Busy/Not Busy

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? --Henry David Thoreau

I'm slowly adapting to my new surroundings here in our new house. It's a bit like I've woken up in someone else's life and in someone else's house. Annoyingly, after doing such a good job of unpacking so quickly, I seem to have to do a full lap around the house to find anything around here because I can't remember where I put it away. Someday, I'll feel like this is my home... just haven't quite gotten there yet.

We went out to a local lake for a lovely swim last weekend. Seymour sat on the mat in the shade and watched the other doggies splash around. I've often wondered if he would like to go for a swim. Given his aversion to baths and garden hoses and water in general, I'm thinking no, but you never know:

I borrowed a life jacket from a co-worker to try on him to see if he'd wear it. You can see what he thinks about it:

Luckily for him, the weather cooled down this weekend and we got a spot of rain, so we haven't had a chance to test it out. It has been somewhat of a relief from the intense heat. I took the opportunity to take some apples that were given to me to make a batch of applesauce in the slow cooker. Mine is always caramel-brown, probably because I leave the skins on and add a bit of cinnamon, and without even having to add any sugar, it's lovely and sweet:

This applesauce gets turned into applesauce loaf cakes. I have so much of it that I made two and froze one. It's always a good idea to have spare cake around:

I've also spent time in the garden this weekend doing a bit of pruning and tidying up. I have a bunch of roses that needed a lot of looking after and a couple of shrubs that needed to be taken down a notch. The hydrangeas were starting to fade, so I "dead-headed" a few of them and took some of the fresher looking ones inside. I think I'm going to enjoy having these big, cabbage-y blooms around. I think they look like bunches of butterflies resting together. I also discovered that, in my pre-move purging frenzy, all of my vases seem to have disappeared. These ones are a couple of vessels that happened to be sitting empty. I guess I have some vases to collect again:

I think another reason I feel so out of place at the moment is the distinct lack of tasks piling up on me at the moment. This time last year, Sundays always felt like a bit of a race to get things done before the work week started. These days, it's a different life... not that I haven't found things to do. I turned to the hubby yesterday afternoon and said, "I feel like I don't have anything to do."

He looked at me and said, "Are you being sarcastic? Since this morning, you built a website for someone, pruned the shrubs, made two cakes and then made lunch."

I guess I can't sit still. Even Seymour is exhausted watching me:

I have been working on a little busy-work project using some leftover yarn from a shawl I made a couple of years ago. It's a free doily pattern I found on Ravelry called the Double Pineapple Doily I'm enjoying it so far, but it's been a while since I've crocheted anything with a 1.6mm needle. I love the look of it so far. I just hope I have enough yarn to finish the entire pattern:

The yarn is a cotton/linen/silk blend, which has a wonderful vibrancy, but tends to split, which makes each round a bit painful. I also conveniently keep finding errors right near the end of the round. I've consequently worked just about every other round twice. Guess I won't be running out of things to do anytime soon:

I know I should feel grateful to not feel so run off my feet all of the time anymore, but after years of feeling depleted all the time, it's strange. It's hard to stop looking over my shoulder all the time for the next thing that will run me over. I suppose that, like all things in life, I'll adapt... or I'll just find something else to keep me busy...

...like dressing up my dog. Poor Seymour. Have a good week!