I have a couple of chores that I can do piecemeal - trimming around the edge of the garden, and experimenting with a hand vac and grabbing up some of the worst of the garden pests. It works but imperfectly, but it is an inexpensive device and it is an experiment. If I have to drag the long electric cord from storage each time they'll never get done, so I figured out that if I set up the cord in the garage, it's long enough to drag the working end out to the garden. Open the door, trim the grass around the chard, etc., and put it away again. Out of sight, out of possible rain or hit by the sprinkler. Sprinkler more than weather, though that may be reversed this week.

Yesterday I made the mistake of drinking ice tea with dinner and the combo of caffeine and bursitis kept me from getting to sleep easily. I feel an early night coming on this evening, and if I'm lucky I'll listen to rain on the roof as storms drift through the area. The only tea is chamomile.

It takes people a little while to discover things listed on eBay; there are a few watchers (I wonder if eBay has a service where you can send those folks a note saying "this isn't an auction, the price isn't changing, go ahead and buy it before someone else beats you to it!") The eBay listings aren't so representative of energy as they are of heat avoidance.

Susan, I also have a long-running relationship with office supplies. Over the years we had them as school supplies for the kids, and now that they're long out of school, I regularly encounter caches of materials that if I think I won't use them any time soon, I usually donate to Goodwill. I sell some things online if they're old and collectible (yes, there are office supplies in that category). I find myself thinking "if someone is doing the stage set for a 1980s television program, and they want current items, these would work, so they're listed accordingly. I don't know that any of these things have wound up on stage or screen, but who knows? Someone collects them.