There's this odd-shaped garden off of our odd-shaped driveway. When we first moved in, it was mostly empty, save for one hosta, a shrub, and a giant mound of mulch.

I think this garden made much more sense ...keep reading]]> So, and I started on yet another “little” house project yesterday. Some background first.

There's this odd-shaped garden off of our odd-shaped driveway. When we first moved in, it was mostly empty, save for one hosta, a shrub, and a giant mound of mulch.

I think this garden made much more sense before the fence, because it's a continuation of the garden along the side of the garage. Alas, with the fence there, some of that continuity is lost. Also, it leaves a very awkward, small space to mow.

Prince Charming's grandma helped us out with some ground cover plants that worked well in full shade. I worked at leveling off the awkward pile of mulch.

That was the first summer. Then just… extrapolate 3-ish years’ worth of growth, because all I did past that was weed. Apparently I didn’t even take any pictures. At the end of last season, I’d pretty much decided that what I had going on wasn’t good, so I ripped everything out except for the hostas and the bush.

Which meant we were down to this.... Not exactly a show-stopper front yard.

It did take me quite a while to come to a conclusion about what we should do and then commit to it. But, eventually, the decision was made to turn the area back to grass. The hostas would be saved and replanted elsewhere, but that was it.

So last night, we started working on it. By this time, almost all of the mulch has turned to dirt, so there’s a pile of dirt mounded up on top of  the requisite 6″ of rocks and then the dreaded black plastic. did the digging and removing of dirt/rocks (all the way down to the black plastic, which will also be removed), while I worked on weeding and moving plants. Most of the hostas were pulled up last night and temporarily planted in pots, because they will be planted elsewhere in the garden but that area needs some work, and I thought it would be best if they didn’t have to deal with the trauma of being transplanted too often. The other plants all went in the yard waste bin.

Our neighbors across the street were out gardening / preparing dinner (the grilling guy is out grilling again, after a hiatus), andstruck up a conversation about this next project of ours. They thought we were just moving hostas around or something, but explained that we were returning the area to grass. They seemed slightly horrified by this idea, but assumed we would be keeping that bush. You know, the less than pretty thing that is awkwardly placed kind of near a corner. We explained that we weren’t, which horrified them more. We offered the bush to them, and they thought for sure we would just move it somewhere else on the property. Clearly they don’t realize how many bushes I have removed / killed on our land (I can count at least ten, and there are still at least 6 that will die one day). To make this story shorter, since the wife has the week off of work, today while we are away, she is over at our house removing the bush and taking it to its new home.

How awesome is that? Free bush removal! I’m also amused at how horrified they were that we would just kill a bush. Um… it’s just a plant. I promise there will be no ill effects on the world (a slightly smaller amount of oxygen is being added to the atmosphere, but I think we’ll survive). There are so many reasons to turn that area back to grass that I have no regrets about this decision. Also, I kind of hate bushes, especially evergreens (they  make me itch). The larger grassy area will be so much easier to mow than what we’ve got going on now. And it’s not like there isn’t plenty of other areas that are landscaped. Plus, the area is mosty shaded by a large oak tree that drops all of its leaves onto the garden every fall. That makes it very difficult to maintain and it’s really hard to rake in a garden. All in all, this is definitely better, even if our neighbors don’t think so.

No updated pictures of progress, because we have lots more work to do before there’s anything worth showing. But I thought the story was worth telling anyway. Tonight I’ll remove the remaining two hostas and pot them like the rest, pull up the rest of the plants, and keep on weeding (it loosens up the soil which is fairly well packed, making ‘s job easier). Might have a picture by next week, and hopefully we’ll have grass before the end of the summer. The large area in front of our house that died over the winter has taken to reseeding well, so we’re doing something right.

I don’t think I mentioned on Thursday that the transition back to “regular life” from ...keep reading]]> Well, while I did get a little work done on my TPA on Friday night, it wasn’t much, and I didn’t touch it the rest of the weekend. It’s “due” Tuesday, but let’s just not think about that, OK?

I don’t think I mentioned on Thursday that the transition back to “regular life” from student teaching has been rough on me… physically. I heard a lot about other student teachers who cried on their last day, and… yeah, that’s not me. That’s not to say I didn’t adore my time at the school, but crying in public really isn’t my thing.

At any rate, however, the transition has been difficult, as student teaching generally involves being “on” with a high level of energy from at least 7:30 – 3:00, and then I generally sat on my couch from 3:30 until 10:00, went to sleep, and started all over again the next day. It was exhausting, in a good way. Well, my regular life consists of sitting in a cubicle from 7:30 – 4, bookended by an hour long bus ride, and then a completely unpredictable evening. My restless legs started getting bad the last two weeks of student teaching – I was very tired at this point, which aggravates the situation. But things have been even worse since, with restless legs starting to kick in as early as 6 pm almost every single day. Driving me crazy. Plus I haven’t been able to fall asleep until at least 12:30, if not later.

Well, Saturday I finally made some strides towards fixing that situation – I slept in until a luxuriously late, ridiculously lazy, 11 am. I made up for my laziness by working hard the rest of the day. ERIC and I worked on our garden for most of Saturday and part of Sunday.

Some background….

