— “Shoo,” said the man at Action Rental as I returned the pressure washer from the weekend. “It’s a hard job keeping a house together. I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

— That reminds me that, as the virtuous glow from getting the house washed fades, I still need to shovel the rest of the mulch under the swing set and refresh some spackle on the house. I need to call the plumber to re-grease the faucet in the kitchen sink. I need to hire someone to replace one of the door thresholds. I need to paint all the woodwork and the doors in the house. And of course, it’s always time to prod the teenager to mow.

— Helping Paul clean his room on Saturday, I told myself that the main reason I’m happy that Chris got tenure at the college is NOT that I can’t bear the thought of another move with a child that still loves Legos. It’s not the main reason, but it’s big.

— Then Chris took me for a Sunday drive in the country. We must be reincarnated 80 year olds from a more innocent time, the era of the Sunday drive. Of course, driving around in the country made me immediately want to put our house on the market and find a way to live out of town.

— I reminded myself that living within walking distance of work, with minimal acreage to tend, is what allows people with chronic illnesses to maintain their health while contributing to society through good work.

— Also,  I don’t want to move Legos again.

— Also, I’ve only got the garden about a third of the way to my vision for it.

— It’s a good thing I’m not single. If I were single and trying to find dates at this point in the garden year, I’d have to list this under hobbies: “Picks beetles off berry bushes and then drops them in soapy water to dissolve their hard outer shell.” Hobby-wise, that’s kind of creepy. Luckily, I already have a family who values summer berries and thinks I’m a badass for touching beetles with my bare hands.

— The tomatoes are almost coming on. We had one early tomato, and now more are starting to turn.

— That’s good because my approach to feeding a family in the summer is just cut a up a watermelon and let them graze.  Soon I can add home-grown tomatoes to their diet.

— If I could get away with it, I would never feed my children anything other than tacos and raw fruit. I would devote none of my brain to cooking, and we’d just eat tacos forever. So it’s a good thing there are tomatoes to add to the tacos.

— Shoo, as the Action Rental man said.