Summertime

It's difficult to believe that this is the first of August already. Half of the summer is over. The weather here has been cooler and wetter than many summers of the recent past but I am not complaining. I do not cope well with the hot, humid, hazy stuff and we have saved a lot of money with not having to water every day.

I took this picture of a rainbow a couple of weeks ago. We had not actually had rain that day but obviously it was all around  us. I wonder what it is about rainbows that are so special to a lot of us? I think that part of it is that we don't see many rainbows. In my life I may have seen a total of 6 or so and that's not a lot considering how much rain I've seen.

The Bible tells us that the first rainbow was given by God to Noah as a sign that He would never again destroy the world with a flood. The Bible talks about a new heaven and new earth but the floods will not cover the earth and destroy everything as they did in Noah's day. In other words, we should not need to build an ark any time soon.

The last two weeks have been interesting. We went away for a three day vacation to a resort. The place we chose was lovely and very quiet. . The food was delicious . The owners were Chinese and one night we had an authentic Chinese dinner - so good. I put on two pounds in 3 days so it's a good thing we didn't stay longer. More about this trip in another blog.

This week we went to a local funeral home and arranged to pay for our funerals. That was fun - and expensive. We didn't want our children to worry about the expense when we die and the charges for services are not going to increase over time. They are locked in at today's prices which are high enough, believe me. Some people are freaked out with the thought of their own death and by the thought of actually planning for it but we aren't. It's just part of life and dealing with the inevitable is no different than planning a vacation, in my opinion.

This week I have my annual medical check-up and that is more daunting to me than planning my funeral. I don't like pain of any kind!

Yesterday I drove a lady in town to her dentist for Community Care. I was so impressed with this lady. She is a widow and lives in her own home where she looks after everything except the outside work. She told me she had finally found someone who could tell the difference between a weed and a plant worth keeping. This lady told me she was 93 and would be 94 in October.  I found that difficult to believe. She was very mobile although she did have a cane and she managed to go up a long flight of stairs to get to her dentist. She was also very sharp mentally. Not everyone her age is so fortunate.

The backyard landscaping is finally finished and looks good except that there are not many bushes. When you live in the boonies as we do, it's difficult to find bushes and shrubs at this time of year. Most of the planting will have to wait until next spring. Our veggie/fruit garden is not too bad although the landscaper tried his best to eliminate it. We've had beets and onions and strawberries and rhubarb and one cucumber. Nothing like fresh from the garden food. The tomatoes are coming although they are a bit later because of the cooler weather.

I guess that's enough for now!