Labor Day staycation

 We decided to extend the Labor Day weekend into a full week off.

The plan is to limit our consumption of news, social media, alcohol, and junk food.

If the weather complies, we will get out in nature every day.  If the weather is terrible, like they're saying it might be (wind chills in the 20s on Wednesday), then we will stay in, read, play guitars, get out the backgammon board.... 

We both surely need a break from the news, especially.

Yesterday, I had a nasty headache from the barometric pressure, which was at 30.30 (29.92 is "normal").

We went to Trader Joe's.  That was my first time in a grocery store since March.   It was actually FUN!  

But after that, and after lunch, I had to go lie down in the dark.  Took an ibuprofen, and slept.

When I got up, the barometer had dropped to 30.14, and the headache was gone, but I felt washed out.

SO, yesterday, I didn't get my chores done.  

After we run up to Costco this morning, I will focus on my usual household chores, and Dave will do the mowing at some point.

We've got a pork loin for the grill, and I have a painting project I want to do on my grandma's gate leg table.

It's supposed to be brutally hot tomorrow, and then the cold front comes Tuesday afternoon, so I need to get that painting project done today and tomorrow.  

The table is an antique, but it's so badly damaged (it went through a few floods in Grandma's basement, and the top is scratched and has a big water mark), that it's really not valuable as an antique, so I feel okay sanding and painting it.

On Tuesday morning, I will go get my monthly blood draw.  I'll call my nurse on Wednesday to see if it's okay for me to start my next cycle of chemo, and on Thursday, I have my monthly appointment.

I've also found a place to donate my breast prostheses, so we will drop those off after my blood test, and maybe get out to take a walk in the woods after that, and before the weather changes.

There were a couple of evenings this past week when our back yard was filled with magic!

Apparently, there is some kind of little fly that dragonflies love to hunt.... and we had a bunch of them, so we also had a swarm of dragonflies!

I went out and stood in the middle of it, with them buzzing all around me.  Anyone who knows me knows that I adore dragonflies.  I have a tattoo of a dragonfly on my shoulder that is 20 years old this very weekend!

They came two evenings in a row, but have not been back.  They must have eaten all of those little flies!

In the mix, there were also hummingbirds.  

We have tried and tried to attract hummingbirds for years, and this year, we finally have them!  There has usually only been one here and there so far, but lately, we have seen more!

They're even here in the heat of the day, not just early and late... They are such a joy to watch!

They've been busy on my bean vine, with its red blossoms, but it's gone now, and they're loving the native trumpet vine and rose of sharon.

I am off to the shower, then breakfast, then Costco.... Have a good Sunday, gentle readers, and a safe holiday, if you are in the US, and if you celebrate Labor Day.