The Weekend

The weekend is almost over. I didn't make it to a farmer's market. There is actually one not 10 minutes away in the refurbished downtown of the the town next door. It wouldn't have been difficult to do, but I just didn't.

Instead, I worked in the yard yesterday morning. Did I mention yesterday was my birthday? Yep, happy birthday to me! (I had to change my blog profile to reflect this.) I love working in the yard, so it was actually just fine with me to spend part of the day this way. The front flower beds may never recover from our trip to China. Well, that's not true. They may recover with the help of a bulldozer.

My first step in the attempt to help the flower bed recover came yesterday when I sprayed the weeds with POISON(!). I know, not nearly as environmentally friendly as lovingly pulling each of the little buggers out by hand. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I've lost the edges of my flowerbed and the yard is moving in! These are desperate times, indeed.

After I hit as many weeds as I could, I moved to the backyard, AKA the sunny side of the house from dawn until about 4pm. I didn't have as much to do, which was a good thing because it was, ummmm, hot.

This is the work that I actually prefer. Trimming shrubs here and there with my hand snippers. It was almost ok that it was 1000 degrees outside. I could have lapsed into a zen like state if not for the one rose thorn that reached out and burrowed itself into my arm. I almost hyperventilated - not because it hurt so much, but I had this instant feeling of being trapped and never being able to extract myself from this thorn without losing an appendage. Remember that guy a few years ago that was rock climbing and had a boulder land on his arm? He was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place with his arm crushed and couldn't move? He ended up amputating his arm like at the elbow with, I don't know, a paper clip? OK, he did cut off his arm, but I think the tool was slightly larger than a paper clip. The point is, I felt at one with him for like a tenth of a second yesterday while attached to the rose bush. Luckily, that passed, and I pulled it out, but it was kind of a weird moment.

After all that sweating, last night we went with some friends to a sushi restaurant for dinner then everyone came back here for some ice cream and conversation. The daughter of our best friends babysat Twinkle and Sparkle. It's an odd feeling when you remember a child's birth and now they are babysitting for you. She's only 12 and fairly new to the babysitting thing, so her dad came with her. He did warn her, however, that he was only here to talk to the firemen. Apparently his services were not needed, because everything was hunky dory when we returned. We did make it an early night though. Can't keep the 12 year old out until midnight.

Today I went to a bead store to get supplies to make a bracelet for a friend. I think things might be settling down enough around here that I can start making jewelry again. I checked on my website today; something I haven't done in months. I decided that I needed an "inventory reduction" sale to clear some older pieces out, and make way for the new. Not that anything new is waiting in the wings, but I can feel the creativity bug starting to buzz. It's pretty cool.