The Light At The End Of The Tunnel May Be An Oncoming Train... But At Least It Is The End Of The Tunnel

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY (Click picture to enlarge)

"Light at the end of the tunnel? We don't even have a tunnel; we don't even know where the tunnel is."
~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Well, it is July 1st and I will have 18 hours to get the rest of my list done.....

1. Clean fan blades and reverse fan direction in den, living room and master bedroom. (This requires dragging the gargantuan ladder in from the garage.)
2. Vacuum garage... for the tenth time. (Have I ever mentioned my obsessive compulsive thing about garages?)
3. Clean up the patio...picking up the thousands of safflower seeds that the stupid black birds threw on the ground to be spiteful and then the yard guy came along and blew them all into the flowerbeds where they will germinate and I will be plucking tiny safflower plants until the end of time.
4. Add compost and mulch to the shade garden... and clean off the gutter where the rain overflowed because the pine needles are stuck and won't let the water go into the gutter so it pours onto my beautiful large fern and breaks 80% of its fronds so that I have to cut it back to a stupid looking round mound of, well green stuff. (This may require said ladder again or hanging from an upstairs window with the grab it device Mom uses to get stuff off the floor.... hmm... hauling ladder down stairs vs. hanging out the window. I may opt for hanging out the window, easier on the knees.)
5. Clean off the deck. Hmm. It rained last night and this morning... crossing fingers that that will take care of the deck.
6. Clean the steps and porch of the sunroom. Yes, I put the hanging basket for the strawberries whose seeds never germinated out there and the rain ran off the copper roof into the potting soil and splattered it up on the door that I just cleaned last Saturday.
7. Fix the hinge on the back gate... no, I have no idea how it got broken... it just fell apart and that is the story I am sticking to. I have to fix it so that I don't have to tell Stephen it broke but he will read this and know it anyway. Oh, well.
8. Put plastic plant carriers in the car... I DON"T KNOW WHY... just to get them out of the garage, OK?! (See #2)
9. Pick up poop in yard. I have Daisy. Daisy is a dog. Self-explanatory.
10. Plant plants.... why did I buy more plants today. My Euphorbia kicked the bucket so I got some more to replace it. But, I probably shouldn't plant it in the same place because I have no idea as to why it kicked the bucket when all around things are growing fine. I have a big planter in the back of my van to drag to the back deck and plant a tomato plant, a bell pepper, some sage and (if I can find just one) a marigold. Marigolds are supposed to be great companion plants and ward off evil bugs. I would rather plant borage or lovage, but no one has them here and I really don't know exactly what they are anyway. This will entail dragging pebbles and potting soil to the back deck and will likely negate the cleaning the rain did last night... so I will have to keep the cleaning of the back deck on the list.
11. Keep an eye on the black swallowtail chrysalis... any day now it should open... but please not until Friday.....
12. Iron. I am always behind on ironing. I don't like to iron. It makes me hot and with the hot weather and trying to keep the air conditioning at a higher level... well, as Jane Austen said... "the heat keeps me in such a state off inelegance."
13. Smoke a Boston butt roast. I've never done this before. Apparently, there are as many ways to do it as stars in the sky. I have already massaged it with yellow mustard and put on a rub that was supposed to follow a recipe but ended up being whatever I found in the spice rack along with some already mixed up steak rub. It sits in the refrigerator overnight or in this case until 3 am when I will drag myself up and set it out for an hour while I try to get some coals going in the smoker and throw in cherry or hickory or whatever I have in the garage... I forgot to look. When the smoker gets to 225℉, hopefully before 4 AM, I will insert the remote temperature probe into the roast and put it on the grate and let it start smoking; that is, of course if I can figure out how to set the time and timer on this gadget. Then after two hours, or however long it takes to get to 140℉, I will start spritzing it with apple juice... or apple cider in this case... I couldn't find any apple juice in the pantry. Then we put it in aluminum foil tightly with more apple cider and put it back in the smoker to cook until the temperature reaches 205℉. We wrap it in a towel and put it in a cooler for an hour or so... hmm.. do I have a cooler in the garage? I forgot to look for that too. What was I thinking? I hope it gets done before I have to go to the airport to pick up my brother at 6PM..... What WAS I thinking.... I could have stopped by the barbecue place and picked it up already done..... AARG!!!! I just hope it doesn't turn out like my Christmas turkey..... it was a real turkey.. in more ways than one.

Look this turned into a Thursday Thirteen.... and believe it or not... the things I ALREADY have marked off my list would amaze you... but I am not going to hold my breath that all of this will get done by 6 PM.

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Thursday Thirteen posts here.