FINALLY -- today was the day I finally got outside to work in the yard and didn't die from the humidity AND I didn't get eaten alive by bugs!
It's a freaking miracle!

Last year, it was in October sometime that the humidity finally started lifting, and today I sprayed Repel on my shirt and hat and gloves and it kept the bugs at bay, so I didn't get eaten alive, either. 
Another miracle.

I trimmed all the poor hydrangeas (I don't think they were trimmed last year, and possibly the year before that), so they lost about 2/3rds of their canes, but now they can breathe and they have a ton of huge buds coming, which is exciting. 

Then, I started working on the front yard where our forest of giant azalea bushes are trying to grow across the driveway, and now I also have a small grove of yaupon hollies coming up IN those azaleas.... but, the hollies coming up in the center of the azaleas can stay, but we'll lose those others, as well as all of the nandina and other tropical plants I can't stand. LOL 

I have a huge list of natives and a few non-invasive non-natives I'll be looking for in nurseries over the next two months or more. Then, next year we'll be able to watch the yard explode in a chaotic cottage garden, as it should be.

With only the kitchen left to paint, and only about 40 more boxes to go through, the house is coming together. (Most of those boxes are in a storage unit. They're all my things.)

What I've been waiting for is the weather to knock off the humidity so I can go outside longer than five minutes at a time, because our yard needs an overhaul. Today was a tour of the pollinator garden at the Nash County Extension Arboretum, and believe me, I took notes. I also have notes from that garden in the spring as well, and between these two lists of plants, our yards will look much different next year.

All of the insane tropical plants are out of here except the banana trees, because those are just funny. It will be nice to get out there and trim back everything that's already overgrown, and plant the flowers that will bloom next year, turning the yard into a Pollinator Oasis.