Returning Incrementally

I never did post any monthly goals for May, or for June, for that matter.  It was just as well that I didn't bother, since none of the May goals would have been met.  Very little stitching has been going on since the second week of May.  Indeed, the only piece I have worked on at all has been Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie and even that wasn't much.  The dark green fill [Perfect Palette's Swamp Thing] of the tombstone in Block 3 was boring in the extreme and I barely completed a row a day on those rare days that I picked up the piece.  Things are slowing down a bit at work, though, classes have ended and most of the end-of-year reports and updates have been completed.  Just a few odds and ends need to be cleared up before starting the big push for next September's classes.  So, I'll just set three goals for the remainder of June:

1. Finish up block 3 of Black'd Skie

2. Finish up the scissor keep exchange ... already past due.

3.  Start and finish a Christmas bird ornament exchange ... due in early July.

The heat and humidity have really worn me out, though.  We didn't get our air conditioner window units in till last week, so my husband and I have been suffering with heat-induced lethargy.  The garden on the other hand has been thriving with all the heat and the rain.  The zucchini plants are huge and beginning to climb the trellis.  I already see one nice large blossom.  The broccoli plants are nearly 18" tall at this point and the tomato plants are thriving.  My tomato cages will arrive by Fedex this week and not a moment too soon..  The basil, rosemary and chives are also doing quite well.  I will be planting my second sowing of lettuce this weekend as well as some miniature carrots.

On the personal front, my husband and I have been kitten sitting for my daughter.  As some of my readers may already know, my daughter and my sister-in-law are the co-founders of a Trap-Neuter-Return feral cat management group called Four Paws Good.  Whenever they can catch a litter of kittens early enough, they foster the kittens and find good adoptive homes for them after neutering the little dears.  Well, my daughter had been fostering four very sweet kittens just about the time she was getting ready to move.  She had nursed the runt of the litter through a near fatal bout of pneumonia and the other three through the trauma of having been removed from their mother before weaning [by a well-meaning little boy who thought he was rescuing abandoned kittens] and needed a safe place to keep them throughout her move.  So we have had them for a week and a half ... she'll be taking them home to the new apartment tomorrow.  What have I learned from the experience?  First, that kittens are fearless and more energetic that I could possibly imagine.  I confined them in my dining room using temporary "gates" constructed of window screens and leftover lengths of laminate flooring.  My dining room looks like something out of a 1930's film about hobo camps.  The kittens sleep in a large cage [about 5x3x3] and I do keep them caged while I am at work, for their own safety.  But once I am home, the cage is open and they turn my dining room into a feline gymnasium.  The furniture I thought was flush with the wall is not apparently since these little guys can get behind it, under it, and over it.  The rungs of chairs, the screen "gates" and even the mesh of the cage are just so many Everests to these feline Sir Hilarys.  They have even managed to get up on the dining room table by jumping from stackable baskets to chair seats to table top.  They also play a very rough and tumble form of soccer or rugby with little balls containing jingle bells.  Or maybe I should call it Australian football ... as I said, these little guys are fearless.  The second thing I have learned is that I am not cut out to live with cats.  Even though I have cuddled them only briefly, I have developed rashes and welts and itches.  And cleaning litter boxes has really taxed my already sensitive gag reflex.  My husband says he hasn't heard such extraordinary sounds since the bad old days of morning sickness some 30 years ago.  Lest you think my husband insensitive, I hasten to add that he has taken on the chore of feeding the kittens their "wet" food which I find even more disgusting than the contents of the litter box, if that is possible!  Rowdy, Tumbleweed, Bennie & June are adorable and amusing and very sweet and I wish them well but I will be glad when they go home to my daughter.