Crazy from the Heat

Blog ennui has set in among a lot of my regular reads, and I'm not exactly a font of lively commentary either. It's hot. It's really frigging hot. We have had something like 43? over 90 degree days in a row - many of them WAY over 90. Katrina missed us, thank God, but my friends in South FL got clobbered and right now it looks like New Orleans is in the bullseye for a very, very bad storm. This one was really a sleeper, it popped up fast and though it was only a Category 1, it moved soooo sloooowly as it crossed the bottom of the state, it took its time doing a lot of damage. This is the time when hurricane season starts getting lively - time for us to eat the contents of the freezer and pick up extra supplies of water, pet food, cat litter...chocolate...beer...trashy chick lit...the necessities. Of course, the trick is not consuming the storm stash of chocolate and beer while waiting for Armageddon.

The hurricanes are the only things with the energy to be lively. But I swear, as Gawd is mah witnuss, I'm going to get off my ass in a few and start speed-cleaning this house, because tomorrow I'm going to play. Sip and Knit is having a special Sunday afternoon sale, and what the hell, I'm actually knitting again so why pass up a little more sock yarn, or maybe more linen for a basketweave baby blanket for a Grandchild To Be Conceived Later.

I'm about 8 inches up the back of the green grandpa cardigan. I love Patons Classic Wool, it's a pleasure to knit and so soft - one of those bargain workhorse wools that really lives up to the title.

This has been a good month - the new job is going well, I like it and I like the people. More money never hurts. The house has a new roof, I've restructured my debt to improve my cash flow ginormously, I argued with the IRS and won - all in all, I'm proud of me this month. So yesterday I got it in my head to buy myself a present, something special to reward myself for all my August victories - I didn't buy myself anything special for my birthday in June - and this morning I did it. Sometime later in the week, a shiny new Dell Axim handheld will be in my gadget-crazy hands. Wireless! Fast! Able to share with my computers here and at work! And...able to play audiobooks! Dell was offering discounts already, and an extra hundred dollar discount from Audible wasn't the deciding factor, but it sure didn't hurt. I love audiobooks - I've never mastered knitting and reading at the same time. TV basically sucks - I record the few shows I care to watch - and I'm sure my knitting output will increase with an audiobook by my side. And I love gadgets - I have an old (like 5 years old!) PDA but it's a dinosaur compared to the new models. This will be useful for work AND playtime. Oooh, now I'm excited and feeling less guilty about spending money on myself!

I'm awful about spending money on myself in this way - I'm perpetually in Mom Mode, in this mindset that if I buy myself something nice, I'm somehow taking food out of my babies' mouths. I have to remind myself that my babies are 22 and almost 25, one is totally self-supporting and the other is as self-supporting as she can be while still in school, they are not my dependents anymore, and it's time to start being good to myself now and then. So it's a shiny new Axim and a yarn sale for me, wheee!

And now I really am getting off my ass and launching into housework. Photos of actual knitting progress later, if the rain holds off.