It's been an awful couple of weeks with continued high heat and humidity. But it's all getting washed out of here by strong rain tomorrow, just in time for what we're told will be a wonderful weekend followed by more temperate and pleasant summertime temps in the 80s all next week.

So I can catch up on some much-needed yardwork. I see weeds everywhere, for one thing.

Brought my father to the periodontist last week and the dentist broke his crown. This was the 2nd time it broke. She also informed me he has 2 cavities. We were able to get that all taken care of at his regular dentist today. They didn't charge for the crown, but even with his dental discount plan, he still paid $500 for the fillings.

Next week after his physical therapy I have to take him to TJ Maxx. He had brought 2 pairs of what had to be 30-year-old, dirty, stained pants with him when I picked him up today, and he wanted to have a tailor take the waist in becus they are too big. I had to persuade him it wasn't worth the cost and it would be better to buy new, but the last few pairs of pants i got him on amazon didn't fit. I just hope the local TJ Maxx will have his size. It's going to take him forever to try them on since he uses a walker and I don't think there will be seats in the dressing rooms. 

I've revved up my weight training routine in recent weeks with Romanian deadlifts. Sounds exotic, doesn't it? I like these becus they do not bother my knees, since you're lifting with your glutes in your butt. I started with 2 20 lb hand weights and progressed to just lifting the long bar, which is 45 lbs, and now I'm doing 55 lbs. I hope to get up to 110 lbs to replicate a well known study.

I have totally revamped the website of one of my volunteer groups after assuming control of it from a board member who stopped coming to our meetings a year ago. I had no idea I could do so much with it, but I've really enhanced the design and attractiveness of it and added major new content. Everyone is very happy with it. I have a background as a writer, not website publishing, but I've certainly worked with many designers/developers, so I knew the kinds of things I wanted to do and just was able to figure it out. 

I enjoyed it. So much so that I started wondering if I should try to find some very part time work somewhere doing something fun. Cus lately, with the cost of everything going up, I feel a little insecure not making any income. It would need to be local and need to be no more than maybe 10 hours a week max. I have a feeling I won't find anything interesting but I'm sort of keeping an eye out.

But it would be nice to make a little pocket money. I've observed how well my handyman, a guy who recently retired, does doing odd jobs for mostly single women in town. I myself have hired him probably 6 times already. His price was great to start, but recently he raised his rates, though I still think he's pretty reasonable. Most recently he cut down one large trunk of a paper birch that was leaning low in my yard after just becoming too big, I guess. Just $70.  A tree guy would charge more. He's helped me put together a large obelisk type thing in my garden, build a platform for my washer/dryer...he's coming over Saturday to install a new rack in my garage to hold some heavy duty hooks I bought for all my cordless landscaping tools and other stuff. The garage needs organzing. 

I committed to writing 200 postcards to remind environmentally leaning voters in Virginia to vote in the general election there this fall. A friend from one of my groups is going to help me by doing 25 of them, which I'll drop off this weekend. It's basically just 2 sentences on the postcard, plus their name/address, but it's going to take me more time than I realized. They have to be mailed on a specific day in September. 

I've had some communication from a web guy from this site and he has informed me that he's fixed the issue where you lose everything you write when trying to post. Let me know if it's still a problem for you.

Geez, these Chase offers are getting into serious money...

Of course, they want serious money, too, which won't be forthcoming.

Tempting to think about though.

I went to one of those retirement planning programs last night. They always talk about Roth conversions. Which I understand can be very helpful in reducing taxes you'll pay once RMDs begin, but I don't think they're necessary for everyone, and they didn't mention scenarios where they wouldn't make sense.

There's a John Lewis/anti-Trump rally tonight, the first one I'll be skipping. It will be a muggy 90 degrees here at 6:30 pm, when the rally starts. It's just too darn hot.

This is a Great spangled fritillary on purple coneflower.

Liatris (blazing star) with black eyed susies.

I got a new Shark vac and tried it out today. Pros: It's definitely better picking up stuff on both bare floors and rugs than what I had, and I like the easy empty feature. It automatically adjusts its setting after detecting whether I'm doing a rug or floor so I don't have to keep pressing buttons.

Cons: It acts like a self-propelled Ninja on rugs. Kind of like a dog pulling on a leash. It's pretty loud, so I'll continue using headphone thingies. It's also still fairly heavy, but I guess you can't have it all. 

I brought my Toyota in for its very first, 6-month service, which will be free (ToyotaCares) for I think the first 2 years? 10 years? I'll have to doublecheck. But at this juncture, all they did was top off fluids, rotate the tires and reinsert a small plastic cover that I accidentally dislodged that goes over one of the license plate lights in the back.

Door project done!

I'm happy to say the front entry is now finally done, both the main door and the storm door. The installer was here this morning. He has a very interesting background and I enjoyed talking to him because he's very personable. He was born in Marseilles, France,, but came to the US and was in the Army for 8 years. He's been installing mostly Andersen doors for 18 years and says he loves his work. He's very excited because he's leaving tomorrow for a 2-week vacay to St. Lucia, where his mother lives.

Anyway, I really like this storm door. As mentioned, I got this model because it has glass and screen panels that stay in the door and all you have to do is slide it up or down. The small sacrifice is that the screen is just for the top half of the door, (not the full length) but I am fine with that as it mean not having to carry or store the heavy glass insert back and forth from the basement in the spring and then in fall. It's also better if I ever get another cat again since they won't be able to scratch the screen.

This storm door and its install will be much cheaper than the main door was. The main door cost $2,000 and its install was $1100. Yup. It's shocking how expensive everything is. The storm door install will be just $140 and he said he would give me a break on the cost of the storm door, too. I'm not sure how he can do that, but if he can, great. Otherwise, the normal cost of it was almost $500.

This is the last of my major (major to me) home improvements for this year. The only thing I have to do is some painting on both inside and outside trim. I think I'll wait til cooler weather to do this, like September.

Tonight I'll be traveling to another town to meet up with another board member from my litter group to help a different group in a cleanup. I like to take lots of pix to post on social media before and after each event.

Bummer.

Today was the day Home Depot was to install the new Andersen storm door with retractible glass/screen in the door (not interchangeable, where you have to physically remove one or the other). The arrival window they gave me was 11 am to 3 pm. They got here after 5 due to some delays and they brought the door up, still packaged. Thank god we chit chatted about the door and I discovered the door they brought didn't have the retractable feature which is what really sold me on the door because it would eliminate the need to drag the heavy glass insert up from the basement each time I changed it in spring and then again in fall. I was able to show him my original order on my phone; he said the guy at Home Depot gave him the wrong door. 

So he will try to return with the right door, hopefully on Friday cus he's on vacation next week.

A young woman is supposed to come over tonight with her fiance and truck to take a Victorian couch I got from Buy Nothing a few years ago and decided I don't want. They are moving into their first apartment together and need everything. I could have posted it as a regift on Buy Nothing, but I didn't want to hurt the feelings of the person who originally gifted it to me, should she see the post, so this way, I don't have to do that.

The heat is still brutal here. Even at the gym, where it's air conditioned, I could barely do 15 minutes on the treadmill. No doubt my electric bill will spike cus I've had the central air on quite a bit. The highest I can bear is 78 degrees but it's usually set at 77. The problem is that while the downstairs usually feels ok, the upstairs always feels a good 5 degrees warmer. I always say I'm going to sleep downstairs, but I never do.

Tomorrow is dad day: physical therapy, probably the bank and then lunch, hopefully at one of our favorite cafes, which is closing this week. They have plans to redevelop part of the center of town and possibly related to that, the landlord jacked up the rent, forcing the restaurant owner to make plans to leave. It's a very cozy place where he literally knows everyone by name, just like in Cheers. He will come over to your table and lovingly recite all the ingredients in his different dishes. There's not really a menu; it's all verbal. The food is good, the portions are huge and the price is reasonable. And it's in a very picturesque area where you can sit outside on a deck that overlooks a river. And he always serves you a pair of complimentary mini cannolis for dessert. He really makes you feel taken care of there and I'll be so sad to see it go.

There is a decent chance of rain overnight so I'm going to skip watering the garden. A welcome break. 

What's growing in the garden
The garden is reaping benefits. I've been enjoying lots of green/red lettuce for a while now, and it is only now starting to bolt.  I will miss it!  

