Blue-Footed Musings

I knew when I woke up this morning that I wasn’t going to work today. I just don’t feel like it. I stayed up too late last night, so I am tired, and I am angry at the state of the world. Concentration is elusive, and if there’s anything my job requires, it’s concentration.

It does not help that I have no work to do. Or rather, I have no deadline work, and I haven’t had any for a couple of weeks, meaning I’ve been left to my own devices to fill my days. My boss is on vacation, so she can’t send me more work. I always have a backlog of documentation to be written or updated, so I did a ton of that, but I need some answers and approvals from my boss before I can complete what I’ve done so far. I also did some editing for my next project and some work for another department. But I have used up all of my capacity to keep myself busy, and now I’m feeling thoroughly bored and unmotivated. By rights, I ought to have made my employer pay me to be bored today, but there’s so much beautiful sunshine outside, and I want more of it that I can justify taking on a break.

So to Hell with work. Today I’m just going to amuse myself. I will finish this blog post while I eat my breakfast, then I will go book browsing and Nature walking.

P.S. When I run out of vacation days at the end of the year and have to work during the two holiday weeks, remind me of how much I enjoyed this day off.

I am eating cantaloupe. It’s not my favorite fruit by any stretch of the imagination, but it does remind me that one of my favorite things about the summer is the wonderful variety of fruit that’s available. Last night at the grocery store, we bought not only the cantaloupe, but also apples, oranges, blueberries, cherries, and teardrop-shaped grapes. Yum.

The children’s shoes were getting beyond shabby, and because it was just about time for back-to-school shopping anyway, I took the kids to the Sketchers store last week. I used to buy the cheapest available sneakers for them, back when their feet were growing about an inch per day. Now the kids are growing more slowly, which means their shoes last longer, so I feel like I can spend more money on their shoes. Also, Payless went out of business, leaving us with no obvious alternative. Sketchers are expensive, but they’re fairly well-made, and more importantly, they’re wider than most shoes. Marshall and I both have wide feet, so Sketchers is a good brand for us, and the wideness doesn’t bother Livia, whose feet are narrower. I spent a fortune, but now the kids each have one nice pair and one “beater” pair. One of Marshall’s pairs has lights in the soles. Last night when we got home from furniture shopping, Marshall danced around on the darkest part of the driveway so we could admire the colorful lights. It was like the weirdest firefly display we’d ever seen, but wonderful.

Interesting item of note: Livia now wears the same size of shoe (8.5) as I do.

Honeybees like plantain flowers. Plantain flowers are so boring. Ugly, even. But the honeybees that I’ve seen in the yard lately just can’t get enough. They ignore the other, prettier (from my perspective) flowers and fly from plantain to plantain. I enjoy watching them at their work. It’s rare to see any honeybees in the yard anymore. To see more than one at a time is a little miracle.

Hummingbirds are curious birds. When we have the audacity to leave the house, thus getting close to both their feeder and the hosta flowers that they love so much, the hummingbirds fly away too fast for me to see. But if I look up, I often see one hovering above, giving us a look like, “You gonna be long?”

Bumblebees are adorable, and they like hostas, too. They climb all the way into the flowers, then wiggle their way back out. They’re even more fun to watch than honeybees. I often try to get pictures of them, but they move so fast that it’s difficult. I took a bunch of bumblebee photos the other day. If any of them came out good, I’ll share them later.

Decisions are hard, and I hate making them. The more options there are, the harder the decisions are. But, all things considered, I’d rather make decisions for myself than let someone else choose for me, and I’d rather have too many choices than have none.

Today there is an evil red light on the septic pump monitor, an indicator that there’s something wrong with the pump. So we have to strictly limit the amount of water going down the drain, lest the septic tank contents back up into the house. This is an unfortunate situation. It means no dishes, no laundry, no flushing the toilet, etc. On the bright side, this is a Get Out of Cleaning Free Card. I have literally been told not to do any cleaning. So no dishes, no laundry, no cleaning the toilet, etc.

See, every cloud does have a silver lining.

I would like to see Hamilton. And when I say that, I mean I’d like to have a seat in the theater where I could actually see the stage well, but $800+ for two tickets? Come on.