The end of the kitchen prep work is in sight, and I'm much less stressed, because I will make the deadline with wiggle room. Yesterday I bought a really bitchin' dishwasher at Yon Holy Depot, and packed up most of the kitchen - all the pots and pans, most of the glassware and cups, etc. while watching a re-run of Crufts on Animal Planet. I'm sorry, I would have gone with the magnificent lab or the equally killer Scottie, not that Whippet thing. They always look confused. I like a dog with confidence and personality. When the lab, in a moment of joy, lost his show dog demeanor and jumped up to greet the judge I just melted. That's what they should be like! But I digress....

I have a few loose ends kicking around in the cabinets, but there will be time to deal with that between now and Thursday evening. It will get done. Then I will have a moment of shock and depression when I realize that it just means this PHASE of this project is done, and I still have to paint, and then the real mess and work begins. And that's how I'm spending my summer vacation....

I'm actually looking forward to the week off, even if it will be spent in home improvement chaos. It feels like this project has taken forever to get off the ground -I thought the backyard was bad enough, but it's almost done now. (Except for mulch and some touch-up sod and a patio and more plants...oh wait, it's not done. And then there's the front yard, which looks like hell....) As of the 4th of July, everything tackled on this round of home improvement will be done and I can cut back on the household focus and just go to work and get ready for two upcoming trials and dig out of the mountains of paper in the office, please God, make it so.

Roma tomatoes are ripening in the garden and the frogs (there are at least two) are performing wonderful organic pest control each evening. Who knew that putting in a vegetable garden near a very small artificial pond would attract a live-in pest control service? I do help out with a little insecticidal soap on the parts of the plants they can't reach, but they are doing a fine job, the tomatoes and peppers all look undamaged. The garden, however, looks like hell - I need to get out there and pull weeds tomorrow night, and dump some mulch and water on the plants. Watering restrictions suck, but in FL they're a way of life.
A little friend of mine graduated from preschool last week, and I haven't seen her yet because her mommy had to go out of town on business, so later this week I will deliver a gift I'm crocheting for her, something suitable for a flashy little diva. Photos to follow after the gift is delivered.

I also swatched the All-Season Shawl in hideously unsuitable Kitchen Cotton, just to see if I liked making the pattern (If you don't know it by now, I'm all about turning off the brain and letting the fingers go, but I want nice results.) And yes, it is Good. Now I want to drag out the cone of Softball Cotton and start one for real. It certainly will look lacier than the Dishrag Version. But I won't do that until I finish the Little Diva's gift and crank out more rows on the Trinity Stitch Shawl.

There was a shawl sighting at Mass yesterday, but the woman went up a different aisle and I lost sight of her. It was quite dramatic, rectangular and fringed, but in a nice neutral color, and a very suitable choice for the A/C at our church, which is normally comfortable but can dip into Deep Freeze at times.

I'm wrestling with getting involved in a new parish project that keeps nagging at me. It's not that I don't want to get involved, it's that my work schedule can turn on a dime and I don't want to say "I'll do it" and then back out when I can't handle it. But it appears that only Sundays would be involved, at least in the initial phase, and I can do Sundays. And sometimes I swear I feel one of my hero(ines) Dorothy Day reaching out and smacking me in the head. So I'm thinking maybe I should pay attention when I get smacked like this. So I think I have to do it. Look, I'm talking myself into it.

And Bess and I are in the same place at the same time yet again, this time re the Repugnancy of the Stash Size. I'm still working my way through stuff bought this time last year, and that would be fine if I didn't occasionally buy more. But I had no suitable light shawl yarn, and when you can pick up a big wad of it for five bucks on ebay, well, one just has to go for it, right? Yeah, right, it's rationalization.

Oh, and apparently I've hit on some sort of weird and magical weight-loss program - just work 40 hours a week at a job that has plenty of cardio-elevating moments, then add cleaning the garage, and do yard work every day, and clean out your entire kitchen and move it to the back of the house just for the hell of it, and you, too, can drop 3.5 pounds in 4 days.