Last week, I. . .

1. Antagonized my cat:
That is Jubjub unsuccessfully attempting to get into the second upstairs bedroom (a.k.a. The New Room). The guest room downstairs is a "cat-free zone" in deference to our houseguests with cat allergies and after the upstairs remodel, Paul and I starting keeping the door closed on the New Room as well. The upstairs was never as cool as the downstairs last summer with the new A/C so this summer, we wanted to open the door to increase air flow but still keep the cat out. So, we purchased two baby gates and put them up on the bedroom door. Jub stays out, upstairs cools off. (In the picture, Jub is sitting on some throw pillows that Paul had put along the bottom of the bottom gate in an attempt to thwart Jub's very persistent tries to get under the gate.)

2. Went to Texas where it was HOT. Triple-digit hot. And WINDY. But I enjoyed the short visit (Tues-Thur) with my grandparents in Amarillo and Sunray as well as Amy, Abigail, and Benjamin. I made this very quick visit because Summer School starts on Monday and I'll be tied up with that (minus our two-week vacation) until July 22. Hopefully I'll be able to make a longer visit at the end of July. And hopefully, it won't be 101 degrees when I'm there.

3. Drove home in a 45-55 mph headwind. But it wasn't a straight headwind--the wind was pretty much at the front quarter panel on the driver's side which we've discovered is the exact location needed with a strong wind to make the windshield wipers vibrate on the Subaru. Which they did. FOR FIVE HOURS. It was pretty much a solid high-pitch squeal for the first 30 minutes or so. After that, it was more intermittent--say every 30 seconds or so. Such driving conditions are one of the few times I really don't like my car. Oh, and when I got home, it was 68 degrees in ABQ.

4. Actually finished a honey-do project with Paul without arguing (much) and without spending an additional two (or more) hours on the project. We had to put stucco on some cracks on the back of our house under the living room windows. It's not that the cracks haven't been there for a while--my husband finally happened to notice and decide to do something. I'd mentioned it last summer but it fell on deaf ears--everything in it's own time. The back of our house faces west and our stucco has faded more than we realized over the past eight years. But we agreed that we could live with the end results (which is good because I'm not sure what we would do if it looked REALLY bad).

5. Started my first real knitting project. I'm currently working on a scarf for myself. I managed to successfully cast off my practice piece AND cast on the new project all by myself. My coworker had given me the basic instructions in April but at the end of the year, we didn't have a chance to sit down and work on my knitting. I bought the Klutz Knitting Book at the spring book fair--the instructions are very straight-forward and illlustrated. That is how I figured out the whole cast off/on thing again. I'm a quarter of the way finished and everyone in the family can probably expect a scarf in their stocking at Christmas. Now, family that just read that, remember to act surprised.

Summer school starts tomorrow. It's at my school so I agreed to to it and share the position with another librarian. I'm going to do afternoons next week except for Friday when I'll work all day. The next week, I'll only work Monday and Tuesday and we leave on Thursday for a little trip we're taking. After I get home, I'll work two weeks and the other librarian and I will split the remaining time. It shouldn't be too bad. At least that's what I'm telling myself.