I crashed early Tuesday night (definitely needed it!) 

and happily felt considerably better after a great night's sleep.

Wednesday was another trip into town.  We took care of a number of errands before lunch, and then met Elinor and Hilda at The Firefly for lunch.  It was delicious (though service took FOREVER!) and since the portions are so big the four of us shared two orders.  Good thing, because even then nobody could finish!

Afterward I went across the street to Hodgepodge, a gift shop/fabric store (somehow never had made it in before) and of course I came out with several purchases: A book (ostensibly for Tom, though I also want to read it), a yard each of three companion linen fabrics (will be interesting to work with), and the end-of-bolt of another happy fabric.  The prices were certainly right!

While in town with cell service I spoke with Tom; more crises at home (the latest to add to the still on-going headache with the pool is a plumbing problem), and the oppressive heat certainly has not been helping his state of mind.  By Tuesday evening, at 8:30, temps had only "dropped" to 111.  He was a "tad" cranky...

  

Spoke with Andy after Mom's visit yesterday with the pulmonologist. The doctor had not seemed unduly worried about her, and has prescribed a steroid inhaler to try to open up constricted passages.  I will know more officially when she returns to see him in a couple of weeks to see how that's going, but hope to hear from her soon (hint, hint!) that it's doing the trick and she's breathing better.

Texted with Alex, who is doing another country music festival, this time in Idaho.  He seems to be having fun, though that is not his genre of music.  On the plus side, at least their unicorn is safe!

This morning more deer visited, and looked they wanted to hop the fence and check out the grass (such as it is) in the yard.  However Shadow was out on the wall, acting as guard cat.  <g>  It was hard to tell who was more intimidated - but the deer did decide to just move on.

There were at least five does in the group, 

so it was surprising that they didn't have any fawns with them.

Wonder what happened to this one's ear?

Haven't soaked in a few days, so I'm hoping to squeeze that in this morning.  Sometime today James and his family arrive for a week, when the kids will be attending Science Camp here.