Rainy June

I feel like I’ve said this a lot lately, at least to my spouse (and I think at least to one of my colleagues), but this is the rainiest spring/summer I think we’ve had in a long time. Normally we get a bunch more snow in March/April, sometimes May, but it has been pretty rainy in May and June thus far. I’m totally OK with it, though, if it helps ward off wildfires later in the season. I am also happy with rain pretty much always, as it reminds me of home. I always like to say that I am from Oregon, the land of wind and rain (well, rain moreso), and well, the love of rain has never left me. I liked it in Florida too, but the problem in Florida was that it didn’t cool things down, it just made everything more humid than it already was, and still hot. Rain here is much better, as it does cool things down. We’ve had a couple of gloomy, rainy days this week, which I love. However, the sun came out in force in the late afternoon, likely drying up a lot of the rain. But that’s OK. I like having seasons here, where things change. (I just thought of the Disney “seasons” print that I have on the wall to my left. It is lovely and my spouse kindly got it framed for me in a fun frame from Michaels awhile back. I dunno, I always looked at that “seasons” print at the Disney art store at Disney World, and finally ended up ordering it!

One thing I didn’t expect, and should have, with rain and snow, is that it sticks to the car. And when I put the car in the garage, it has to go somewhere, which usually ends up creating puddles on the floor, unfortunately. I’d like to get rid of all the tile (it’s old-school asbestos tile, ugh) in there and replace it with sealed concrete, which would be much better for standing water. Thus far I’ve just used a mixture of paper towels, shop-vac, and our newish squeegee broom (but that latter really doesn’t help as much as I expected; it mostly just spreads it around over a wider area). I vastly prefer rain to puddles from snow, though, so I’m not 100% looking forward to winter. But oh well, better to keep the car inside so it lasts longer.

The rain has also been good for the plants and such, especially the lawn, which is looking quite lush compared to how it normally looks. We decided to turn the sprinkler system back on, and water a couple of days per week, but I’m having trouble reactivating it. I have the timer all set, but I am having trouble finding the main sprinkler shut-off. When we had the sprinkers blown out in the end of 2022, not long after we moved in, I honestly didn’t think I would ever use the system again, so I all but ignored what the guy was doing to shut everything down. There is one metal cover in the middle of the yard which covers up the water meter, and another which I think is for part of the sprinklers, but the sprinklers are not turning on even in manual mode. So I think there is one more cover I am missing, and we’re gonna try to look for it tomorrow. I need to mow the lawn, but I think I’ll try to find that first before mowing; I think with my spouse’s help it’ll be OK.

Really, we haven’t gotten the ridiculous heat (yet), so it has really been a very pleasant transition from winter to spring to early summer. Well, it’s not officially Summer until the solstice, but that’s coming up here before too long. I’m just happy we’ve sort of eased into it. It is way better for my own mental health. I do not love the heat, and only put up with the heat here because of the cold(er) autumns and cold winters. Basically, whenever it’s not winter I’m usually wishing it were winter, but yeah.

I’m happy it’s Friday after a busy-as-usual week. We have a full week (well, work week, 5 days) of vacation coming up this month, and that is extremely exciting. I love my job, but taking time off helps immensely, and time away reminds me why I love the job. I have to be able to take care of myself to take care of others, and time off helps with that. We have a lot to look forward to this year, though, and everything sort of just fell into place. Seeing Amythyst Kiah in a couple of weeks. My sister’s coming out to visit for a Twin Peaks event in Denver, and of course just to hang out. Hopefully my parents are coming to visit this month, but that’s up in the air; tempus docebit. We try to create our fun whenever possible.

Speaking of that, I’m going to go enjoy the rest of my Friday night. Dunno, I might play games or something. I always enjoy UFO50 even though it’s ridiculously NES-hard, and other games are always beckoning. Hope y’all are having a lovely start to the weekend! <3