I love the French word for boredom—ennui. It sounds so . . . French. At first I thought it would be a good word to describe this summer, but it's not, really, because my to-do list is a thousand bullet-points long and I am far from bored. So I am calling it "n-ennui," because it perfectly describes my state of inertia at the moment. (I am probably breaking a thousand linguistic rules and angering lots of Frenchmen and -women by doing that. Apologies.)

The MT job search is not going as well as I had hoped. I tested with one company and got as far as a phone interview, but received a "thanks but no thanks" e-mail from them yesterday. Last week I sent out at least two dozen resumes. I haven't heard back from any of the companies yet. I am told this is pretty standard, but it doesn't make the waiting any easier. I even spent an entire afternoon (3+ hours) testing on one company's website—for many companies, you don't even get to send a resume until you've passed their online testing—only to be told that they weren't hiring right now. Great.

The husband has taken his usual zen-like approach and keeps telling me to be patient, that something will come along. In the meantime, I am going to get out Cables 2 out today and start working on it again. The cynical part of me thinks that that is the best way to shake loose an MT job—by going back to knitting. That seems to be how it works. He mused yesterday that maybe I should just go back to knitting altogether, but I spent $4000 on this MT training and I'd like to get some of that back.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I want to abandon knitting (I most certainly don't), it's just that I hate trying to focus on multiple things at once, and I am still looking for that balancing point. But do stick around, because I just got half a dozen patterns back from my tech editor and I'll be posting pics as soon as I make them available.

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My mother was here last week, so she and the girls and I went on a road trip. We drove over to Spokane on Thursday and did some shopping at Kohls. DD#2 and I like Kohls—we always seem to be able to find clothing that fits us well there. The Kohls in Spokane is the closest store to us. We spent Thursday night in Spokane, then headed over to the Seattle area on Friday so my mother could see where DD#1 goes to college. We did some more shopping (I jokingly told the husband we were touring "malls of the Northwest" on this trip) and spent the night. On Saturday, we headed to downtown Seattle to Pike Place Market and to Nordstrom and Macy's, both of which were having big sales.

[Just before we got to Snoqualmie Pass, I pulled in to a large fruit stand so we could get out and stretch our legs. Once inside, I realized that the top two floors of the building held antiques. I am always looking for things to add to my textile collection and I love antique stores. There were lots of crocheted doilies, but I pass those up in favor of knitted items, which are much harder to find. In one of the top-floor booths I found a large knitted lace doily, definitely handmade, and priced at $7.50. I bought it. I don't know who knit it, but now it resides in the textile collection.]

My sister wondered why we didn't do any sightseeing on this trip. Well, it's because 1) we've done sightseeing in Seattle on a previous trip and 2) when you live in a place with one department store—and a department store that could hardly be accused of being on fashion's cutting edge, at that—shopping in a large city is absolutely heavenly. I almost fainted from delight when I saw the Penzey's Spices across from Nordstrom Rack in Seattle. I've ordered from them before, but how nice to go into the actual store and smell the spices! I came out of there with $30 worth of Indian spices to add to my collection. And in the Williams-Sonoma store, I found a container of citric acid. I am on a cheesemaking kick this summer, and I need citric acid to make a batch of mozarella. Yay!

In about a month I get to do that whole trip again to take DD#1 back to school. I plan to stop at that antiques store again.

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We've had some very warm weather and the plants in the garden have responded nicely. I am so tickled with my lettuce—I have a row of an heirloom variety called "Ruby" and it's almost delicious enough to eat by itself (but I add chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, and bleu cheese to it). That row will all be eaten soon. The husband planted some green oakleaf lettuce which I also like, but he sowed it way too thickly and it's kind of spindly. I am trying to thin it but it's slow going. We also did some succession plantings of both kinds. So far the Ruby is bolt-resistant, so I am hoping to have lettuce for the rest of the summer and into the fall.

The peas are putting forth all sorts of pods. I have six lovely little heads of cauliflower. The broccoli has been wonderful. There are little zucchini, and we've been overrun with strawberries. The husband has been out there every day, picking them, washing them, and putting them in the freezer. I promised to make him jam.

We had one blueberry plant that was loaded, but the birds picked it clean yesterday. I was not happy. I need to rig up some kind of netting system. There are birds all over that garden, especially after we run the sprinklers. I assumed they were looking for worms, but apparently they like blueberries, too.

We spend a lot of time talking about what is working and what isn't and what we plan to do differently next year. He said he saw a sign down the road advertising fresh lettuce for $4 an bunch, so I am thinking that next year I will plant even more Ruby lettuce and we'll have a produce stand in the front yard.

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Our fire department responded to a structure fire just after midnight last night. The husband only got about an hour's sleep and this morning he went to Missoula to pour concrete. I did a little better—when he left for the fire, I got up and drove into town to the grocery store to get sandwiches and fruit for the firefighters, and after I delivered them I went back to bed. The fire was probably only about a mile-and-a-half from our house as the crow flies, but because two roads in our district are flooded and closed (high groundwater), I had to come home the long way around, which is about 8 miles. I see a nap in my future this afternoon, but first I am going to work on Cables 2. Really.