All about July, Man-Frames and Mascara

Is it really August? I'm not ready yet.

I worked a lot in July, and apparently was so busy that I forgot to notice the time passing. The nice thing was that most of it was self-employed tasks that I could do whenever I wanted.
August has 12 or 13 days of travel already scheduled, with more possible. Plus I'm teaching classes and hosting Gwen for more movie-making, and many other things. It sounds busier to me, but it's not, because here's July:

After I came home from camp, picked blueberries and read books, I read more books (I'll review them soon, or else I'll entirely forget about them). I had some photo shoots, then started a new program to get healthy. One day I thought I lost some crazy important files, then the next day I found them and was able to get done what I needed. I spent lots of time with the missionaries, hosted a party for a friend who is leaving to go out on a mission, and started listening to a new book.

Eric, Evan and I walked by the river for the first time in forever. We sold our truck and now have only small cars. We enjoyed summer-evening flames in the new fire-pit that we built. We had day after day of weather so beautiful it really and truly didn't feel like July. I helped with other people's kids and saw tiny flowers in the grass. I picked zucchini, lavender, cilantro and basil from my garden. Oh, and lots of flowers.  In pretty much all the minutes in between those things, I worked on a new design that takes 20 minutes per round to knit so it's taking f o r e v e r,  even though it's just a HAT. It's worth it though, because it's soooo pretty. I also managed to keep up with content production for the weekly Friday lesson on Eduknit.

And then July was done.  Here are the photos to prove it. Sorry, there are more words after the million pictures...

And today, August began. Still not ready. Today I went out with the missionaries again to see J, an amazing woman who keeps her faith in spite of hard things. How I love her.  Then I went to Costco and picked out new glasses, and as happened the first time I bought glasses, the frames I liked best were man-frames. My big bones can handle it I guess, because the optician smiled broadly and said, "Those are a good shape on you, even though they are man-frames." I smiled back.

Today I also made a decision about mascara. I like it. I don't need much else in the way of makeup, except maybe some eyeliner and of course some Burt's Bees lip balm (the only true and living lip balm), but mascara just does magical things to my face, at least from my perspective. I look at pics of me without it and I look ill or something. My eyes look small and beady and just brown. With mascara and a little liner, my eyes look bigger and smiley, and the color becomes (I'm almost certain) a gorgeous golden chocolatey color. Hm, I suppose there could be a connection between the way I'm feeling on the days I do bother to put on a little lash and the days I don't, which might show up in photos, and if that's the case, I'm okay with that. I will strive for the lash and feel better and it will show, right? I like to be fairly low maintenance so I'll be ready for the apocalypse and people will still recognize me when they come and ask me to knit them socks, but I guess I'll start stockpiling mascara (along with the Burt's Bees and the sock yarn) for those times, because I've decided it matters to me. I am constantly fighting the malaise of melancholy due to some challenges that aren't actually mine, but that I have to watch and feel. That's been going on for months, and one good thing about this July is that I finally feel like I'm fighting better. I have more perspective and an improved attitude about my role and what's actually going on. That right there is reason to mascara up.

In other summer news, Evan is working odd jobs and mowing lawns. He's spending time with friends before they all go their separate ways. He has his college schedule just about worked out--still waitlisted for a couple of classes, but making progress.  Eric is working a lot and traveling more (Netherlands next week-I'm only a little jealous). I'm settling into the emptying nest and finding new rhythms and control over how I spend my hours. It's lovely and quiet and scary (Let's see, I had the mental space to write, rewrite and EDIT an entire paragraph about...mascara...) and strange all at the same time. I spend more time in my garden and have no excuse not to exercise. I'm thinking about offering to help the local schools with their gardens.

How does your August look?