Doldrums

The excessive rain has left us and been replaced with excessive heat. You know it's gonna be bad when the low is 81 and you already have an excessive heat warning because the humidity is so high.

My vegetable garden has exploded again. The crabgrass (or something) took over while it was flooding every day. It exploded last year too but I still got some produce out of it. So I'm going to wait until it stops being productive and then take strong measures against next year's weeeds. First I will Roundup a couple of times. Then I will cover the whole thing in either weed fabric or plastic. Then I will cover that with 2-3 layers of cardboard, staggering the seams. Finally, I will mulch the whole thing. Maybe next year I can stay ahead of the weeds a little better.

The front beds aren't quite as bad. I am going to go out there and weed as soon as I finish my tea. The pattypan squash are in the front and so far I am winning the war against the squash vine borers. I have to imphale them with a bamboo skewer. I'm having trouble with some of my flowers not blooming. I have two plants of cosmos and one has flowers all over it and there are none on the other. THey are right next to each other. My tithonia isn't blooming and it's 6 feet tall. I have one volunteer marigold that has produced one bloom the whole summer. Not sure what's going on there. Maybe too much nitrogen in the soil? None of my beans are doing anything either. At least my houseplants are doing well. LOL!

This week I had some doctor appointments. I tend to cluster all my appointments for some reason. This week was Dr. K, the primary care. She's awesome! She gave me some stuff to help my skin behave better. It has been acting weird lately. I always have trouble with acne but this stuff lately is different than usual. Hopefully the meds will take care of it. She took blood too. My cholesterol has always been borderline so she likes to keep an eye on it. Same with the thyroid. It does wacky things now and then.

After Dr. K was my boob MRI. Since I have a 41% risk of breast cancer they do mammograms in January and MRI's in July. THis was my first MRI. It was mostly non-painful. The IV stung a little but that's to be expected. I go back on Tuesday for them to ultrasound a spot. I'm not worried though. They ultrasounded a couple of spots after the mammogram and they were fine. They're just getting a baseline. It's kind of funny. Most people freak out about cancer, I suppose with good reason. But in my family we have a lot of cancer and we don't die from it normally so it has become not a big deal anymore. The doctors at the Breast Imaging Center like to ask me what my concern level is on a scale of 1-10. In January it was a 1. I made it a .5 this time. Then they ask me what I think my chances of getting cancer are. That's still 80%. But I'm really not concerned about it at all. If I do have cancer, I get a lumpectomy, they put in a little radiation bag, radiate me for 5 days, and I have restricted lifting for a few weeks. Done. Maybe 2 weeks off work for the whole thing. And only that because the radiation makes you tired.

Thyroid cancer is pretty much the same. They take the thyroid out, radiate you, and you take a pill for the rest of your life. Done. Since I'm being watched so closely the chances of a later stage cancer are very slim. You don't get chemo for Stage 1 and 2 cancers normally. I think most peoples' fears are from not knowing what's going to happen. I've seen it so many times that it's old hat to me now.

Work is still fairly steady. Lots of days we're standing around or doing a few little jobs and waiting for some big job to get printed so we can work on it. Usually in the summer we go for weeks with hardly anything to do. So this is good. We've been having some fun too. Rubber band wars make the day go by a little faster! I've also been organizing under the counters in my down time. It's amazing how chaotic they are under there. When we're busy we just throw stuff under the cabinets and then we're moving stuff around to try and find what we need. It's a mess.

Today DH and I are going to the mall to get the first of his suits re-tailored. He lost 35 pounds on hcg! We're in the maintenance phase now. We are both happy to have more menu options!

Ok. Out to the garden! The thermometer says 84 but I'm sure it feels much hotter out there.