Dirt Clouds And Sangria

The past few days have been hazy, hot, and humid. I've enjoyed every minute of it. Lisa hasn't. Once the temperatures go beyond 80, she's miserable. We've spent most of the long weekend, so far, indoors. We actually had plans to attend a cookout for a few hours today, but late afternoon yesterday, the host called it off.

I could tell Lisa was getting restless by late morning. She kept looking at our neighbor's garden across the street and commenting that it needed to be weeded.

This neighbor is 70 years old and she has become family to us.

Then, the comments extended to, "The lawn needs to be mowed again."

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow.

I was surprised that she was commenting on all the yard work that needed to be done at our neighbor's house. Lisa isn't one to tackle yard work when it's in the 90's and humid.

"If you want to go weed her garden and water it, go ahead. You seem restless."

Fifteen minutes later, she was out the door.

An hour later, I heard the riding lawnmower.

I grabbed my camera and went outside, stood on the porch and snapped a few photos.

The ground was dry. She was surrounded by a dirt cloud.

After a few minutes, I was back inside. I cracked open a bottle of wine, sat back down at my desk and proceeded to work.

I'll admit, I felt guilty.

I'm inside. Home office. Air conditioners running. My music on.

I had tackled about 7 hours of work at this point.

Coco and Lobo were sprawled out on the sofa sleeping.

Sophie was curled up on the home office love seat.

I was sipping wine.

The sound of the riding lawnmower pinged my guilt button. I knew Lisa was outside in the heat and humidity doing yard work.

After a few hours, she was done. Mission accomplished. Our neighbor's garden and lawn looked spectacular.

We ate dinner.

As the sun went down, we sat outside, around the fire pit, with our upstairs neighbor. We sipped Sangria with fresh fruit. Toasted marshmallows. Our other neighbors, who have also become family to us, stopped over.

I smelled like a smoked ham when we went in for the night.

Today turned out okay.