Yup, It's Summer

July 2015 is turning out to be a very unstable, weather-wise. The 4th was really nice: clear and evening in the 70's and then the next day it got hot and rained. Then it got cool and rained and it has been raining ever since. The last two weeks of June were so hot and dry my herb garden was wilting by afternoon even with being watered early in the morning. Now we have so much moisture in the ground and the air that walking outside is sort of like swimming and breathing water - like a fish. We've been on flood and flash flood watches and warnings for a week solid. This has been a weird summer so far. The locusts were out in the countryside a good three weeks before they were out in town and so were the lightning bugs. Not sure what that means, exactly, but there it is. Now with all of this rain the locusts are quiet, but the toads and peepers are singing up a storm again. Of course it's all about to change because conditions are turning hot again, but with wind - still humid though. I'll have to record it and post what the racket sounds like with locusts, katydids, and everything else all together.

Locust shells on my maple tree

I went on my first mini road trip on the highway  a few of weeks ago to get the bike serviced. In theory, it was no different than toodling around like we do here in the county. Approximately the same amount of time on the bike, but it was the fact that we were on the highway with traffic and higher speeds and more wind that made it different. I was a bit nervous about it and did my very best to mentally prepare for it and wound up talking myself right into a panic attack within the first five minutes. We'd barely made it out of town and I had to have Hubby stop and pull over at a convenience store just out of town so I could calm down. He's like "what's going on?" Once I explained, he told me to take my time and let him know when I was ready and that at any time I needed to stop just tap him and point with my thumb to the side. I was better by then and so we continued on. It's kind of like claustrophobia for me: I start feeling trapped and stupid stuff pops into my head, usually "what if I have to be sick?" but other stuff too, completely random and ridiculous, of course, but there it is. So then I start taking a lot of deep breaths to calm myself, but then of course that leads to the thought that I can't breathe which leads to hyperventilating and then tunnel vision: full-blown panic attack. But all I needed was to have a minute to share it with Hubby and walk it off and I was good again. Still nervous about the traffic and big trucks, but good. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'm ready for a little longer road trip. I have a riding jacket, but I really need some pants, which would make me feel safer for a long trip. Whether it really offers a whole lot of protection in the big scheme of things or not, I think it will, therefore it will. My mind: a dangerous playground, lol.

My baby, S, went on his first away trip without any of us last week. He went to camp with a few of the middle-schoolers from church. He was worried and riding the fence about whether he was excited about going or not. In all honesty, I made him go. He wouldn't have even considered it if I had given him a choice. As it turned out, he had a great time. I went to Summer and Winter church camp every year from 6th grade on and it was the best experience of my life. I consider church camp to be foundational and a must-do for kids. I got to know a lot of great people and hear some outstanding personal testimonies from kids in my age group. And we had a lot of fun. Of course our cabin always had KP duty for being noisy, so eventually they moved us out to the furthest cabin where no one could hear us. But then we still had KP all the time because we were out bombing the guys from our church with water balloons through the screenless windows, or wrapping their cabin in toilet paper...you get the idea. I had some of the best ideas because my dad went to the same camp and I got to hear all of his stories ;)

So this past weekend was relatively quiet. Hubby was working, so the boys and I spent Saturday just messing around, playing games, and doing some art projects. It was way too hot to do anything outdoors, so it turned out to be a nice relaxing day. We made this awesome summer salad found on Pinterest. Great if you like cucumbers, onions, and peppers, if not - not so much, then. I changed the recipe a little because I didn't have celery flakes so I used several shakes of celery seed instead, and I used orange bell peppers instead of the green because I think they are sweeter and less bitter than the greens ones. I found it hard to fit everything in the narrow-mouthed Mason jars I had, so I used three jars that I saved from Vlasic Farmer's Garden Bread and Butter Pickles and it was a perfect fit. I love those pickles, by the way. The jars are great because they have a wide opening, a good solid lid, and the labels come off easy. Very useful! I have a refrigerator pickle recipe (which I thought I stored on Dropbox but cannot find or I would share) that I want to try and I'll probably use one of those jars.

I leave you with some of my doodles. They are loosely based on Zentangles or Zendoodles. I say loosely because those have some simple rules associated with them, while I just kind of do my own thing :)