The afternoon highs are still in the high 80's to low 90's degrees F. The biggest tomato plants have reached the top of their cages and the first blooms have finally appeared. They nod daintily in front of skyrockets of fiery orange day lilies bursting open behind them. Big puffs of pink and lavender crepe myrtle blooms form the skyward fireworks above the garden. Only a few blue balloon flowers across the yard cool the summer blaze.

The cats are doing their usual let-me-out-let-me-in routine again. We go through this in depths of winter and the heights of summer. We can't convince them that we really do know whether it is fit for them to go out or not.

Even the normally cool, shaded concrete walks and terrace are too warm to provide much help from the heat. We watch the cats closely when they have gone out, waiting to see when they will drag in from the yard with reproachful, sad eyes about the negligence of their cat servants in properly adjusting the outdoor temperatures. We can barely air condition the indoors comfortably these days without air conditioning the whole neighborhood for them.

Our incoming ABWA president is eager to go. I've got the room reservation made for the chapter meeting and the members have been exhorted to come and show their support for the chapter. We have about two weeks to the chapter board meeting for the officers only and about ten days beyond that until the next chapter meeting.

I did a little more knitting on the scarf and child's sweater. I have the next projects lined up to start on. I sneaked into fabric.com and got some more flannel on the last day of their last sale. The email announcing that the fabric is on the way arrived a little while ago, so I'll have to keep a sharp eye out for the UPS truck in a few days. My sturdy, practical flannel nightgowns finally started shredding from wear, so now I've got an excuse for more flannel and a desperate reason to get out the sewing machine. Shabbiness can be tolerated for a while, but indecency must be nipped in the bud.

I bit the bullet and loaded the future projects from the memo list of the organizer into the Easy-To-Do (http://www.xanadutools.com) program. The list is nearly two screens long, and I haven't even broken down the projects into goals yet.

The disgracefully red lines of overdue tasks have shrunk somewhat while the blazing yellow lines of upcoming urgent tasks are streaked among them like a fiery sunset. A task that isn't urgent or overdue is shown on a white line. The line for this blog entry went from yellow to red while I worked on an earlier task. My "Knit sweater" line went red as well. At least I can see when I should be blushing red as well, and I am keeping up with the two new online courses so far.

The Easy-To-Do keeps everything listed where I can see it. That was the main drawback of the organizer. It is a convenient size to carry and its alarms are useful to keep track of how the day is going, but the garden planting dates are probably best removed unless I can keep up with the garden better. I thought I could use it as a handy reminder of the planting dates for each crop for this climate zone, but they make for long strings of undone tasks at the start of the list if bad weather or other delays prevent me from doing the task on the schedule. Nothing rolls over to the next day; missed tasks have to be moved by rescheduling or clicked past to reach the tasks for the current day.

Family responsibilities are shifting as my brother gets sicker. Some days I'm in better shape than he is, and I drive to do the errands instead of him. That throws off my plans considerably, both doing the errands and resting up afterwards. He saw one of his doctors today and came home with his arm bandaged from more blood tests. He's been coughing a lot and retaining fluid despite the diuretic. I doubt that Mom is going to get her Yosemite trip in September. He's really not up to travel out of town and neither am I.

The organizer just beeped an alarm and another Easy-To-Do line went red as I missed another deadline. It has reached the tasks for tomorrow with a blazing yellow line reminding me that I have library books due -- and one is still unfinished. Time to wrap up this entry and get on to the next overdue task.