Saturday updates

Let's see...

First, I'm supposed to be at girls' night out at Lori's right now, singing along to one of the greatest movies of all time, The Sound of Music. Instead, my raspy voice and I are at home, and I am about to go to bed. Singing? Not likely today. And we were to be sharing fondue....so I think that after my first dip in the fondue pot, my friends would have said "see you!" and ordered out for pizza. I couldn't do that to them. Plus, I didn't want to infect them by being in a small space for hours and breathing on them. Bah humbug. I am majorly bummed to miss out on the festivities.

In better news, I did get a pedicure today. I figure all those nasty nail polish fumes had to kill whatever I was breathing out, at least, and I got to sit and relax and get rubbed (ahhhh). My toes are a spring-like pink now. Best of all, I got to use a gift certificate from Christmas so it was free to me (thanks, Ryan).

We got a lot of work done on the yard today, mostly thanks to Ryan. The vegetable garden is all dug out - hurrah! Ryan did the extra work of removing the grass around the shrubs along the side of the yard, and mulching all around, and the entire piece of grass on that side has been dug up, turned over, fertilized, etc., according to the specifications in our gardening book. It looks great, and I can't wait to begin planting.

As for my part of the yardwork, I was working on weeding the bed that is closest to our house. I'm only about half way done - I can not believe how much time it takes to remove the roots from the grass that has planted itself there. With each section that I complete, I add a wheelbarrow of mulch, and stand back to admire, quite pleased with myself at the results. Maybe if I'm not sick this week I will do a much better job of doing an hour per day; last week, that petered out quickly. I really hope to get that part of the gardening done, as it's tedious and back breaking (all that crouching and bending) and it's murder on my fingernails, even through gloves. ;-)

I did plant one plant today, and it was a treat to do so. Mom & Dad S. brought with them part of a daisy plant from Grandma Tess's yard! Apparently it grew by her front door, and she gave them some divisions from it years ago. Now, it's big enough to divide again, so Mom & Dad brought us some. It's technically called a Michaelmas Daisy, and it's purple or pink; but at our house, it will always be a Grandma Tess daisy. Right now it's just a collection of sticks and roots, but we are assured that it's a hardy plant that will grow quickly and look great this summer. HURRAH! It's in the front bed, closest to the street. I dream of sitting on our porch, sipping something cool in the heat of summer, and seeing its blooms.

The next step is to begin planting seeds indoors. I've got tomato seeds that I want to do starts with, and we've been saving our yogurt containers to plant in. Time to get ready! And there are other seeds that can go directly into the ground, too. Sarah and Steven have been doing their vegetable garden at approximately the same times that we have been (although they're way ahead of us with their work; they started last year when they bought their house) and are helpful in advising us, and one good piece of advice is that if we don't want cats using our garden as a litter box we should add chicken wire over the garden. Chicken wire is now high on my list of things to get! YUCK is all I can say to kitty-lettuce. (That's not manure, that's gross.)

And Mom & Dad Surface are safely home. It was a lovely visit.

That's all from me. Good night, all.