It has been blessedly quiet here for the past few weeks. While hurricanes blasted through to the east and drowned our neighboring states again and again, we've only had a few clouds and a little rain here. The cold fronts have been steering the storms to the east of us, with only rain reaching that end of the state.

I'm still setting the hose out on the garden. The fall rains have not arrived yet even though fall temperatures are here. The summer fizzled out early and blurred into early fall warmth. The cats are enjoying themselves immensely, alternating between playful romps and luxurious sprawls in the grass now that the weather is cool enough for sustained activity on the lawn. They have plenty of leaves to chase and scuffle through in the drifts under the bushes. It isn't quite time for the fall leaf raking frenzy yet, but Mom has done a little cleanup recently in the front yard in the annual battle with the messy magnolia tree.

It's great weather for the tomatoes which are setting fruit like mad. I'm getting a few pounds every few days, enough for salads and tomato vegetable soup. The peas have started blooming, too, sporting frilly white flowers along the vines happily climbing up their wire cages. The fall greens are up and growing taller as are the broccoli and cabbages. The BT spray has beaten most of the cabbage worms, but a few butterflies still sneak in to attack occasionally.

Mom dragged me to a free hearing test last week, determined to show me that her hearing was fine and that I was mumbling. She rubbed it in on the way, sure that she would pass the test with flying colors and would get the doctor to tell me not to mumble. She sat there scowling as the technician marked down one abnormal reading after another.

She got her new hearing aids today and is complaining that everything is too loud, including Mischief who greeted her upon her return. She can hear everything again and is fussing about it. She said that the lady told her to say hello to me. She told her that I didn't have to come this week because I had done all the tattling last week.

We're all going to have to learn to talk in a normal tone while she figures out what all those sounds are again. She keeps asking what the noises are because she's forgotten what a lot of things sound like. It is remarkable how people will deny a hearing loss while they can accept glasses more readily for worsening vision.

The crafting is focused on finishing the country rose sweater for me before the weather cools enough to need it. I'm down to the last sleeve, fighting Mischief for control of the sweater. It has been sprawled on my lap while I knitted each section long enough for the cat to have tried to claim it as his latest cat bed. He climbs onto it, kneading it happily while snagging the yarn with his claws despite my protests. I'm lucky if he settles down with enough length free to turn the end to knit each row.

The country rose sweater a heavily sculptured sweater with lots of bobbles alternating with double (knit 2, purl 2) ribbing columns. It is gobbling up skein after skein to knit enough bobble-studded sweater to cover my generous frame, but it is going to be a knockout when it is done.

I have the yarn for a lavender and violet sweater which may stop at being a vest since I didn't get many skeins of those colors at the discount store. I'm thinking of trying a two color daisy stitch pattern, but I'll have to knit a sample swatch and see if I have enough yarn for it.

Guideposts magazine has renamed its Sweater Project as Knit for Kids and published another article about it, reminding me to work on another box of sweaters for them. I have one child's sweater finished, but I was trying to knit a few sweaters for me, too.

My organizer is disorganized again, with bypassed projects stringing out ahead of the current date. I don't know why I thought things were getting better when the gardening planting dates passed for most vegetables and I sent them ahead to next year's calendar. The faster I go to finish projects, the behinder I get!