August 6, 2023

Cleaning, getting ahead on posts, and a Monarch Butterfly!

Daily Diary, Day 1071: As usual for Sundays, I spent about an hour and a half cleaning the downstairs, and laundering all the covers we have on couches and upholstered chairs and the covers for one of the dog beds, all designed to keep the doggie odors down to a minimum.

It occurred to me today as i was cleaning, that I think that one of the reasons I am so assiduous about this process is my memories of visiting my grandmother's house as she got older and the musty old-persons smell I associated with it. I don't know what caused it, although her eyesight got very bad and it could be she just wasn't as fastidious about washing clothes or cleaning up spills as she had been (and she had a very old cat). In any event, this has left me with a desire not to have a house that smells...even though the irony is that we don't entertain any more, so very few people are ever in the house!

Another pleasant, sunny, but not too hot day, and I've been working this morning on figuring out my schedule of posting for the month of August. As I think I mentioned earlier, I want to get into a routine of continuing the weekly writing intentions on Saturdays, and on Tuesdays doing either a Historical Tidbits or Authors Corner post, with an occasional Science Tidbit post as I get into writing book five of the science fiction series. Then twice a month I will do a Recommendations post on Thursdays. So, I have now written drafts of 2 historical tidbits posts, and if I have time this afternoon (between 2 scheduled phone calls) I might start on the next recommendations post.

I did get a second walk in yesterday...after rather than before dinner, and that seemed to work well, so I will try to do this again today. I also found some more blooms on that walk to share this week, but today I am going to put up a monarch butterfly I managed to capture a picture of the day before.

When I looked this up, online sites said that these butterflies can be found year round in San Diego, but their migration pattern brings some of them to winter here between October and February. But I would say that I didn't see many during this winter (too rainy?) and had just started seeing more about a month ago, so who knows if this is another sign of changing weather patterns. Anyway, enjoy this one.