July is almost over! I can't believe I am excited about this. For the first time in my life, I am looking forward to Fall and to cooler weather.  This may have something to do with a tiny change from my past summers: WORK. A large portion of my summer days thus far (with the exception of two weeks in Russia) has been spent hoeing a very large field. I am so grateful for the pay, but I am also so looking forward to not having to do it anymore. From 6 a.m.  to 2:30 p.m., I am by myself with very little conversation with anyone. I have decided that conversations about watermelons, pumpkins, or zucchinis do not count as conversation.  Conversations with watermelons, pumpkins or zucchinis do not count either,  because they don't talk back.  Conversations with bees don't count because bees don't speak any language I can understand, and conversations with earwigs and spiders don't count because any interaction with them primarily involves me gasping, holding back shrieks, and frantically shaking them off of me.  I wonder if I am a bit too much of a girly-girl for this job?

I remember reading about a study which figured the average number of words a woman says each day as opposed to a man. Unsurprisingly, men say way less than women and they have usually used up the majority of their words before coming home from work.  I am trying to figure out how to fit an entire day's worth of words into the evenings.

I am very grateful for the money despite the  sweating, bugs, and hard labor.  I am hoping to switch to part-time in mid September so that I can get ready to start teaching ballet in October.  Hopefully I will be all the way done by November so that my attention can be more fully turned to this: http://www.collegeplus.org/  In the meantime, I am continuing to hoe in order to pay for it. 

So, I intend to spend the next month talking to myself and to pumpkins in the field. I have found that listening to my mp3 player really helps the morning to go faster.  I finished listening to the 2008 Resolved conference sessions last week. They can be found here. http://www.resolved.org/  Highly recommend them and I am really looking forward to next year's conference which I plan to attend with my Sis and my Daddy.  Now I'm listening to the sessions from Together for the Gospel conference.  Go here http://t4g.org/08/media/ to download.  These are probably a better use of my time than talking to pumpkins.