A Practical Walk

August ending feels like summer ending, especially since my son and I started back homeschooling on September 1. But the weather tells me summer is still here. And while cooler weather will be nice, I do love me some sunshine and blue skies, even if that means it’s toasty outside! As with any month, there were highs and lows.

Lowlights

It feels kinda weird to put “garden” under the lowlights, but honestly I am disappointed that it hasn’t produced more. We had a long string of hot-as-a-fritter days, like a fritter fresh out of the oil pan! One of the drip lines also broke. So I think those two factors didn’t help this beginner gardener any. I have several tomato plants, but haven’t gotten many tomatoes. The only beans we’ve been able to nurture to maturity are the cowpeas, all our other beans have died, except one that looks suspiciously a lot like sweet potato vines (update: I checked, it’s sweet potato…guess I forgot what I had planted there!).

The summer squash and zucchini squash had good starts, but then petered out (one of them I accidentally cut the whole stem when trying to prune, that one I take full responsibility for).

But there’s lots of peppers ripening on the vines, cowpeas have been producing, and the sweet potato vines going all over the place, so it hasn’t all been bad.

Highlights

The New Mexico trip definitely tops the charts as the biggest event of the month! But I realized something I totally forgot to add to the New Mexico blog post. When you’re in the depths of the earth at Carlsbad caverns you can send yourself a postcard! Since we have a place we hang postcards, this was a perfect souvenir for us!

I like to envision myself looking like this while getting my postcard in the mail.*

Our daughter started college classes full time! She’s studying art. And I’m still not tired of saying that I’m thankful she can keep living at home while attending! She’s also sold some cards that she stamped with stamps she made herself and she’s done 2 pastel commissions!

As I already mentioned, August was the last month of summer vacation for our son. We’re back at the books now.

Ebay was a mediocre month, my earnings were a little less than last month, but I’m still earning. I’ve switched how I do things multiple times, but right now my basic strategy is to list without paid promotion. If the item is still unsold after a month, I add 5% paid promotion to it.

My best sale last month was a set of Waverly valances.

How was your August? What’s something you’re looking forward to in September?

*Artwork from the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell, NM.