Today was one of those glorious summer days that you wish every other summer day could be like. The air was fresh and not too hot. Just wonderful. It made me glad to be alive.

And I have to tell you about the coolest thing ever. I bought a new hose and hose reel so I would be able to water the mountain laurel without getting dirty. My old hose was covered in pine pitch or something, but it left me water-logged and filthy by the time I was done. The thing that is so great is the hose reel. It winds itself up using water power. You just flip the switch and the hose winds away. It also washes the hose as it's wound up. I am in hose heaven about this gadget. Come over and I'll give you a demo. Seriously.

Barney has glaucoma. The poor thing was fine one minute (Sunday night) and the next (Monday morning) his right eye was swollen, milky and very painful. The vet said that we caught it early and that it is only in one eye at the moment. I do remember it being a little red last week, but it didn't seem to be a major thing. He still has vision in that eye and we're hoping to keep it that way. We've put him on steroids to reduce the swelling and we've put his left eye on prophylactic glaucoma medicine to try to stave off problems. He went to the opthalmologist today and she couldn't find a cause of the swelling, so it's a treatment of the symptoms kind of thing right now. I'm afraid of him losing his sight. Bostons have such bulbous eyes anyway so they can be prone to eye problems. My poor little man.

Martha told me that I don't blog anymore. I just haven't had anything to say. We had a really nice time this weekend with my mother. We were able to make her birthday very special and she was able to talk about my father in a happy way, which was really nice to see. Father's day for me was horrible. I couldn't stop crying all day. Robert didn't know what to do with me. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys being comforted while I'm crying. In fact, I hate it. I don't know why. If I had my way, I would never cry in front of anyone ever. Maybe it's a weakness thing. So I'm bawling and he can't come over and soothe me because he'll get yelled at. LOL.

Soon I'm going to have to empty out my kitchen and bedroom so that the remodeling can begin. It hasn't even started yet and already I'm itching for it to be over. I'm not looking forward to the disruption at all. So the beadmaking is going to be sporadic at best this summer, because of the remodeling. I can't imagine trying to control my dogs around the workmen, etc. They'd be trying to kiss the men and jumping all over them. Plus, once I get back to beadmaking after the remodel, I'll be making all my drawer pulls and cabinet knobs. I'm very excited for that. Most of the kitchen is neutral, except for the pendant lights and the knobs. It's going to look awesome.

Father's day will mark the 4-month anniversary of my Dad's death. Now the ads for Father's day sales, gifts, restaurants, etc. are all over the place and just serve to remind me that this is the first Father's day when I don't have my father with me. Not that we made a huge deal out of this hallmark holiday or anything. I would make a point of seeing him and bring a card, sometimes a gift. Usually we'd gather at my parents' house and it would just be a nice day of being together. My mom's birthday is in the middle of June, so the two days frequently were close. My father would say "where's my gift?" as if he were really expecting us to get him something. He was a hard person to buy things for. If there were something he wanted for himself, he would buy it. Chances are we couldn't have afforded it anyway. I can remember a couple of Father's day presents I gave him in the last few years. One was a key chain with a bead on it that was supposed to look like a golf ball. He said he liked it. The other was a wine bottle stopper with a glass top that I made. He liked that one.

On a happier note, my mom's 70th birthday is this weekend, so we are taking her out to dinner to a favorite restaurant. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh, and Amy tagged me, so I will have to figure out who to tag next and what to write. Soon. Soon.

This morning I dreamt about my father. In my dream I knew he was dead, so when I saw him, I ran over to him and gave him a great big hug. He was wearing a peach-colored golf shirt. I hugged him and told him how happy I was to see him. But he didn't really respond to me, except to say that the coffee smelled good. All my family was there and they could see him, too, but he didn't see us. I think this is only the first or maybe second time I've dreamt about him since he died. So immediately on waking, I burst into tears. I still cry when I think about it. And I had been doing so well recently. It's like all the pain has come back. Usually those kinds of dreams for me are comforting -- almost like you've had a visit with your loved one -- but I think in this case the emotions are too new and raw so it was upsetting rather than comforting.

I don't know what happened to summer, because we're back to the Fall weather that makes me long for warmer climes. It's pouring down rain and is only 55 degrees. I had an OK weekend. We stopped by my mother-in-law's house on Saturday and she showed me some of the flowering trees she has that do well in shade. It was nice. She also showed me the cluster of lady slippers that she has in the woods. I've never seen anything like it. Wow.

Anyway, we decided on a Mountain Laurel. They are beautiful and grow nicely in shade. We had a ton of them outside the kitchen window at 226 where I grew up. So it's a good tree for a memorial to my father, I think. Yesterday we went and bought one and hopefully someone is going to come plant it for us. I would do it myself as it's not that big, but the place where I want it to go has a juniper bush that needs to be removed. I don't think I'm up to doing that. Messy. Ick. Here's a picture of what they look like: