Friday's Fabulous Five

It's Friday again and my head shakes in slack-jawed wonder. Are the weeks picking up speed as they pass or is it just me? I mean, really... June is halfway over, folks! And June means that the YEAR of 2009 is halfway over. Um, WHAT?! How did that happen? Regardless, there are many fabulous things happening right now.

1- My hubby took the day off of work today. I love it when that happens. He taught me a new skill...

2- We have several pieces of sandstone in our backyard and three of them were VERY thick pieces... three or four inches thick. My husband grew up quarrying sandstone with his dad and his great-uncle and step-grandpa, so he's got skills. He passed one on to his wife today. I am now the proud owner of a new skill-set: Sandstone splitting. It's so satisfying to watch a tiny crack grow bigger and bigger as you hammer it, and then CRACK! Half of it shears away and you suddenly have two lovely stones where before you only had one. Too cool, my friends. Too cool.

3- I worked mega-hard in my front flower beds on Tuesday and Wednesday and now they're so lovely and suddenly much bigger. Dustin was the man-power behind the operation. We nearly doubled the size of one bed and I bought a tiny-soon-to-be big bush along with some annuals to go in our new lovely space. It's all very charming. I must offer gratitude to my mother for instilling in me a love of creating beautiful flower beds. She's good, my mom. I grew up helping her and I like to think that some of that is bearing fruit here and now.

4-Chore charts are still going well. My kids are doing awesome and I'm so proud. They hardly even complain anymore, though I still have to remind them to get to work. I can handle that. Yipeee!!!!!!

5- I made banana bread yesterday. Y-U-M.

The end.

Glove Lines

One of the benefits of being so white that your husband calls you translucent is that when you spend two days in the sun weeding, and planting, and weeding, and poisoning weeds and sowing seeds, all the while wearing gardening gloves, you get a nice defining line on your wrists between the sunburned arms and the white hands. It's so attractive. (how do you feel about that ultra-long run-on sentence?)

I guess it's because it's been such a freakin' cold spring, but Thursday was the first day I felt like doing ANYTHING in my yard. And, as we all know, I've been so very full of willpower to do things that I don't feel like doing. (yes, that's heavy sarcasm kids!) So, I went to the flower store (or the NURSERY, as my friend corrected when I told her where I was) and bought stuff to plant! Then I came home and the real work began. I had many many weeds to pull. I did that til my fingers hurt and my back was sore and I was super sweaty, tired and sunburned. And then I did it some more. After almost two full days of weeding and poisoning, I finally planted my purchases. Look how cute!

Flowers in the front beds.


Baby basil plants next to a bee balm. (wow! I need to paint my fence!)

Italian parsley, stevia and a big chive plant (chives were planted last year)
Another baby basil plant and a volunteer butternut squash! Cute huh! I also planted spinach and tomatoes. I love getting my yard whipped into shape and I'm glad that it's finally warm enough to make it fun!