That Late-August Feeling

I am feeling so blah, and I'm blaming it on the weather. Because the weather can't argue, can it? As I said, our pool died. Here is its vacant spot, soon to become a fire pit. I have missed the serenity of cooling off from the HEAT in some water.
This summer was so dry for about a month, and has been so incredibly hot lately, that many trees already have turning and falling leaves. Here is one in our neighbors' yard.
The dryness killed a few plants. This azalea is half-alive, half-dead. It's in the double row of azaleas along our front walk. What to do? Dig it out? Cut it back? Hope for resurrection?
I have 2 potted chrysanthemums that come back year after year -- very large. This year they got zapped. I'm hoping that little bit of green indicates that there is still life in the roots, but there will be no large balls of purple this fall.
And so many things are just dry and weary, like me. My hydrangeas gave it their all this year. They are spent.


The sedum, however, seems to have endured.
This bed was so weedy. I loathe working in the heat, and I do not like yard work in general -- I know, a bad combination! Finally, yesterday morning, I attacked it and yanked out ALL WEEDS. I don't know that it looks much better, but I feel victorious.
This bed, however, remains in desperate need of help. There are hostas there (two of which never really took off this year as they did other years), and an astilbe that was swallowed up sometime last month.
The magnificent rugosa rose. She is tired, tired, tired. This is exactly how I feel, as if I'm hanging on with my fingernails.

Ever since we returned from Mississippi and have heard nothing from them about the job, I've become more and more discouraged. It doesn't seem to matter much if it's logical. I blame it on hormones, or on the weather, or whatever else I can scrounge up, but the fact is, long-term under-employment is discouraging and causes gradual despair. It sneaks up on you, and it doesn't take much to lay you low. And as those of you know who go through regular trials, it comes and goes. I imagine my late-August feeling of dried-out, worn-out weariness will pass inexplicably at some point. It usually does. But I do need the refreshing rain of God's blessings to fall on me. "Showers of blessings," the hymn says. Little drops of daily mercies are nice, but sometimes in life we need showers.