Friday bullets - August 28, 2020

I'm still here, just doing 20,000 things other than writing blog posts.

• The school-planning-thing has become a huge albatross around my neck. Due to various reasons, when I started, I didn't have two uninterrupted weeks to devote to it and just get it done. I'll have some time, so will work on it, but first, because I set it aside for a day or two, I have to figure out where I was before I can make any forward progress. It has been slow going. Today was the first day that I felt as though I made a significant leap forward. But there is still so much to do! Next year, I may just completely clear my calendar of absolutely anything for two weeks, become a hermit, and just get it done in one long planning session. 
• Does anyone else have a brain that seems to be able to focus on only one thing at a time? This is more than just not being able to multi-task (which is something else I can't do), this is broader. I can only really focus on one activity at a time. For example, if I'm sewing in my free time, I just want to sew and not do anything else. It is difficult to switch gears between things. 
• The children in the house (who are not already taking classes) are restless. I hope they can hold out for another two weeks.
• There is supposed to be a storm coming tonight and then the weather is supposed to cool off. I really hope that is correct. This past week has been brutal.
• Some more of the frogs in the pond have been named. There is now a Poseidon and a Zeus. Martin is remaining friendly.
• I am back to having the laundry under control after not having a washing machine for a week. It only took a week and a half to catch-up.
• To the canning count, I've added 5-1/4 pints of cowboy candy and 6 more pints of bread and butter pickles.
• The okra plants keep producing. I'm thinking we'll have over two gallons of okra frozen by the time it's done.
• I actually shooed a baby bunny back INTO my garden this morning. I was watering and must have startled one of the babies because the cute little five inches of fluff started hopping away. I then realized he had hopped right out of the garden. There are too many hawks and coyotes around to let a five inch fluffy bunny baby wander about in the open, so I shooed him back in where he could hid in his cucumber leaf nest. 
• I'm not sure we'll ever the rabbit population out of the gardens.
• Yes, I know these are contradictory statements.
• Having misplaced two miniature donkeys at Horse Power today not once, but twice, I realize that if we were to ever get miniature donkeys, we would need to completely upgrade our fencing situation. (Rest easy, all donkeys were accounted for at the end of the day.)
• My new armchair neuroscience book about horse brains and human brains is interesting, but also a wee bit folksy. Okay, a lot folksy. As in the author spending half a chapter telling her reader why learning about how brains work is important and then reassuring us that it will be okay, that we will be able to understand it. If I weren't so interested in the topic of the intersection between equine and human brains, I would have put the book down right then and there. I strongly dislike being talked down to. I briefly thought about writing to the author asking for the intelligent version of her book, but didn't. 
• College classes for everyone here taking them seem to be going well.
• I don't know about you, but every morning I take a deep breath to prepare myself for whatever atrocities have happened the night before. I hate guns. I hate that people take life so cavalierly. I hate that people are treated (and mistreated) so differently because of the color of their skin.
• Black lives matter, folks. 
• I'm back to reading Amelia Peabody. This alone tells you how I'm feeling about the current state of the country. 
• I have new contacts in my eyes, with a slightly stronger prescription. I had to change brands because the type I have worn for well over 20 years do not go high enough now. It is hard to switch after all those years, and I'm adjusting to the new prescription to boot.

And now, it's time for bed and hoping for cooler weather in the morning.