getting up, getting out, getting on with things

[saffronhare]

This was a pretty stellar weekend, saved from some vague ennui on Sunday by diermuid setting some things on fire for me. WIN. In summary:

• Wore a summer dress for some time of both days. Felt pretty. Whaddya know?


• Registered both girls for their soccer club. Second time 'round for the older girl, who was excited to see her teammates at the event and sized up some new uniform pieces. (sigh) Younger girl got to pick her number -- 42 -- and was delighted when her coach high-fived her and asked if she knew that was the PERFECT NUMBER. So they had a moment of geekly joy together, and she was lit up with delight about it.


• Discovered a closer-to-home garden center, since Earl May is now closed, and the people were very friendly and helpful. I was able to show them some pictures of an ailing tree, get good advice on trying to rescue it, and spend some birthday money on a new butterfly bush, along with a few plants for a "summer solstice installation" in the front yard.


• Went home and made that shit happen. Like, within hours, I'd moved the birdbath, cleared out that little round space, planted the planty things. After squeaking about the mouse who had moved into my bag of garden soil. Surprise! The flowers will hopefully thrive in the brutal heat our front yard gets. We've got a black-eyed susan in the middle, flanked by a few not-purple coneflowers, and then some gazinias (?), which charmed me with their intense orangeness.







• Went on to trim the FrankenRoses, assemble the Water Gator thingie, watered one tree, medicated another, and supervised hubby digging a hole for the new butterfly bush.


• Had myself a goddam margarita.


• Went to a Solstice service up at All Souls, which, while not exactly a balls-to-the-wall pagan experience, was surely lovely in its own right.


• Went home and used approximately 580 pounds of concrete to start installing "stepping stones" along one particularly troublesome edge of the fence. In that spot, the idea is to remediate some drainage and keep the dogs from digging in the mud while trying to get under the fence to the neighbor dog. But this first effort convinced us that this method will also work nicely for gradually adding pathways and (likely raised) garden beds throughout the backyard. Very exciting to see proof of concept. One very sweaty session and wagon full of concrete yielded about eight "panels" of stepping stones -- each of them about 20 x 24 or so. Could make a big difference over there.


• Experienced some despair, both vague and specific. Expressed a wistful longing for a firepit around which we could gather and have s'mores.


• Prepped cookout, which was cooked over the new (!) firepit, acquired and assembled by the Action Husband. I am greatly enamored of the ease and artistry of food onna stick. I see more s'mores and cooking over the fire in my future.





• Welcomed younger girls home just in time for manifestation of s'mores.


• PROFIT.

Overall, it was a nice combination of exertion and rest, as well as being out and being at home. This week, I need to buckle down on the power washing likewhoa. Not sure if we'll have another chance to do more concrete, but that'd be cool too. Dirty times.

Comments

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the improved draught the screen should give. That was always the biggest problem with my old copper fire pit -- it just didn't draw well. Hooray for wins that are both aesthetic and practical!

Glad to hear that things are going so well for you. I wish my despair were as easy to fix. Perhaps I should stop despairing about things which are known to be unresolvable (at least, unresolvable in any way that doesn't cause worse problems) and despair about fixable things instead :-) Which sounds distressingly like the serenity prayer, in some ways, but serenity is really not one of my goals these days.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

How well things seem to go kind of depends on what things I choose to poke at. Most things go well enough, for enough of the time, that true despair is fleeting, thank all the gods. And...this reply got a lot longer, and a lot more bumbling, so let's just leave it at that. :)