It's all good

* Well, the temperature in the house just dropped below 80, for the first time in four days. I am guessing it will finally achieve the desired temperature (76) once 9 pm rolls around and the air conditioner doesn't have to fight the effects of Ol' Sol any more.

* I paid for my next set of 10 piano lessons today. My teacher has two other students so that makes it more reasonable for her to come into town. (She really doesn't charge enough for her lessons but I'm not sure how to broach that suggestion with her.)

* I was able to actually consider cooking dinner again so I made a celebratory pan of Cheesy Tomatoes. (Heh. Celebratory. The prep school I went to, when we had things like the Academic Awards Dinners, they would give us programs listing all the awards to be given out and before the awards, it would list "Celebratory Repast." I made fun of it back then but now I think I'd feel like that was all Harry Potter-ish and kind of nice. In some ways I'm less cynical now than when I was a teenager.)

* One thing I bought at the Brookshire's  was a bottle of Duke's Mayonnaise. I get Southern Living and they frequently write in there about how great Duke's is, how it is THE Southern mayonnaise to use....and I'd never seen it before, so I bought a jar out of curiosity. (I haven't opened it yet). So later this week I might have to make egg salad or something to test out the Duke's.

(Sometimes I like to play at being a Southern Lady. Oh, I know I never actually WILL be in a lot of people's minds, I have too much of a Northern Bray to my voice and I whine too much about the heat, but still. And I wouldn't so much be the Fancy Southern Lady, who is always coordinated and whose purse and shoes match, and who has yardmen to make sure her garden looks good; I'd more be the Eccentric kind, who talks to birds and wears big floppy unattractive hats, or maybe the Cowgirl kind (if it's possible to be a Cowgirl and a Southern Lady), who can take care of stuff herself and finds playing the wilting flower to get attention a bit distasteful.)

* Anyway, Brookshires' is a fun alternative shopping place. Some of the brands they carry are different, their meat (from my one prior experience with it) is good-quality, the one nearest me has a lovely produce section. And the people working there, again from just a couple of experiences, are very nice. And they're not that much farther than the Sherman/Denison stuff, it's just harder to also pop into the JoAnn's or something when going there. (Then again: they are doing lots of roadwork - to widen a bridge - near the JoAnn's and the Target and such, and the bridge is closed, which is going to make getting around there a lot more difficult, so maybe I should do Brookshires' for my next few "big" shopping trips.)

* And finally, and as promised, the hexie quilt As She Is So Far at this point in time:



Taken without flash which shows the colors more true. I hope it's not too dark on your monitor, it's okay on mine. It's maybe a sixth done, maybe not quite, in terms of area.