DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS ?!?!?!

Yes, all CAPS because I am screaming.

Screaming in frustration.

Those are photos of my backyard, on this Wednesday 6/11/14
and here's the photo I posted 5/08/14

after spending many long full days clearing it.

In the last two weeks I've been really busy at work so I come home exhausted
and haven't been working on my yard except to mow the front yard
and work on the flower beds along the drive
and to lay paving bricks along side all of it.
I took down some trellis's and leaned them against the picnic table and a garden chair
and less than two weeks later, here they are:

and it's been raining.
So for many days I haven't been able to work outside because of that.
The plus side of all this is that some Dianthus that I had bought last Fall have bloomed.

They were annuals that I had never got around to planting and were left in a flat until late October
and I had on impulse just stuck them into the hard ground in the front of the house.
I just couldn't bear to toss them while them were alive and growing still.
and by some miracle they made it through our awful freezing winter.
So anyway, last Saturday I spent several hours trying to make a dent in all this overgrown mess and then
last Sunday my sister and I planned to go to Sunnyfield Greenhouse in Galva, IL for a day trip.
We've been there before, it's a cool place with lots of flowers and plants.
We decided to go even though neither of us planned on buying anything.
We were just going to look and maybe get ideas.
Of course we both broke down and got some flowers.

(butterfly bush)

(coneflower)

(orange flower vine thing)

(hibiscus)

I saw a fountain that I loved.

There was a light glowing up under where the water bubbled up.
But sadly it was $460.00.

I swear this gardening thing is a sickness, an addiction.

On Wednesday, my day off, it rained on and off.
I snapped the above photos and just went inside in despair.
I just don't have the energy to do it all again.
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to call and get a dump truck full of rock.
Yep, cover as much as possible in gravel.
And actually the greenhouse was all rock with potted plants set on top....
Hmm, that might be just the ticket!
But tonight, after a very long and super busy day at work,
we are just going to chill and watch some TV.

How was your Holiday Weekend?

How was your weekend?

I worked Saturday and Sunday.

It was a total madhouse, filled to the brim with pets.

Lots of big rowdy dogs and lots of special need animals.

A 15 year old Vizsla who wobbled as he walked so we have to lay down yoga mats for him so that he didn't slip on the floor.

Then there's the ancient Pugs.

The Chihuahua with a heart condition

and the diabetic cat that needs her insulin.

Yep, pretty much a typical weekend. LOL!

When I wasn't at work, I was at home working on the yard.

I got all my garden stuff out of storage.

My birdbath.

I LOVE that thing.

The glaze on it formed a "moon".

A wonderful accident. 

When I saw the birdbath a few years back at the Garden Center, I had to have it.

(the fact that it was marked down for an End of Summer Sale sealed the deal.)

But my astrological sign (if you believed that sort of thing) is ruled by the moon.

and then my name means Moon Goddess.

So yeah, I love it.

I also got this fountain at another End of Summer Sale.

So many people have walked by my house and commented on it.

I like the soft sound of water.

Last Fall I dug up my front yard that was a huge mass of perennial flowers and I put down grass seed.

This Spring I had to buy a lawnmower!

I haven't had one for years, I just got by with a weed-whacker.

I found this electric one on Amazon and yesterday it worked wonderfully!

It has a little grass catcher that attaches to the back and I had to empty it a couple of times but

I was in Heaven.

The smell of fresh cut grass is one of my favorite scents of all time.

I made two BIG flowerbeds that I will show later when the flowers have grown.

I dragged a big wood workbench out of the basement and up the cellar steps and across the patio.

I'm going to make it into a potting bench.

I hung up new line on my clothesline that I put in last Fall.

I was outside non-stop.

My neighbor (the nice one) came out several times each day to do yard things and commented about how I had to be exhausted.

He just doesn't know how I do it, he said.

I laughed and said that I just have to.

But then I got to thinking about a comment a mother of a friend of mine had said many many years ago.

She had shook her head at her daughter and me as we left to go work out.

She thought we were foolish and wasting our money.

She said she got her exercise taking care of the house.

She said cleaning and tending to her SEVEN kids kept her fit.

But her point was, keep busy and take care of what needs to be done

and it might just be all the exercise a person needs.

That's how I'm going to view it from now on.

It's my exercise.

Tonight, I'm exhausted

and HOT. 

The temperature shot up and it's muggy.

We are all hot.

Poor Ghost was laying in front of the window hoping to catch a breeze.

So, that's how my holiday weekend went.

How was yours?