in on Saturday

I've really got to work up the motivation to start the last few soil invert samples. I've kinda-sorta promised myself that if I get them done, I will go to Sherman today to do "better" grocery shopping than I can do in town. (And look for more hair stuff. The local pharmacy, while it had hairpins, was sadly lacking in other stuff, and I really want to try to find a pair of hairsticks. I had one once but I can't find them.)

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It's still hot here. I mowed the lawn (sort of against my better judgment, but it had to be done) yesterday afternoon around four when I got home. I got it almost entirely done, but a patch of taller grass in the back yard kept clogging the mower, so I left that 6 square feet or whatever it was undone. (The grass was also wet, because I had been watering the garden before I got to mowing). Yeah, it was probably dangerous to be out mowing in that heat, but I did OK. I stopped periodically to "relax my body and refresh my mind" with water breaks. (Unfortunately, I had no orange slices).

I do think I'm getting more adapted to being able to tolerate heat. (It was also less humid by that time of the day. I've learned that the humidity here drops around 3 pm, so if you have to be out in the heat, it's better to wait until after that time.)

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I'm still working on the shawl. I don't know why I'm in love with this project again, but I am. I suppose it IS partly the high-concentration-level - for some reason, I find it really relaxing to be able to concentrate intensely on something, to the point where I'm shutting out the rest of the world. (I also do that when I'm working intensively to learn a new piece for the piano.) I suppose it's that old concept of "flow." But for me, it also might be that the parts of my brain that might otherwise be scanning over what I've done in the day, trying to find what it was I was supposed to do and forgot (I frequently feel as if I am forgetting something when I am actually not) or that is involved in self-critique, get shut up by having to concentrate on yarn overs and double decreases, or on runs of eighth notes and remembering to get that B flat in there.