Ack - My Family's Falling Apart Today

My husband is home with a backache and is on bedrest. My son has a virus. I'm mothering them both today. Eek, who cursed me? :)

Off to the store now for chicken soup and apple juice ....

Need Exercise? Get Reel

Our siding is finished. It looks beautiful - but our yard was a different story yesterday. With trucks and our cars parking on it all week, it looked like a trampled hayfield. Last night, my husband mowed the front yard with the gas mower, while I tackled the backyard with the reel mower. Keep in mind, I am currently wrestling fall allergies.

If you want to sweat buckets even when you feel fine, try using a reel mower. You gotta push hard in spots, unless your lawn is perfectly flat. Then add that you already feel yucky because your throat is sore and your ears are stuffy. I got the yard done, but I felt like I had just survived an hour on a Stairmaster. Ugh. Good for the environment, those reel mowers. Heck on your body when you're already feeling icky.

Lawn looks better though! On to the next project. :)

8:21 AM EDIT: Check out this news item on E-Readers: Suddenly, Earth-Friendly E-Readers Are Everywhere

Greenwood: 6; Shrub: 5

Day two of residing has gone swimmingly. The house is beginning to look like I imagined it would when we moved in several years ago.

That includes pulling out the overgrown landscaping in the front. I kid you not: the day we closed on the house, I was out there with hedge clippers, taking down the rhododendron that was slowly devouring our front window.

Tonight, it was my husband and I versus the barberry and juniper shrubs. The barberry bushes came out easily, but that dang juniper just didn't want to accept its eviction notice. We dug at it. No success. We pulled at it with rachet straps and hubby's car. Darn thing actually snapped the rachet straps ... three times. Then it snapped the handle on the shovel.

After that, we gave up and got the reciprocating saw.

Holy cow, this thing was stubborn. Four-inch trunk, going straight down. You should have seen the happy dance we did when we got it out. Ha! I think if hubby had a football at the time, he would have spiked it on the dirt patch the thing left when we hauled it out.

I'm already making plans for some soft grasses and low-growing plants for the front landscaping. It'll have to wait for spring, but that will give me something fun to think about for the winter months. It's going to be so nice to start fresh, with new plants! I can't wait to design it.

For now, though, I'm just going to be glad I don't get stabbed by those barberry bushes every time I try to weed. :)

My House Is Naked!

Day one of residing my house has begun. All the old cedar shakes are gone! They were original to our house, which is at present 40 years old, so you can imagine what sort of condition they were in. Our house is now halfway sided with foam insulation board, and they have fixed the sagging soffit in front. I'm so excited I could dance. I now get to go shopping for light fixtures for beside the doors. Yay! :)

By George, I Think I've Got It

Well, for the past two weeks I haven't gotten much writing in, thanks to the argument between my Dana and my desktop computer. But last night, Hubby unearthed his old laptop (old meaning Windows 2000), and I have found a stopgap way to write on the go. I'm still eyeballing netbooks, though, as they're much more portable than this laptop. But for now, I can get words on the page and get them from the laptop to my desktop by way of a flash drive. Good enough for me. Yay!