This was a catch-up day, and the first thing I had to catch up on was sleep. Yesterday was great, but getting up early made this a one-day weekend, as far as sleep is concerned. In my job I can't call in sick, no matter how run down I let myself get. What do I do, call myself and say that I'm too tired to stay home and work?

I'll never get completely caught up on work, because everything I do seems to generate two more jobs. But I worked on paying company bills off and on all day, while watching baseball, football, tennis, and the Big Brother webcast. That sounds bad, doesn't it? How can I expect to get caught up on anything when I have so many balls in the air at the same time?

Sleeping in until almost eleven made the day really short. I didn't get any yard work done, other than watering. Yard work is something else I can never get fully caught up on, though. I realized that my first summer here. Weeds will keep growing no matter how many times I pull them up or cut them down. It's kind of comforting to know that nature is so resilient that nothing I can do will go very far toward destroying it.

Unfortunately, the way I neglected the watering earlier this summer had an effect that I'm still trying to catch back up from. I might even be overwatering these last few weeks, and I haven't seen much of a comeback from the plants I killed. I'll wait until spring before I decide whether they're all merely dead, or really quite sincerely dead.

My most important current goal is to lose the weight I've put on this summer. I've been eating less and eating smarter for a week now, and I've lost four pounds. It's a start. It gives me the encouragement to keep going, although yesterday's bus trip — with donuts on the way down, German chocolate cake on the way back, and a meal in a fancy restaurant in between — could have set me back a bit.

Getting into the habit of eating right is easy in the short term. In the long term, something always seems to happen to knock me off track. One bad day that only a donut will cure, and suddenly I'm bingeing on chocolate chip cookies and Sabrositas again. Maybe it'll be different this time.

Anyway, so far, so good.

When I was outside watering the garden this afternoon, I watered myself as well. It wasn't intentional, but the wind kept gusting back toward me. I also watered the windows and the rocks more than usual. Other than the breeze, it was perfect outside today. This is what we expect around here in September and October, warm into the evening, never too hot, and with less fog creeping in than in July and August. It was beautiful in the City yesterday and it's beautiful here in the country today.