i was tired but as soon as i turned off the light to go to sleep last night, i just couldn't do it. was it something i ate or drank? because i felt drugged. i woke up this morning later than i'd liked. i packed up a few things and left for belmont after a shower. it was another warm day. i don't know how i feel about all this recent hot weather. it's nice, but i don't want to be lulled into thinking this is normal since the return of the cold weather is inevitable. one bad thing about all this nice weather is i don't have any opportunities to wear my knit hats. i can't wait for it to get cold again so i can put on my thorpe!

i had some spaghetti and meatballs for lunch, made by my sister. my mother was knitting in the sunroom where it was brightest. i ended up spending the rest of the day working in the backyard. we constructed a new compost bin out of chicken wires and dumped in 4 barrels worth of dead leaves mixed with some partially decayed grass clippings left over from the summer.

my father continued trimming back all the dead and dying vegetation. we raised the ladder onto some cinder blocks just to keep it off the ground. i collected some cypress vine and morning glory seeds. my sister dug up the seed-grown lavender to keep them indoors during the winter. my father and i swapped out one of the rain barrels with a black one.

even though gladiolas are supposed to be tender perennials, the fact that a few emerged this summer from corms accidentally left over winter in the garden made me decide that it's easier just to plant them like hardy bulbs. i put them near the window of my sister's room and covered up the area with some marsh grass, hoping to keep the squirrels away.

i had some simple spicy ma-la noodles for dinner. since my sister wasn't home, hailey singled me out as the weakest link, the one person who would break down and feed her once she began pestering me. afterwards, she sat next to me and applied more pressure until i gave her a rawhide treat.

when i came back home to cambridge, i made some chocolate chip cookies: one bag of ready-made cookie mix, one stick of butter, and one egg. it was too hard mixing everything with a spoon so i ended up using my hands. i only have a single cookie sheet so i had to use 2 pizza dishes as well. the pizza dishes must conduct heat in a different way because all the cookies on the dishes were burnt, while the ones on the sheet were fine. i ended up eating only the cookie tops of the burnt ones, leaving the good cookies for when marco came home. being a cookie aficionado, marco was excited to try them. he said they were very good even though i thought they were only okay. maybe it's because i ate all the burnt ones, which equal half a stick of butter.