July is flying by

I'm cheating by using a photo I took last year of the butterfly bushes because I've not taken any good pics lately or completed anything artsy. When I'm working these 12 hour night shifts, it just seems to kill the creativity. I did work some more today on the pictures for Thomas' nursery. Not sure I'll get them done before he gets here, but I'm trying. I'm doing a set of 3 collage paintings, very simple ones of animals, that frankly I'm "being inspired", shall we say, by someone's work I saw on Etsy. I would have loved to purchase her art, but the budget just isn't there, so I'm making my own. There will be a turtle(the one almost done), an elephant, and an alligator.

Time just seems to fly by. I need to get so much done this week while I'm off. The grapes are ripening and I really want to put up some preserves this year. Last year we gave the grapes to a neighbor to make wine, as I was helping take care of Mom a lot more. I do need to take Mom to take care of some business tomorrow and go down to help Emily with last minute preparations since Craig is now working. May do that Friday evening and Saturday morning. The former Woodland laboratory employees are getting together Saturday evening at our most recent supervisor's home for a party. Sunday will be church. So, not sure when those preserves are going to get done. The grapes may not wait until next week, so I may try to get them picked, cut up, seeded, perhaps Friday, and then freeze them for making the preserves later on. I've read online that you can do that. Basically, none of this is really interesting, is it? I think I'm trying to plan my week as I'm typing, so please just bear with me. We'll call that a "time out", lol.

Good bit of news to share since I've not been posting that often. Emily is about to "pop", very miserable, and ready for that baby to be out of there! So she says! The due date is August 9th, but little "Thomas" is turning out to be not so little, weighing already an estimated 9 lb, 6 oz. by today's sonogram. There have been no changes yet so if no baby by her appointment on Monday they may then schedule a C-section. I was selfishly hoping he would be born this week while I am off so I would have more time to spend with them. If it is next week after I start back to work, then it will be hard to ask off at a new job, working a solo shift, for more than a couple of days. But, of course, whatever is best for the baby and Emily is what I want most of all. You will notice that all of the "stuff" I mentioned above would be no longer so important to get done if the grandson decides to make an appearance, lol!

The new job is going fairly well. The second week was better than the first, somewhat from me being more familiar and getting a routine, but mainly because it was not as terribly busy as it was at first. My first nights alone there were pretty awful, almost more than I could do. I was very worn out at the end of that week.

Seems like there was more than I was going to report on, but I can't remember it now. If it comes back to me, I'll edit the post and add it on.