Here’s hoping August brings the awesomeness (though something about sending my kids to school in the dog days of summer doesn’t sit quite right with me.  I hardly feel like summer has really begun and now it’s “back to school” time) .  July seems to have hit everyone pretty hard, from us to my peeps in the blogosphere to the US Economy (stupid gov’t) to cousin Amor and her plumbing issues.  So our offering to the gods of August to provide us with some good mojo is that we’ve been doing some major work around the house this weekend.  I don’t have any pictures to share quite yet, but we cleared out the weeds from the garden and made some sense out of what is still thriving (tomatoes, cukes and gourds) and what is past its prime (squash).

The porch has been vacuumed ( let’s hear it for shop vacs!!!) of all spider nests and bug litter and caulk has been applied to places where we could see daylight around our window and door frames (worst builders ever here – I swear I have some choice words for them).  We saw a spider yesterday the likes of which gives me shivers.  It had a body about the size of a quarter or better.  Fat, brown and segmented, and long, thick legs……making him a good freakish size of perhaps 4 or 5 inches in diameter.  The worst part?  It’s still smaller than the spider we saw when we first moved to Virginia about 11 years ago – the one I thought was someone’s escaped tarantula.  The one we got all “flamethrower” on and torched and screamed at while it continued to run around while all aflame.  Insert shudder here.

The gutter out front is being fixed as I write so it won’t drown my herbs anymore (I lost a huge patch of lemon thyme and verbena – very upsetting I assure you).

The lawn is mowed, weed whacking is done and the master bedroom cleaned and organized.

Next up for me is sorting through the kids’ clothes and getting everything organized for school.  And I still have to finish Emily’s room.  She has a new desk in there now, but there’s still painting to manage.  And there’s a new friend to introduce as well – a hamster named VIcki.  I’ll give her a proper introduction in a future post.

The yarn and fabric stashed have been looked over and summed up and a project list has been generated.  (Hint:  Christmas is going to feature mostly home-made gifts this year.  I hope no one minds.)

Since we’re cash – strapped (stupid economy) we couldn’t think of a better way to pave the way for good luck than a clean and organized house.   But just in case, I have a large selection of unopened wines at the ready.