I made some progress on the house yesterday, but not enough. I'll leave on a couple of radios or televisions and work back and forth between rooms, with the programming keeping me more interested and on task - background entertainment that I don't need to pay strict attention to.

After two weeks of waiting we now have a heavy-duty rainstorm going on. It means that next week I'll be able to put in the garden; the soil is too wet for a couple of days, then it's perfect to work for as much as a week, and then it is rock hard till the next rain.

The effect of a heavy thunderstorm means I have two dogs who want to stay right by my side. I'll be careful not to trip over them today while I'm coming and going getting ready for multiple (and overlapping) house guests this week.

Looks like a good day to wash winter bedding that can go back in the closet, and then I also have some dog bedding to wash.

It's just as well it's as rainy as it is because I need this indoor time for stuff that just doesn't interest me as much as the yard during the nice weather. A childhood of being told "go outside and play" has imprinted on me the love of puttering in the yard.

The rain has lifted and it looks like several dry hours, so I set up the burning barrel and this time have placed several years' worth of receipts ablaze. I keep records in a 12-month expanding folder and the register receipts go into an envelope for the month. At the end of the year I package the large pages and bills in a large manila envelope and put the envelopes of receipts in a basket. I just realized they go back to 2006.