At Least It's Dry Heat

 It's 96 degrees outside right now. I don't mind the heat as much as I used to, but I don't exactly want to go outside in this. It would be absolutely soul-crushing if it were humid, but the humidity is very low for Florida so it's tolerable. But you won't find me doing anything strenuous until the sun's gone down. Fox and I got out early this morning though, he picked up downed tree limbs and logs from around the yard and I ran the weed-whacker, specifically getting around the garden beds and the deck. We have several downed trees because ... well, we cut them down on purpose. That purpose is about half "need firewood for winter" and half "need space for solar panels." We're also trying to get some of the bigger trees out of the way around one of the radio tower's guy wires so hopefully we don't have a repeat of a couple of years ago, when a tree fell after Hurricane Michael, hit the guy wires, and pulled the whole freakin' tower down. 

It's not quite the middle of the year yet, but I decided to review how my minimalism project is going and I am pretty happy so far. I still purchase more things than I'd like, but I've managed to reduce our household waste a great deal. Most weeks we barely have half a rolling trash can full to go out for pickup, and of course the recycling bin, for whatever that is worth. I'm not sure if I should count recyclables in household waste or not. I know some people go so far as to not use paper towels or toilet paper, but I think we'll continue using some paper towels for gross cat messes. I would like to find some good reusable lint-free cloths for drying my hands, though. I wear contacts and use a paper towel every day when I put them in, so that's something I'd like to eliminate.

I did continue purchasing books and a few "trinket" type things, but I should have actually written an exception into my No Buy List for the year. I sometimes set myself goals - usually to change or begin a habit, and when I accomplish that goal there's a loot drop, just like when you defeat any boss, right? I haven't had as many major challenges this year so I haven't made as many purchases, but I did buy a few new books from Amazon and a t-shirt. I've been getting the vast majority of my books used, but that's also a bit of a crap shoot. They may not have a title I really want, so in that case it may become "loot." I feel like there's a lot of room for improvement in this area but I'm doing better than I have previously.

Having done easier areas of the house I'm now ready to take on the kitchen and garage. The garage is mostly Fox's domain, so while I'll be helping to organize, the keeping or discarding of items is up to him. I already did the kitchen pantry, and this week will be focusing on the drawers, then the cabinets. 

One thing I really want to get at soon is this piece of plywood in the hall. It used to be a DDR platform, but no one plays DDR anymore. Fox has stopped, and I never played because I'm the clumsy and my brain just doesn't parse things like that well. (I also suck at sight-reading music, and I suspect it's for the same reason.) We were going to put it in the garage but it got propped up in the hall because, well, it's huge and heavy and awkward. And now Feisal plays with it. It provides him with a sort of tunnel to hide in and run through, so my idea it to cut the board and make a smaller cat tunnel with a flat top. They can get inside, on top, and it'll be much easier for me to pick up and clean around. Actually I moved the board earlier this week to vacuum and they won't play in it, so I think I'll have to put it back where it was. LOL cats.

I think I'll make pad thai. I'm hungry. I want pad thai and a brownie.