I’m dog-sitting again for my aunt and uncle again. It’s funny, after the week when I was first dog-sitting, when I got home it felt as if I had never been gone. In some ways the week following, when I was home and doing something different each day, felt much longer than the week of dog-sitting where I did pretty much the same thing every day. Or maybe it didn’t feel longer; just longer than a week usually feels? Because when I had to leave to go dog-sitting again on Sunday, it felt like, “Was it really only a week ago since I was last dog-sitting? It seems like so much has happened since then.”
Yet now that I am back at my aunt and uncle’s dog-sitting, it feels like I never left. As I spend half an hour watering all my aunts grasses and bushes in the evening (she asked me to water them every day), I feel like I’ve been doing this every day for three weeks. As I let the dogs outside, then back inside, then back outside, it feels like this is a routine that has been going on for a long time.
I just think it’s so funny how my mind “erases” things so fast. When I got back into the rhythm of home life again–making supper, washing and drying a lot more dishes than I do when I’m over here and it’s just me, helping a neighbor, etc.–it seemed as if the whole week of dog-sitting hadn’t even existed. I think I do that a lot with other things in my life too. When you’re at certain phases in your life, it seems like no other stage in your life ever existed, and no new one ever will.
So what do I do with with all the time alone? Well, I bring a lot of projects to work on. And I don’t wind up doing hardly any of them! I could be so productive over here, if I’d just focus on working and do nothing else. Instead, I work on something for a while, then get restless and look for something to eat (not really because I’m hungry, but I just seem to do that when I’m feeling bored) and get on Facebook or something and see if there’s anything new. Then, I go back to working on something.
I probably already mentioned this in my first post about dog-sitting, but that “Something” has mainly been making friendship bracelets. (Bracelets made with different colors of embroidery floss, and in my case, knotted either in a stripes pattern or arrowhead pattern.) I think friendship bracelets are becoming more popular again. That’s not why I make them, though–I saw my friends making them, and it reminded me of it. I thought it would be a good thing to do when I am over here and feel restless.
I like finding colors that complement each other, (or in contrast to each other, in some cases) and trying to pick out colors that remind me of whoever I am making it for. That can be tricky. There are so many combinations of color, and I can’t decide which ones I want to do! Would this arrangement be better, or that one? I spend ages deciding, and I tell myself I’ll do all those other color arrangements too, until I get one that is JUST RIGHT for that person. (After making one, I feel like, although it is nice, it isn’t just right so I’ll have to try another color combination… but of course, I don’t really know which the recipient will like best, so I’ll probably wind up giving them all!) While such things are going through my head, I also feel a bit uncomfortable. Is it really a good use of your time to spend it making friendship bracelets? Am I really going to spend all week exhausting every possible color combination that reminds me of so-and-so?
Well, I’d probably wouldn’t spend so much time on it at home. So, all the more reason to spend my time on it here, when it doesn’t feel like a waste of time! 
It’s better than spending all day on my laptop, going back and forth from G-mail and Facebook, hoping to be entertained (which, yes, I also do…heh heh).
So far on this second dog-sitting visit, I made two for one friend (first color combination, which was brown, coral, light orange, and yellow came out pretty good, but I felt it was not quite right–second idea was a muted seaside color theme, with light blues and aquas and white. Good enough idea, but I didn’t like how the bracelet came out with only single-knots instead of double-knots) and then resisted the urge to make a third one for her, which was, naturally, to be the perfect just-right one. Then I made two for a cousin. The first was a striped one with green, blue, and the coral (dark peachy-pink) color, and the next was an arrowhead bracelet with three different shades of green and a deep wine-purple setting them off. As I made it, I tried to ignore the voices in my head saying, “Hey, this would be good for so-and-so!–not my cousin!”
Enough about the bracelets!
It’s nice over here. It is not sweltering with heat and humidity like much of the first week I was dog-sitting. Instead, the days are beautiful summer days. Right now as the sun is slowly setting, the sky is a peaceful blue and swathed with wispy cirrus clouds. I feel like the summer is passing me by, but then again even at home, I never feel like I properly enjoy the summer days before they are gone.
Because this part of the neighborhood is on a hill, there is so much more sky, and the horizon is lower. At night, I can see constellations which are usually hidden behind the horizon at home. I didn’t think I’d be able to see the stars here; in fact, I can, but only the brightest ones, which actually makes the constellations much easier to pick out. But I didn’t recognize a certain constellation (Cygnus) at first because I am used to seeing it amidst innumerable other stars, in the band of the Milky Way! Here the brightest stars making out the shape of the “swan” were all that remained.
It is also interesting to me to walk outside in the night and see streetlamps lighting up the street. There are no street lamps at home.
