Daily Routine 1

Today I am launching an experiment. In an effort to process my week of summer, I am planning to submit an entry twice each day. One will be around noon, and another will be around 9 p.m. This will also help document what I have done in a week of summer -- sort of a digital diary. So, here goes.

This morning, I got up around 8:30 a.m. I went to the kitchen and prepared a pot roast for the slow cooker, which required slicing the carrots and potatoes and seasoning the meat. I put it in at 9 a.m.

I checked my e-mail and watched a bit of "Today" before I went outside to work in the yard. That work included mowing the grass in the back yard, some watering and pruning and removal of dead blooms on several of the plants. I was excited to see that the Rose of Sharon has one bloom on it finally, and it will continue to bloom through September. Also, finally, there is a bloom on the purple echinacea that I planted more than a year ago (it barely survived last year and did not bloom). I pulled some stray plants and weeds, including some damned morning glory, the most despicable weed I know.

While I waited for the sprinkler to finish, I read some of the current book I am reading. It is called 10th Grade by Joseph Weisberg. The entire book is written in the voice of a sophomore, including a lack of punctuation and many run-on sentences. As a result, it is slow going, because I have to read some passages two or three times to decipher the meaning. I am about a third of the way through it so far. One friend, herself a former teacher, called reading the book a "busman's holiday" because I was doing the same thing on my leisure time that I do all the time at work. Well, this is a lot more interesting than the typical assignments.

I responded to a reference check for a former student. He is applying for a job with the state Department of Health. He graduated a few years ago, and he has been busy since attending college and traveling abroad. Coincidentally, I ran into his mom at the movie the other night.

I took a shower, got dressed and ate a bowl of Jell-O, which hit the spot.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.