Long ago I decided that I should never beat myself up for not getting much done in August. Even if you have good air conditioning, when it's over 100 degrees outside, just getting through the day is good enough.
Here are the few little bits of things I did accomplish:
PHOTOS: I love taking photos, even with my horrible old camera.
(Zoom in--there's a tiny baby green anole!)
(this is not my tomato plant--I just thought it looked so beautiful after a rare and much appreciated August rain shower)
(this is my pepper plant--I liked how the pepper was kind of hidden in the leaves)
(a pinta plant--not mine either, and I had difficulty with the framing, but I think the colors came out very nicely)
(I took this picture of a rock as a joke to myself--I'm always taking pictures of puppies and plants, I thought, so I'd better take a picture of an inanimate object!--but it turned out pretty well)
(again, not my plant, but I liked the light here)
(again with my apricot hibiscus--it just keeps blooming and blooming!)
(used the zoom here to get the blurred background)
(coleus--not mine either--I wanted to get way in there so that it looked abstract, or like a fractal)
(I try not to put puppy pictures here, but this one of Joey and me came out so well!)
(I've seen a lot of agave close-ups, so I turned these on their sides for something new)
(in reality, the spines point downward)
(lantana, a heat-hardy plant, and one of my favorites--I was going to say it smells like verbena, but I just googled it, and it turns out it IS a verbena!!)
(a sunrise sky too lovely not to document--one of the advantages of getting up at 6:30 AM to take the puppies out for potties)
(and, yet again, the hibiscus--I just can't get over the color and the perfect whorl of the petals)
ARTWORK: This is NOT an artwork, just a craft, but it's a craft I've been wanting to try for over 20 years now! When I was a little girl, one of my favorite books was a reference volume on herbs, full of botanical information, beautiful photographs and plenty of ideas for things to do with herbs, including this beribboned lavender bundle:
Early in the summer, I had a lavender plant (Goodwin Creek variety--didn't survive the 100-degree weather) and managed to get three decent stems of flowers from it before it died. The bundle in the book has seven much longer stems, but I found an old hair ribbon and made it work:
(eh--close enough!)
HEALTH GOALS: It's been hot, but I got up every day before seven (barely!) and ran/walked the dogs. I ate beans, chickpeas or lentils every day. I took my B-12. I didn't lost even half an inch.
The weather-persons are all promising cooler weather (i.e. 80's) in a week or two, so I'll probably step up the running. Also, I've devised a system for ranking protein sources by how much iron, calcium, fat and sugar they have (a formula, really), but I haven't compiled enough data yet. For September, I'd like to put several dozen items in a spreadsheet and make it available on the world wide web for all to see and use!
100 RECIPES GOAL:
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