Well, four-plus months have passed since my last post… who knew life could throw so many curveballs our way AT THE SAME TIME?!?!?!? I’m back in the saddle (knock wood) and becoming busier than ever! Here is a little peek into what’s been going on lately.

First, a couple of comments about the past four months. Among the many things that were thrown our way (did I mention “AT THE SAME TIME”??), Paul was down for the count with a bulging disk for a couple of months. As a result I had the “privilege” of doing SO MANY THINGS I don’t usually do! Among them were:

• Collecting all the garbage and recycling, organizing it, loading up the truck, and going to the transfer station.
• Learning to drive the tractor in order to mow the lawn:

• Driving the truck to tow the camper on our very first outing once Paul was feeling almost better but not quite. We had a great trip! Quechee State Park in Vermont is wonderful and so is the King Arthur Baking Company.

I’m going to tell you about only one other of the things that happened AT THE SAME TIME because who wants this whole post to be about stressful crap?? Please scroll down….

We had to say goodbye to Moose.

It made us so sad. He had become increasingly fear-aggressive, to the point of biting me pretty badly one day, breaking skin and causing major bruising. After that, I became extremely afraid of him. After much discussion with two vets, a dog trainer and several friends, we decided we could not allow him (or me) to go on being this afraid every minute of his life and risk harming others. It was the hardest, most guilt-ridden decision we’ve ever had to make. We miss all the good parts about him so much.

Meanwhile, Wink is living his best life as an only dog:

He is the sweetest, goodest dog.

The curveballs that were thrown our way were incredibly stressful, but we’ve have had a few fun things happen to counteract them. We’ve gotten to do some of our usual summer stuff like getting ice cream:

And sitting in the backyard to eat dinner and enjoy the summer evenings:

I got to see and feed some baby goats at our friends’ house:

Finding the joyful moments, even if they are little, is especially important during stressful times. Historically, it’s been hard for me to manage my stress. I’m continually working on it!

So, what’s going on now, you ask??

Paul, in his ever-awe-inspiring figure-it-out-ness, figured out how to install a mini-split for our downstairs.

We are in HEAVEN! After 19 years in this house, installing gargantuan, very heavy, window units had just gotten to be too much.

He did a great job. I helped a tiny bit but Wink and I mostly just supervised:

Next up will be figuring out how to do this in our upstairs (the layout is challenging.)

Meanwhile, we also got into a wood-working kick. Paul built a picnic table:

and we both built a roadside stand…

More on this coming soon! AND I’ll tell you about my new 2 1/2-minute favorite de-stressing activity.