More good decisions

I am taking Fridays in August off.

Four long weekends in a row, all lovely opportunities to sleep in, golf, get the last of the summer housework done and maybe get out of town for a couple of days, depending how the housework goes.

So this morning, I'm sitting in bed at 9am having a cup of coffee (coffee in bed is one of my favourite things), with cats on either side of me, contemplating getting my oil changed and doing some serious cleaning in the basement. It doesn't sound very glamourous, but I am grateful to have the extra time to do the things that need doing!!

Good decisions

The husband and I made a really good decision last winter. We got a cleaning lady. Two cleaning ladies, in fact! For the purposes of this blog, I think that I shall refer to them as our Angels.

One of the difficulties of my having a day job and WH having a job that requires a lot of evening hours is that there really isn't a lot of time that we spend together at home during the school year. We made the decision to employ our Angels because we didn't want to be spending most of what little time we're both here cleaning the house. The Angels come every two weeks and do the floors and the kitchen and the bathrooms, they dust and brush the cat hair off the couches, they empty and clean the garbage and compost bins... they really are amazing. Having them has also provided a good disciplinary practice for WH and I. The night before they come, we go through the house and do all the tidying, put everything away, and sort through any piles of "stuff" that have accumulated in the last two weeks. The practice goes a long way to keeping us in control of our space, which is so gratifying.

Last week, we came home after the Angels were here to find the house full of flowers. Turns out that one of our cleaning ladies is an award-winning gardener, and she had brought flowers from her garden for our house. She left a note offering ongoing access to any clippings from her perennials. How kind is that?!

I have a crush on...

...U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.

An excerpt from this article on Time.com:

Allowing gays to marry, he reasoned, doesn't change marriage; it simply reflects a better understanding of gender and gender roles in society. "The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The exclusion [of gays from marriage] exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed."

August Ramblings

It's so amazing to me that August has rolled around again. What happened to July, or to May and June, for that matter?

WH and I are having a really lovely summer. We had a great trip east to visit his family, a trip that included TWO baseball games, lots of swimming, lots of laughs and lots of relaxation. We have golfed a lot, eaten good food and drunk good drink. I can't remember a summer that I've loved as much as this one... and so much of that happiness came from simply sitting in the sunshine. And now we've reached that part of the summer where the mind can't help but start to poke at the things that need to be done before September, the choir to-do list, the last yard work, etc.

In an effort to make the most of the last few weeks of summer, I've opted to take Fridays in August off, which should allow us to get a few more rounds in and to spend some dedicated time on the yard. We'll be digging out a flower garden in the back yard, planting a few trees and replacing the garden space next to our front door, at the very least. We may get around to a few more cosmetic details while we're at it.

I hope that your summer is going well and that you, too, are getting a chance to enjoy the sun!