip to attend his oldest grandson's high school graduation.  I called him back, later, but, due to the time difference (they are three hours ahead of me), his daughter answered the phone and said her parents were already asleep.  I said I'll call back in the morning.  Afterwards, I called my half-sister and chatted with her for a bit.  She lives in southern California, so we are in the same time zone.

This morning, I woke up extra early (a little after 6:00 a.m.; after going to bed after 3:00 a.m.!) and called my half-brother, just as his daughter was leaving the house to pick up her son from somewhere (the phone number I had is her cell phone and of course she needed to have her cell phone with her).  We agreed that her father would call me once she had returned home.  He called me within the hour and we had a little chat.  My half-brother is 16 years older than I am and according to my mother, he was the only one who could soothe me when I would cry as an infant.  He was sorry he couldn't fly out to the west coast to visit my half-sister and me on this trip.  But, he said he's planning to return next year, for his granddaughter's graduation and he's planning to visit us on that trip.  It will be nice to see him, again.

I decided not to go back to sleep afterwards.  Maybe this early morning rising will help reset my sleep schedule!  

I changed my bed sheets this morning, washed the flannel sheets and the top quilt and remade my bed with cotton sheets.  I have two sets of flannel sheets and two sets of cotton sheets, but, one of the cotton fitted sheets is extremely worn and threadbare.  It's not torn (yet), but, you can see right through it!  I think I might have to buy a new set of cotton sheets this summer or see if I can turn a mistakenly delivered full sized fitted sheet  (way back at the very beginning of the pandemic, when a store included a sheet set I had not ordered with my order and they said to keep the sheets when I called them about it) into a queen sized fitted sheet!  I've done that, earlier, with another full sized fitted sheet, by cutting it and inserting a panel.

My cousin V called this morning (cousin R's sister) and we chatted a bit.  Later, former neighbor T called.  So, the month is off to a good start where family and friends are concerned, with many phone calls!

Plans for the rest of the day include cooking the tray of chicken I bought (planning to make a curry).  I cooked all the hamburger patties on Saturday night and had one for my dinner, with the end slices from the previous loaf of bread substituting for a bun.  I kept one hamburger patty in the fridge for another meal during the week and froze the other eight burger patties for future meals.

As we start July, I am grateful for:

- Phone calls with family, especially my half-brother
- Cousin R offering more clothes
- The garden harvest
- Working appliances
- The warmer temperatures!  

July joyful activities have included speaking with family and friends.

How is your weekend coming along? How is the weather where you are?