July's reading list

 These are the books I finished in July.  Library books are marked with an asterisk.

Death of a Traitor. M.C. Beaton and R.W. Green.*

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities. Heather Webber.*

The Death of Mrs. Westaway. Ruth Ware.*

Hunting Time. Jeffrey Deaver.*

The Rural Diaries: Lovely, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm. Hilarie Burton Morgan.*

South of Nowhere. Jeffrey Deaver.*

The Robber Bridegroom. Eudora Welty.*

I spent the 4th of July weekend with friends in a weird AirBnB. We tie dyed a lot of items and ate meals that mostly accommodated everyone's dietary restrictions. I just brought the canned margaritas. I went for a lot of walks even though we were under a heat advisory. I even went hiking two days before a cool front came through.  I planted sunflower seeds at a very late date.  We got more rain than I thought we would.  I went to lots of libraries lots of times.  I did a lot of laundry and it was easy to air dry most items.  

I volunteered.  I made a weird detox drink from Hilarie Burton Morgan's book.  I also made sun tea.  I kept meaning to cook but it was very hot, so I often didn't. I bought a stack of books as nearly as tall as my arm is long (along with a rice cooker for my husband and near-pristine System of a Down Toxicity CD for my daughter) for $5 from a thrift store.  I stood in an aisle at Kroger looking for something and the thought "I want to go to school" hit me like a bolt of lightning.  I don't know if I want a different degree, to pursue a master's, an entire do-over, or maybe just to take a course or two.  Maybe I just want to get a good grade on a paper that I can whip out the next time someone talks to me like I don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.  I'll read lots of books until I figure out what I'm feeling.  

I also tried pickleball with our church again while my daughter practiced piano somewhere in the building and got paired up with a mean and fussy man who picked at me until I angrily walked out after we disagreed on whether I was watching the ball during warmup. I felt pretty confident that I knew whether my eyes transmit information to my brain, but he felt he knew better.  He blew up so hard at me quitting the game and leaving to compose myself that he wound up yelling at other people and may be banned from pickleball.  Everyone was very kind to me afterward (but not bold enough to intervene in the heat of the moment) and later I realized they had thought I was a different type of emotional.  I asked my husband "did they all think I was upset?" and he said he clarified to at least one person that I was, in fact, very angry.  

I carry my anger around like the many books I have in my bag/car/spot on the couch, but most people who have met me in this stage of life don't know about either of those things.  They see me keep up with my child, mix up the dates and times for religious services, suck at handbells, and knit simple items quickly.  I feel like a Stars Hollow background character. Sometimes that's fine.  I'm too busy for an interior life right now anyway.

I didn't finish many knitting projects in July.  But I did get to borrow a friend's spinning wheel, and tried spinning a few times. I'm terrible at it.  But I don't think she'll let me bring it back until I spin the pound of wool she threw in with it, so I should practice more.  

I looked up the handbook and entry rules for handcrafts for the state fair.  I have some projects I'd like to work on and enter.  I love the state fair.

I haven't dyed my hair in 7 or 8 months.  It hangs differently and I'm able to throw some product at it when it's wet so that I can wear it wavy.  Like everything else right now, it dries quickly in this heat.