I've also been picking small zucchinis, yellow squash and cucumbers. Not sure how long the zucchini will last as it's beset by cucumber beetles that I pick off when I can, and the leaves are riddled with tiny holes, but I don't feel comfortable spraying Neem as I noticed bumblebees nesting at one of the raised bed.

I decided to underplant everything becus in the past I squeezed in too many plants in 3 4 x 4 raised beds and they grew so much i had trouble even getting in there. So I just have 1 yellow squash, 1 zucchini, 2 cucumber plants, a row of lettuce, a row of string beans just starting to flower and 4 tomato plants.

Really, the one disappointment so far is the tomatoes, which I consider my most important crop. I only planted 2 initially, but we had an unusually cold spring, so while they were alive, they appeared stunted. I bought 2 more and just added them without pulling the original 2 out in case the first 2 recovered. So of the 4 plants i currently have, only 1 appears to be the right size for this time of year.

Next Day Trip
My "one fun thing" this week will be a trip to visit Wickham Park, which seems to have a ton of stuff to see (aviary, arboretum, many different gardens, nature musuem) and yet I hadn't ever heard of this place until about a year ago. It's about an hour away but no tolls.

Kiva Loans
This week I reviewed Kiva loan profiles for borrowers in Jordan, Kenya, Phillippines, Tonga and Uganda. 

Any Cordless Vac Recommendations?
I need a new vacuum.  I have a cheap cordless stick vacuum that only does a very modest job on bare floors and is not really good at all on rugs, but that's okay since I have just a few area rugs and a backup vac. I LOVE the cordless but need something more powerful but still lightweight.

I also have a corded canister vacuum which is VERY powerful but also pretty heavy and loud so I don't like to use it.  

Based on reading a zillion reviews, I've come to the conclusion that a good cordless vac doesn't exist and will settle for a corded one as long as it's 1) lightweight and 2) powerful "enough." I don't need it to suck up everything within a 5 foot radius and sound like a fighter jet, but it should be strong enough. If you have one you really like, let me know!

I had a nice little day trip to New Paltz, NY as planned. It was a guided tour of Historic Huguenot Street, an area occupied by the Lenape Indians up until the 1600s when the Dutch and French settled there, with their slaves.  There were just 3 of us on the tour.  Here are a few pix I took.

The Lenapi Indians were widespread in the NY/NJ area, and in fact they occupied the town in New Jersey I grew up in, at Ramapo Mountain. I went to high school with so-called Jackson Whites who were said to be descendants of the Lenapi and/or fugitive slaves, and who were somewhat ostracized. Today they are a recognized tribe with about 5,000 members.

My goal is to plan at least one "fun" thing to do every week. This week I'm thinking of asking a woman I know out to lunch at one of my favorite cafes in town which is closing this week. She is someone in town who gave me some plants from her garden a few years ago, and theN we met again in the gym last week and started talking to each other without realizing we had met before. 

I had my front door installed 2 weeks ago. The door is beautiful but there were issues with its installation like a pretty prominent scratch on the front that I guess I'm stuck with. The worst thing is the way they left my storm door. I have an old Andersen storm door I thought i could keep, but it doesn't work with the new door as they could not screw in screws for the molding so they were flush. Hard to explain but you can see screws half screwed in up and down either side of the storm door molding.  It looks terrible. Installers said they warned Home Depot about this and that Home Depot "should have" warned me, but they didn't. 

So I plunked down more money, about $600 on a new storm door, which I was excited about since it solves another problem for me: instead of having interchangeable glass and screen inserts, like my current door, this one has glass and screen that stays in the door itself, so no more heavy lugging of a full size glass insert up the basement stairs twice a year.

Installer guy said he would pick up. I started getting automated reminders from Home Depot that the storm door needs to be picked up. I texted the Installer company and he said don't worry, they're just reminders. Well, yesterday i got another message from Home Depot saying your order has been cancelled because no one picked up. Installer guy hasn't responded to me message. the job was scheduled to be done this Wednesday. I'll have to call Home Depot tomorrow. Super annoyed. I already left a bad review. 

I went to another rally/protest in a neighboring small town on Saturday. Probably about 100 people.

The End