Saturday we went to a party. The hostess had gone all out – rented inflatable amusements for the kids, hired a couple of bands, rented a raw bar and a bar for drinks, and hired people to take care of food and cleanup. Her husband now has two years to save up for a similar shindig for her next big birthday. Heh.

Sunday, some Freecyclers picked up our hot tub, and we spent the day pulling up bricks and digging out hot tub conduit, spreading and leveling sand (and buying it, which is a job in itself) and assembling a pool for the kids. And us, I think. It’s one of those ones that’s a liner supported by a metal frame, and we’d gotten it filled about two feet by the time we realized there was a tiny leak – at the bottom. *sigh* So we drained it overnight, I patched it this morning, and we have to wait until 7 tonight to try filling it again. I’m tired, tired, tired. At some point, though, I have to get some river rocks or something because the cats have decided that all that sand is for them. Yuck.

I’ve been up for only a little more than an hour, but my Adderall hasn’t kicked in, so my brain has been busybusybusy. I can’t really get started until I can separate out, mentally, which things have to get done, and which things would be exercises in futility. Heh. I must go grocery shopping and do laundry. I need to clean up my sewing table, get the clay stuff put away neatly so I can use it again (and transport it Sunday) and spread out my pattern pieces so I can tell my friend how many yards of fabric she needs to buy for me to make her a slipcover. I want to finish a couple of clay pieces so I have something to play with on Sunday, but I can do that Saturday.

OK, as I’m posting this, I can feel my thoughts calming down. The competition is narrowing, and I can concentrate on one or two things at a time. Amazing. The problem is that I borrowed a bunch of landscaping books from the library yesterday. We want to hire a landscape architect to draw up a plan for us. We can’t afford to do everything at once, but if we have a plan made up, we can figure out which steps we can afford from year to year. The idea was that we’d collect some pictures so we could point out elements we wanted incorporated into the plan, but the reality was that it filled me with all kinds of ideas of possibilities, and got the brain going on a million different potential projects. I had a lot of trouble staying asleep last night, and the moment I woke up I was thinking of things I could do. Yeah, in this heat, I’m going to pull up the slate patio, dig it out and lay sand, make a cinderblock border, fill it with level sand, stucco the outside of the blocks and re-set the slate, and then I’ll rake out the back corner and level that and set up the tent, and then I’ll make a raised cinderblock planter, stucco that and cut slate to make an edge, fill it with dirt, and plant bamboo, then dig in some posts around the patio, bolt in some crosspieces and plant wisteria, which will grow (miraculously) all across the supports, providing dappled shade. . .and I’ll still have time for grocery shopping, laundry, and sewing. Oh, my.

Heck, I haven’t even done the stuff I have planned to do for ages, or the stuff I bought supplies to do. . .whatever. We have no construction guys coming today, because even though our window arrived yesterday, one of the guys is off, and they need a full crew. Tomorrow morning, a woman is coming to take some fish off my hands, hubby’s going to a funeral far, far away, but other than that, nothing on the calendar. Sunday I’m claying with friends. I have enormous amounts of time on my hands, but when I’m not pharmaceutically enhanced, I can’t grasp that concept and run around in circles unable to do anything. (My therapist is trying to introduce me to the concept of “relaxing”, but I’m trying to get him to understand that for me, doing things IS relaxing. Heh. Here, Dr. P – have some beads!) Plus, you know, I’ve found that if I do outdoor stuff after dinner, I can get a lot accomplished with that extra few hours of light, and less heat.

So, anyway, now I’m focusing even better, and I know I’m going to exercise, shower, put the thank-you notes in envelopes, make the menus and shopping list, do the shopping, and have plenty of time for laundry, sewing stuff, and then fit in some other things as well. It’s all good.