Ups and Downs

It's been one of those weeks. Or months. Good stuff, not so good stuff, a lot of "meh" and "blah" mixed in. On the plus side, we found a nice fire pit for the patio. We'd been looking around a bit and happened on this one. I'd forgotten how relaxing it is to just sit by the fire. I actually spent one entire evening doing just that. I don't often sit and do nothing, and I'll admit it was kind of nice.

In the not-so-great column, I tripped over the cat scratching post and seriously stubbed or possibly broke my little toe. You can see the discoloration just beginning in this photo. Trust me -- it hurt like crazy. I hobbled around for a few days and abandoned this week's gym visits because I cannot wear shoes, let alone think of running right now.

 

On the plus side, I finally bought some English walnuts so I can make the really deluxe version of oatmeal, with Craisins and brown sugar. Don't ask why it's taken me so long to buy a bag of English walnuts. I don't do a great job of taking care of myself. That needs to change!

Now that I'm teaching more classes and making many more kits than I have in the past, I'm going to have to get a lot smarter about things. (Work smarter, not harder, right?) I will say that I love the Silhouette Cameo I recently purchased. (You can see a few moons I cut in the picture below.) I'm integrating various Silhouette cuts into my classes, and I do think it will save me time in the long run. It definitely provides endless design options, which I love!

On the down side, I haven't done a single thing yet with my garden plans. The summer has slipped away from me and I'm afraid it's too late to start anything anyway. I can't move plants at this point in the season, so I think I'll wait until spring to tackle that project. Hopefully by then I'll have some other aspects of my life back under control and can really focus on making the most of those amazingly detailed plans. 

On the plus side, we've had a lot of rain this summer so the flower beds look pretty good for this late in the season. Last night I happened to catch this beautiful butterfly enjoying the liatris!

 

Another positive: I received my order of old slides back from the imaging place, where I had them scanned, cleaned, and color-restored in .jpeg format. Worth every penny. Blog post coming on this topic!

In spite of the ups and downs, on balance it's been a pretty good few days. I'm grateful for many things and looking forward to a productive weekend!