The Fourth of July was a sort of bust around here. Mike abruptly came down with a bad cold, spent most of the day in bed, rallied for dinner and is fine now. But I'm now fighting it off - and fortunately had the rest of the week off work. Hopefully, my armamentarium of immunity-boosters will do the trick. Rowdy thinks fireworks and/or thunder are pretty much the same thing, and can only be ominous signs of doom. He doesn't get really upset, like Monty used to, but he moves to Mike's lap where he worries and watches to see if one of us is finally going to realize that danger is near. He finally opted for an early bedtime, as you can see. Sometimes just throwing in the towel and bringing an early end to a day is the best idea.

We were lucky to make it this far before the summer weather pattern set in. It's 83 degrees with 60% humidity at 11:30 am. I realize that in Florida, this is considered mild, but here it's hot and humid. The mornings on the deck are wonderful, as are the evenings. Fireflies are still glowing in the evenings.

Inspired by the Summer of Socks project, I'm knitting socks. I knit one in a new stitch pattern and re-learned the importance of swatching in gauge before starting off:

Very cool pattern in the self-striping yarn - just a tad too small to really work for me. After a washing or two, this thing is going to feel like an ace bandage on my foot. No thanks. I ripped it out and started over with a tried-and-true pattern. As I'm knitting it, I'm meditating on the importance of swatching in pattern, and tweaking the stitch pattern to create the desired size. Stay tuned for more sock-knitting - fighting off the cold is forcing me to stay still more than I like, so I'm almost done with the pair.