August was something of a crazy month for me. Every 2 years, we do a family reunion at Disney. Usually we do it in April, but the arrival of Granddaughter #4 meant we had to push that back. We chose the middle of August instead. I hate the heat, so I was spending most of my time in the Villa. I did go out for a couple of meet-ups, but overall I spent most of my time in the Villa or in the pool. I did spend time with my granddaughters that I don’t see as often, but the baby is more attached to Mommy and Daddy still.

We booked the 3-bedroom villa at Old Key West Resort like we usually do. When we arrived, though, they said there were engineering issues with the unit we had been assigned. We were given a 3-bedroom property at Saratoga Springs. I’d only stayed there for a quick overnight before. The villa there was really nice and close to one of the pools. We thoroughly enjoyed it there, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it would be 150 points more to stay there for a week, we’d do it in a heartbeat.

So I spent a lot of time getting ready for this and now recovering from it.

My writing schedule got a little messed up because of that. I’ve managed to keep up with the MarvelMonday and WestWingWednesday pretty well, but I’m procrastinating my Babylon5Friday episodes, and with the kids around in the summer, it hasn’t always been easy to squeeze those in. Hopefully this week returns to normal. School starts back up for us here in New Hampshire tomorrow.

That structure has helped, I think, with keeping up with the writing I want to do. It leaves four days for book reviews, which I have been going through rather quickly lately. I listen to the audiobooks while I’m doing my diamond painting. I’ve been sticking closer to home lately, so I’ve been diamond painting when I wasn’t working. I finished this one by the end of the month:

I joined a challenge online for diamond painting for 2027. It’s a mega challenge where the measurement of the project has to be more than 200 centimeters when you add the length and width. Below are two pictures I am vacillating between. The one on the right I spotted first at one of the places I have ordered from in the past. It’s 160×80 cm, so it qualifies easily for the challenge. I had seen this other company, Paintly, advertised online and was tempted to try them, but their kits seem to be very pricey. Someone sent me a coupon code, and I saw the kit on the left. Two years ago I visited Bruges with a friend and fell in love with it, so I decided to order that kit. It’s 100×140 cm, so a bit larger than the other one, but I think I’m less likely to be bored while doing it. All that purple sky in the other picture was making me think I’d get tired after a while.

The contest can’t be started until January 1st. On Dec 31st, the organizer will mail us a codeword that we have to take a picture of in front of our paintings showing that no drills have yet been placed. Our plan after Christmas is to head to Georgia, where we’ll spend New Year’s with two of the grandchildren before moving on to Florida to be snowbirds for the rest of the winter. I’ll be doing a big part of the work on this while we are down there.

The summer in New Hampshire wasn’t bad. We had a heat spell around the 4th of July, and that was it. Most of the summer was in the 80s during the day and in the 60s overnight. Still, I didn’t go out much. After my experience in Toronto, where I was dripping sweat with any slight exertion, I didn’t want to. I did notice when we were in Florida that it didn’t seem to be as bad as it had been. My doctor did start me on hormone replacement therapy, and that seems to have helped somewhat.

Speaking of my doctor visit, I have to go again soon and have my labs done. They did them at the beginning of the month, and the results were not good. I was diagnosed with kidney disease a few years back, but it’s been stable. Apparently, these labs showed my kidney function decreasing. I have to go for another round of tests, and then I don’t know what the next course is. I know I am not a healthy person in a number of ways, but this was not what I thought I was going to have a problem with.

The Mets had a good August, at least. They’ve looked better since the trade deadline and the decimation of the bullpen that took place then. I’m hopeful there will be a season in 2027, but we’ll see.

Books I read this month: