it's official!!

made my flight reservations to go back to Crete end of september and stay til first week of november!  it's just a tiny bit more than 2 months til i leave... maybe i should start packing?  and now i can give myself permission to be getting excited for the trip.  well, maybe not excited about the ~20 hour flight, but SO happy to be going back.  SIL, Judy will go with me and stay 2 weeks, and Kate and my grandkids will go, too, for some portion of the time i'll be there.  and Jim?  he's not going this time because he wants to stay here to keep the deer from eating his ripening grapes and then harvest, crush and start the wine fermentation.  who knows... maybe he'll have the raki made, too, before i get back.  i'm not quite sure how i pulled it off, but i got tickets on Lufthansa for about $200 less than our last trip... and that's my fave airlines, too.  bravo and wheeeee

it's been too hot here... 90+ for the past few days and expected to continue.  the beastly rodents in the garden have been my focus lately as they have found one of the veggie beds which isn't lined with chicken wire, so they have full access and have been taking advantage by first eating the roots (beans and tomatoes), then pulling the plant down into their tunnel and devouring the rest of it.  i've been fighting back with sulfur flares, but imagine them backfilling their tunnel just in time, then sittin' back and laughing at me!  paranoid??  maybe.  but i'll be beyond pissed off if i don't get tomatoes!