Monday stuff....

August already.  The summer is speeding along towards Labor Day. And once that weekend comes and goes, Christmas will be here in a heart-beat.

We have had brutal heat...... 109, 106, 103.... all that heat and sun, without humidity, without a drop of rain.  Has Texas turned into Arizona?  I am so, so tired of watering plants and flowers, and dragging hoses around the front and back yards in this blessed heat.  We had an in-ground sprinkler system around our other house, that I wish we could have picked up and brought with us here.  One of these days, we will 'get with the program' and graduate from Little House on The Prairie to Big House With a Working Sprinkler System.

To add insult to injury, our gardening efforts of the Spring have not done much to avoid the weeds of Summer.  The petunias I planted around the backyard deck are all okay, with very few weeds, but the other (and larger) flowerbeds have as many weeds now as they did back in the Spring when we paid the gardener to pull up every weed so we could put down the garden fabric and mulch.  So much for that stupid garden fabric....... don't waste your money or your time, unless you're willing to put down three layers of that stuff.  In the one spot where two and three layers of fabric are underneath the mulch, we have no weeds. (No flowers, either, since that small flowerbed is too far from the hoses, but at least there are no weeds.)

We had a good handle on the weeds in the Spring.... one or two would pop up and we would pull the weeds out of the ground easily.  Then the temperatures started to get up to and over 100 degrees...... who wants to be out there pulling up weeds?  (Not I, said the duck to the Little Red Hen.) Before we knew it..... dozens, and then hundreds of teeny-tiny weeds popped up all over that mulch and around the plants. Gardening is not for sissies. Nor is it for anyone who likes to keep their nail polish from chipping.

Crickets...... we have the most enormous crickets..... some of them as long as my index finger, which I think is giant-status for a cricket.  How did we get so many crickets?  And they're all colors.... brown, green, black, some with stripes, others with a few dots here and there.  The crickets will sit on the fence near the coop and watch me as I go back and forth with the hose.  I swear, if I see a cricket with a top hat and spats and a cane, I'm going to call the Disney corporation.  My husband says we have more crickets now (and bigger ones) because we no longer have the chickens who tended to eat the crickets before they got past the one-inch size.

The lady who was selling the tiny puppy...... she called me a couple of days ago, to let me know that the puppy was still available if I had changed my mind.  No, I didn't change my mind......... I still would like that puppy........ but yes, I've changed my mind.... I don't want to pay $750 for an unregistered teacup poodle, no matter how cute he is, and no matter how much he reminds me of Winnie The Pooh.   I didn't mention the price to the lady, however.... it's her puppy and she can charge whatever she wants for it.... but that doesn't mean she'll find someone to pay that much for her last puppy.  I can still see that cute little puppy-face.......... and then I think of the work involved with a tiny puppy... and with Sweet Pea in my lap every blessed time I sit down, where on earth would that puppy be?  Next to Sweet Pea on my lap?  In a little puppy-sling on my shoulder so I could take him with us wherever we go?   Puppies..... it's like having a newborn baby in the house, except you don't have to start a college fund and he'll never be able to drive your car.

My cousin F celebrated her birthday last week..... I sent her a Happiness Jar, which she loved, loved, loved.  She 'gets it,' as I knew she would.   F asked me to send her more notes for her Jar from time to time, which I've already started on... and she said she would send me some notes for mine as well.  I also sent her the complete set of Downton Abbey DVDs for her birthday.... she's been watching the programs for the last couple of days and is really enjoying them.  F is an expert on the Royals and British History, so I knew she would appreciate Downton.  I can barely wait till she watches all the episodes so we can discuss the story-line and the characters.