In Which Every Day Has Felt Like Sunday

Sorry for the silence on Wednesday, friends. We are surviving covid, but it’s been hard and every morning I wake up and think it’s Sunday. I have to put my hands on my calendar to figure out the actual day and now I’m pretty sure that today is Friday. Luckily, Fridays are about JOY here at The Cozy Burrow and since we’re still in the thick of summer, most of my joy has come from blooming flowers. So let’s catch up a bit!

I didn’t spend much time outside this week. It was pretty warm and muggy and I’ve found myself more tired than usual. But I can share new blooms on the echinacea flowers and a fat bumble doing its thing on the bergamot. Over the weekend (before getting sick), I deadheaded all of my roses so I’m hoping that I might see a resurgence in blooms soon. I also sprayed all of the squash with a mixture of peppermint castille soap and water which is supposed to keep the squash beetles away. I’ll let you know if it works.

We had two thunderstorms this week! Yesterday’s blew through around midday. As I watched the dark clouds approach, I brewed a cup of chamomile tea to drink as the lightening seemed to flash right on top of us. A good thunderstorm will hold me over for a while, so I was pretty content to watch this one in its entirety.

I have desperately wanted to read this week but that hasn’t been in the cards. By the time the evening rolls around and the kids are in bed, my brain cells have decided to clock out for the day. So I’ve been watching Thor movies (luckily I’ve never really sat down to watch any of the Marvel movies so they’re all new to me) and…. knitting!

Sorry about the quality of this picture – it was cloudy and this shows almost no stitch definition. I was able to bind off the body yesterday and now I’m ready to get started on the sleeves for my DRK Everyday Sweater. I tried it on because I was nervous about the length and sizing. I think going with 9″ of body before ribbing was a very good idea, so I’m relieved with that decision. I also decided to go up a size on this sweater, but I wish I would have stayed with my typical size. It’s a little baggy in a few awkward places. We’ll see what happens after blocking – maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. I want to make this pattern again so I’ll be able to make modifications just like I did with my second Spark Cardigan (Ravelry link), which I’m quite fond of.

I had a little list of joyful things to share this week and Anne Bogel scooped me on a couple of links when she published her post yesterday! That’s okay — I’ll share my list anyway and feel as though I’m in very good company with Anne.

• Spotify has a personalized playlist to help you escape Vecna (he’s the bad guy in the latest season of Stranger Things). Just go into Spotify and search “Upside Down Playlist.” The first song on the list is your Vecna escape song. Mine is “Make It Sweet” by Old Dominion.
• Ada Limón was named the new US Poet Laureate! Laila at Big Reading Life recommended her to me a while back and I read The Carrying, which blew me away. I now have Limón’s newest, The Hurting Kind, waiting for me and I’m very excited to get to it.
• The images released this week from the James Webb Space Telescope are truly spectacular. The images along with their descriptions gave me goosebumps (still do). It’s unbelievable.
• Also in space exploration? Scientists at MIT have picked up repetitive radio signals from a galaxy billions of light-years from Earth. What is happening?? Have we earthlings finally passed some sort of test to let us in on the greater galaxies beyond our solar system?

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I didn’t really want to mention covid in this post, but there is something I’d like to say. I got a little whiny in my post on Monday and said that we didn’t have anyone to help us get medicine or food. And I almost immediately started getting emails from local friends who offered to help. I was so thankful for those messages. Like a typical Enneagram Type 4, I often feel alone. And those messages were a humbling reminder that I am not. So thank you all.

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I am hoping that our lives will go back to a relatively normal pace next week. We’re still planning to start our third year of Blackberry Bluff School on Monday despite my inability to prep this week as I’d hoped, and I’m excited about our simple summer learning plans (think: Leonardo da Vinci, butterflies, and pirates!). I’m hoping for lots of poetry with iced tea and lemonade, plenty of time in the garden, and stacks of books to enjoy.

But first: let’s make it through this final weekend of quarantine. I have no idea what we’ll be doing. But I hope you have a weekend that’s full of exactly what you need. Take good care.