The week ahead

Welcome to this week's Happy Homemaker post, looking at the week ahead.

The weather in Aurora CO
hot and raining. It has rained every day here for months, in dry Colorado. The bugs are everywhere, the humidity is high enough to make sweat roll down my back under my shirt, and there is the ever present thread of damaging hail

we had three sessions of hail on July 4th, luckily none here larger than marbles but north of us got big ice. Ours piled up but melted when it turned back to just rain

there is always a silver lining and a rainbow...

We don't really need to water the grass...

As I look around the house
I  woke scratching bug bites in the night, so I slept in til 7 this morning. As I look around I see a lot of dust to clear up, some kitchen towels to wash, my paints and paper to do a morning painting,  but my coffee cup is more alluring. I imagine I'll have a piece of bread and melted cheese for breakfast, and wear shorts and a cute summer shirt as it's hot and muggy.

Gardening

lobelia, creeping jenny, and celosia

 My interpretation:

To Do
Always lots to do. The daily chores, which I don't mind as I love to be home.
My house is a crafter's candy store of supplies so they are always singing their siren song, "come play with us"
decide if Milo absolutely must go in to the vet for his ears. They seem to flare up with each new pollen or season. Of course we both must take antihistamines here.
really look at the house with fresh vision, and clear out a bit of accumulated debris from the busy weekend we had. Two craft shows, a trip to Denver, and Colorado Springs, two parties on the 4th, washing off the covered back porch from bird poop as they use it as a freeway, stopping frequently to use the rest areas. We totally powerwashed the porch on Saturday but it's got more on it today.
We have to figure out how to stop them without ruining our view.
I would like to sew a lot this week, as I went to two quilt shops over the weekend and have some new toys.
Despite the rain, I still have to water the vegetables daily in their containers. I have some beans growing but no visible tomatoes or peppers, no zucchini or eggplant yet. wah.
back to the dentist on Wed. and try to get him to understand the pain I've had since he worked on me



watching
frustrated that I know who the bachelorette chose, and she's already broken up with him and the show is still dragging on. She is a hot mess, and needed therapy IMHO, which I would have happily watched instead of her bungling the chance to have a nice guy. We finished the first season of Agatha Raisin, and there's one more shorter season to watch. We've been watching Time Team, and the history of Stonehenge from BBC. I like Songland, boy are there a lot of really fine songwriters out there!
I'm watching Youtube tutorials on drawing and painting, and we caught up on podcasts while driving this weekend, of "the futility closet" which has interesting stories and mysteries solved by the husband and wife team.
The Good Witch is taking a vacation! (said by Hallmark announcer with a sing-song voice) so not that. Still like watching Master Chef.
Have you noticed shows are saying they are "new" but are re-runs with some stupid tweets at the bottom?

Reading
my nightime novel is Past due for murder, third in the librarian series. The author has a MA in library science, a second MA in liberal studies, a BA in theater and writes engrossing mysteries.
I'm trying to catch up on my magazines, and maybe look through a few quilting books this week.
All the airborne debris here has made my eyes itch and be blurry so less reading going on.

"Growing things"

Art
Painting daily, on paper and fabric. I feel the need to encourage non drawing people to try some of the techniques out there to allow you to create. Being creative is healing. Hearing loud noises and coping with other stressors is injuring us, so we all need to heal ourselves to the point we are able, to meditate or do deep breathing, to do some craft or building, to slow down and allow others to go first and facilitate kindness.

showing great restraint in the number of sparkly stars added!

I finished my table runner with gold sequin stars, and started this month's pink blocks for the online scrap challenge. I made three "mug rugs" to send friends. I want to finish the orange lady quilting this week, and try out some new fabric paints I got this weekend. It was so refreshing to go to the quilt stores and see the lovely supplies.
I was very excited by the high quality art at the Cherry Creek event. I got lots of ideas to try in my medium, and interviewed three artists for posts here later.

Conversation at a party
A neighbor asked what we thought of the area... we talked about many observations we've made as newcomers, one is the lack of kindness on the road here.
She responded in the knee-jerk reaction most people have, with no basis in fact, that the bad drivers are from CA.
Then she went on to complain about people driving 45 on a road with the limit of 55, and how she tails them and honks but they won't go faster! She was raised here. I just got more and more frustrated that she missed my point, that people drive unsafe speeds here, on bad roads with no dividers. That DH has had two accidents because of people running into him, that I've been flipped the bird many times for being in their way, that I'm just about the only person letting people merge into my lane on the highway. I find, around Aurora and some parts of Denver, that people are aggressive and blame others. She's just the latest to complain to me that someone is in her way!
No self awareness.
No allowance for others, no kindness, no grace given. And I've lived and driven in the DC area, and in Florida where there are lots of transplants and tourists.
She liked to blame an outsider when she was the problem. Kind of a trend. Made me think of how I can show more kindness and grace to others, even her, just to balance things.
If someone moves into your area listen to their take on things, as they bring awareness.
oy.

I know the post is about the happy homemaker, but this is part of my life, so I share it here.

Inspiration :
The Dalai Lama says: “All problems must be solved through dialogue, through talk. The use of violence is outdated and never solves problems.”

Inspirational quote seen at the art festival:

Eat More Ice Pops

linking to
happy homemaker monday
design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays