No AC and Lots of Rain

We turned the air conditioning off yesterday. Day temperatures under 78°; nights in the low 70s. However, the humidity is running at about 94%. The AC may get turned back on.

With it being less hot, I’ve been able to shift my gardening to later in the morning, giving me time to paint first. Better for my brain and energy level. I’ve also started knocking off some of the projects I’ve been avoiding, 

First up was making the buttonholes in the Halloween shirt Stephanie made for Kyle. That began with a search for the shirt, which I remembered as a cream color, but was actually black. Overlooked several times in the hunt, but eventually found in one of my craft stashes. Next was reading the online manual to re-learn how to use the automatic buttonholes on Steph’s machine. Neither she or I could find the right pressure foot, but luckily she has inherited another machine which had one. For the life of me, I could not get the machine’s buttonhole lever to stay down, and the computer would not let me sew without it.

In despair, I called Mary Beth, friend from garden club, and a quilter extraordinaire. Yes, she could help, come on over after lunch, and with her magical Bernina sewing machine named Bubbles, she quickly made 6 matching buttonholes. I sewed on the candy corn buttons and delivered the shirt.

Project two was getting the smart lightbulb back online with our AT&T fiber. As they say, epic fail. Since we were going to Home Depot anyway, we bought 2 new smart bulbs. Voila, we can now say, “Siri, turn on desk light,” and enter the office without tripping in the dark.


I put out Halloween decorations including the ceramic bowl with a 3D roach in the bottom that Patten made ages ago and the wooden 2D pumpkins I made last year and installed the skeleton flamingos in the yard with a “Happy Halloween “ flag. The electrically-lit pumpkin, tabletop black skeleton tree, and themed glassware went to the local thrift store for others to enjoy. 

The last project took more time. The app that controlled the pump for our canal-fed sprinklers no longer worked. After many attempts, my staring at the box, Grant reading and reading online, I called AT&T, spoke to a very helpful person, and like Grant had discovered, that picky piece of equipment needs a 2.4 special WiFi. Within minutes our tech person set it up, then waited on the line while I reconnected the app. Perfect. 

I still haven’t gotten the original smart bulb to connect. That may or may not ever happen. I’d rather paint.

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