Actually, nothing at all to add. August has always felt like kind of a weird month to me. It’s hot (and has been for a while), and I’m clearly not built for heat… several days above 90ºF (and four or five days topping 100ºF, with more on the way next week) sucks the energy right out of me.
For the longest time, I tried to keep up in August, and failed miserably. It’s hard to push through when the universe seems to be pushing back. So in August I try to let the universe have its way; there’s nothing I can do to change the situation, and I’m not great at operating within it, so I just… don’t.
(We’re so fortunate to have central air and fans. If we didn’t, August would be hugely unpleasant instead of an ongoing minor annoyance.)
The last couple of weeks have been kind of a whirlwind though, relatively speaking. Dr. appointments, I’m working on a couple of projects (including a handmade journal as a good-bye gift), we had a houseguest for a few days last week (very fun), our old dog is really starting to feel her age and require more assistance. The calendar is starting to empty out, thankfully… and just in time.
Cooking has taken a back seat, because who wants to heat the kitchen when it’s above 90º outside? I’m making a new-to-me pasta dish tonight, but only because it requires fresh zucchini and corn, both of which we have at the moment (though not from our garden). We’re doing a lot of “snacks for dinner” these days, which I actually really like, because a) it’s heavy on fruits and vegetables, b) it’s modular, so you can have it often and it feels new each time, c) it’s so easy, and d) there’s no heat involved.
Ongoing garden maintenance has become extremely basic: removing the most annoying of the weeds, and watering. Although yesterday I deadheaded some salvia and lavender — too late for a potential second bloom, but the bees made good use of the flowers before they started senescing. I also took the old flowers off of the coneflower plants — hoping they’ll continue to send out blooms for the bees. (Note to self: blanket flowers and coneflowers are attractive to bumbles in late summer. Will definitely plant more of those this fall, along with some black-eyed Susans and a couple of larger lavender plants.)
After the (relative) mania of the last few weeks, slow and quiet seems… nice… and necessary. I’m still feeling pretty burned out — the ongoing concern — but I seem to slowly be recovering. Or my calendar is loosening up a little bit and I can breathe better… maybe it’s that. Whatever. I’ll take it.
Things start popping again in September, including a new adventure (one I’ve been looking forward to for a while), and hopefully (fingers crossed, knock wood) preparing for another completely new endeavor after the first of the year (at this point it’s out of my hands — I’m waiting to hear whether it will be an option).
But for now, the rest of August is for rest.
Follow up (8/26/22): Well, that (“rest of August is for rest”) was a bust. The rest of August is turning out to be for volunteering at the Outdoor Learning Center. I struggled to get down to one volunteer shift a week, and that lasted from mid-June until mid-August. For the foreseeable future, I have three volunteer shifts a week, including some classroom animal care (mostly tortoises and lizards), along with some additional raptor care (a moderate case of bumblefoot in one of the hawks — an annual thing for her (she’s an arctic bird in a hot/dry summer) — and a cracked mandible on one of the owls). My boundaries are, apparently, very porous at the moment. (And, for the record, it is ok, but not idea/.)
Carmen Yount 