Warning – really, really long rambly entry ahead…
I seriously can’t believe the year is half over already. Granted – 2011 has been a very bad one for me so far, and part of me is wishing it would move its butt out of the way so I can get to (hopefully) a brighter 2012, but at the same time, I feel like time is flying past me in a crazy, out-of-control sort of way that leaves me feeling like I need to get my own butt in gear and catch up.
I hope my fellow Americans had a relaxing, fun 4th of July – and that Canadian readers had a fun Canada Day. Ours was filled with activities over the weekend, but the 4th was intentionally quiet for us. Erich’s going to be working the majority of July on big projects for his company, and so his fun and relaxation was really the important thing, since he’s not going to have full weekends for many weeks.
We went to an impromptu BBQ on Saturday afternoon hosted by our friends Marc and Erin (and their adorable baby boy, Jack). It was a small affair with only six of us – honestly a perfect size. I brought my mom’s BBQ Beanpot recipe that is stupid easy and so, so good. I should post that tonight, actually…
On Sunday Erich and Matt went off to play a Star Wars d20 game with the guys (translation for the non-geek readers: think Dungeons & Dragons, but with the Star Wars universe as the setting), which means I had the house to myself for many, many hours. I spent virtually the entire day in my stitching chair working on round robin stitching and watching episodes of the X-Files that I hadn’t seen in years.
By Monday I’d developed a weird cough that had me feeling a bit off. We spent most of the day relaxing in the house due to the heat, nibbling on burgers and dogs all day, playing games and watching episodes of Dexter. The cats, as you can see in the photo at the top of this entry, had wonderfully lazy afternoons cuddling up together in our sunroom. At night our neighborhood exploded with fireworks, as they’re now legal here in Rhode Island, and we watched our next door neighbor’s rather impressive display. The bugs finally drove us inside. The night ended with a slight scramble when I heard a HUGE buzzing near our family room light. I thought it might be one of those big bumblebees that I refer to as “drunken bumbles” because they seem to crash into everything. Anyway… the bug was bouncing furiously around the light, then careened under the dining room table, where I managed to get to it before Noby and Gus did anything to it. It turned out to be a Junebug. It was promptly scooped up and dumped outside.
My cough then decided it really wanted to make me miserable by preventing me from getting any form of sleep that night, so yesterday’s return to work was impressively zombified. I couldn’t tell you what I actually did yesterday, but apparently I did do quite a bit because I have several “finished” checkmarks in my planner list. All I know is that I crawled into bed promptly upon arriving home last night in the 7 pm hour, napped fitfully until after midnight, when Erich found some nighttime cold meds, was up from about 12:30-2 am, took the nighttime meds once my previous round had “expired,” and those finally conked me out for the rest of the night.
I’m feeling a bit better today, although I’m a bit out of it from the weird sleep schedule last night. The cough is still here, although not as bad as yesterday. I have no other symptoms, which is very, very weird. Allergies, perhaps? Or maybe a cold that’s so light that I don’t notice it over my normal allergies? Who knows. Whatever it is, it’s annoying.
In other news, I keep watching what’s happening at home and groaning. Montana is not having a good year. In early June, they had massive storms that flooded virtually every river in the state. The larger problem was that it had been so cold this spring that most of the snowpack was still there – and now it’s melting off, keeping the floodwaters active. And then on Friday, an oil pipeline near the refinery in Laurel (about 16 miles up river from my hometown of Billings) ruptured, sending oil down the Yellowstone River for upwards of – at last check – 125 miles. They’re now testing soil in North Dakota, fearing that the oil could reach where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri. Seriously, it’s like they can’t win recently. Last year, a tornado took out METRA (aka Rimrock Auto Park Arena, as I think it’s lamely named now), which is the state’s largest indoor arena. And now all of this. It’s just a horrid turn of events in a state that was already poorer than most of the country. *sigh*
Anyway. God, this is becoming a depressing entry, isn’t it? It’s not intentional – blame it on my weird cough. Onward to happier things!
It’s July, which means that there are some lovely stitchers doing midsummer giveaways.
Parsley has a fabulous Christmas in July giveaway full of ornament stitching goodness. 
Debbie is giving away an amazing die-cutter machine that’s great for quilters and crafty finishers alike. I haven’t joined this one because I know I don’t have the time for another hobby, but still – this machine looks awesome.
I’m itching to do a new giveaway soon. Maybe I’ll put something together on my next wandering up to the stitchy store.
If you haven’t yet, please pop back two entries and give me opinions on what I should stitch for the next square in the Mirabilia round robin!
