Dog Days.

The days are blurring together again. I'm suffering from August Seasonal Affective Disorder, aka SSDD (Same Shit, Different Day). Day after day, temps over 90, 50% chance of rain, unbearably humid at 8 a.m. It's so hot and sticky, the dogs ask for a morning walk and then don't want to go out again - I have to order them. Girl reported that Layla of the Endless Energy lasted 20 minutes at the dog park the other day - all the hardcore dog park dogs, the ones who can run and play forever, were flopped on the grass. We are truly in the Dog Days, and ours can last for months.

I'm sorting and boxing stuff every day. It's the same tasks, same shitty weather, day after day, and it's so sticky and warm at night, I'm not sleeping well. The air conditioning can't keep up - the early morning temp is just low enough that the A/C doesn't cycle on very often, and the humidity - gaaah, I hate the humidity! I tease myself with the Asheville weather forecast. Tomorrow's high in Asheville: 83. Low: 60. We'll see that around Thanksgiving, if we're lucky. And I'll be loading a truck! Whoo!

So, it's hot, it's humid, I'm sleeping poorly, I'm restless and sick of it all. I want to wave a wand and have all this work done and be magically transported to my cute little apartment in a new city. I believe I've gone at least a week without sleeping through the night. I wake up at least twice and sometimes four times.

On Monday Girl and I revisited the wedding venue to make decisions about table decor. It's the oldest surviving house in Orlando, and furnished in period antiques and art. Girl observed, and I concur, that floral centerpieces would be overkill and the table decor should be candles. I'm thinking inexpensive cut glass candle holders - bowls and squares and pillars - a variety of sizes and shapes - on the tables. Combined with the chandelier lighting and random table lamps, the room will glow.

Last outstanding decision is the Cake, I think. Oh, and finding a dress for me, but I'm really not stressing over that. Nordstrom's has a half dozen dresses I love online, and I can justify spending more because I will get to wear it next year too - plus, I'm not looking for one of those gawdawful Official Mother of the Bride things I'd never wear anywhere else, unless it was a Halloween party and I was going as the Queen, but just a cute cocktail dress. I'll worry about that in about six weeks, when the stores have their fall/holiday stuff in stock.

Knitting? Why, yes, I am knitting, thank you! The other day I succumbed to a rare attack of Startitis and cast on another flat thing - the Landscape Shawl, in Ella Rae Lace Merino (which is actually fingering weight, not laceweight) in colorway 119, which is mostly reds and oranges with a hint of creamy spots, somewhat like the photo on the Fiber Trends site. Love the pattern, love the yarn - I do believe I have my new morning coffee shawl, and I'm already inspired to make another.

The pattern is great for Mindless Knitters like me - it has just enough to it to keep me from dozing off, but I can knit and watch a movie (finally saw "Invictus" the other day - wonderful!), and the picot edging is knitted in as you go along. I am put off by so many shawl patterns where, after you have at least 800 live stitches on a huge shawl, it's Time to Make the Border! Now, turn it all sideways and start knitting off your stitches with a whole new pattern...yeah, right. Not in this, or any other lifetime. This pattern all builds on an easy to read on the needles four row repeat, with the picot edging knitted in as you go along. Freaking genius.