Two years ago, this is what the garden along the back of the house looked like. There was a patch of dirt with no edging (surprisingly, an improvement over the parts of the lawn that are edged), a sprinkler hose, and... some random stuff I planted (tomatoes, cilantro, and cucumber from what I can pick out, perhaps some lettuce too).

If you remember, we weren’t too keen on that whole manual watering of our gardens thing, and decided to install an irrigation system ourselves. It has been a ton of work, but will be worth it in the end.

Here you can see the trench we dug in the back part of the house for the irrigation. You can see that the garden area went unused last year, as it took us all summer to do this digging.

By the time we were finished with the irrigation system, it was fall and our neglect of the grass and all the trauma and left us with this beautiful situation. Good thing it's in the back of the house and all fenced in, right?

After a lot of hard work on Saturday, this is where we got to. The ground is mostly leveled out and we should be able to plant grass soon. The garden bed is slightly raised and edged out with the bricks that will eventually edge the entire property's gardens. I wish I had taken a picture up close, but I ran out of time this morning. Prince Charming also got his hot pepper garden prepped for planting.

Sunday morning, I planted his hot peppers and mulched around them all (a first for us - hopefully it will drastically reduce weeds). And then we turned on the sprinkler system. It works! Sunday evening Prince Charming prepped the rest of the beds and we got them planted with most of our seedlings. We still have one tray of seedlings left, some of which are flowers, and then some seed packets of things to directly sow. I had to leave in order to catch the bus this morning, so I don't have pictures of all of them yet, but I should tomorrow or Wednesday.

While spending all that time outside, I noticed a bird nest in my favorite tree. It's pretty small - that big trunk is probably only 3 inches in diameter. I prune this tree every year, and can say that this is the first time there's been a nest in this tree in the 3 years we've lived here.

Also, the butterflies were out and very happy that our lilac bushes are blooming! I got a ton of pictures. I don't think we'll have to worry about getting the flowering vegetables pollinated.

Sunday was not only Mother’s Day but also ‘s 30th birthday. It’s actually probably going to be birthday week for him, since the gifts I ordered are all arriving this week sometime between today and Thursday. We drove up to see his mom for the dual holiday, and then stopped in to visit Emma since we were a mile away.

Hello, sweet girl! She slept almost the entire time we were there, despite the fact that she was supposed to wake up to be fed. She was having nothing to do with that. She might be better at sleeping than I am!

How precious is she!

I swear, she looks exactly like my sister.

That was a fun time.

Tonight we’re taking out for his birthday (which was Friday). Hopefully I’ll be able to get some work done on my TPA when we get home, but I’m not concerned. There isn’t really a penalty (for me) for not finishing on time, so I’m not going to work my butt off to get it done in time. Sorry, but I have a life going on, which included starting back at work full-time right after finishing up student teaching. And we’ve got this big contract thing at work going on that I’m going to spend the rest of the day working on, and that really does have a deadline and people will not be happy if things don’t get done on time.

More pictures of our garden later this week. Until then, if you’re bored, you can browse through the rest of the pictures that didn’t make it into this post from the last week or so, which include more pictures of Emma, our garden and butterflies, and all the patterns I purchased in the last three months and didn’t have time to catalog until last week (, those probably interest you more than anyone else – feel free to request to borrow any of them).

I spend a lot of my time at work reassuring people that 1) there’s no need to panic, 2) it’ll all be OK, and 3) ...keep reading]]> Still busy at work (obviously, since I haven’t had time to post). Got caught up on emails, mostly, but am way behind on the rest of my social media.

I spend a lot of my time at work reassuring people that 1) there’s no need to panic, 2) it’ll all be OK, and 3) yes, I will be coming back.

In non-work news…

I finished up a skirt last night that I made in the fall. I’d tell you more about it, but I don’t have pictures, and can’t exactly remember what the specific pattern is. I only had to hem it, which was a 20 minute task – seemed silly to keep it waiting. (No, I didn’t hem the pants like I should have. Those are still waiting.) I also made 4 earring and necklace sets this weekend, to coordinate with my new skirts (two for the red one, one for the blue one, one for today’s rust one – some day I’ll have pictures of them for you, too).

Finally took down the Christmas tree on Sunday… but the boxes with everything in them are still in the living room, and I haven’t vacuumed the floor where the tree was. I’m getting to it, I promise.

I have a bunch of stuff to write up on my practicum before I start student teaching – I should probably do that tonight before someone figures out that it’s not done yet.

I finished up my time at the middle school last Thursday and am very sad about that. It was a great experience, though, even that last day when I taught and totally bombed (it was a great learning experience, and I did a much better job the second time through). I’ve got to try and let go of the middle schoolers so I can adjust to high schoolers and not begrudge them – it’s not their fault they’re not as cool.

There might be other things to share, but the last week or so has pretty much been a blur, or at least that’s how it feels when I’m at work. I’m trying to have a very zen attitude, but it’s hard to do when other people are freaking out.

Whew! It’s amazing what I can do in 7 spare minutes!

One: Last week, was sick, and as he was healing I seem to have caught some of his cold. Or maybe a different cold. Can’t be sure. I didn’t do much all weekend long, but ...keep reading]]> Yes, yes, I know it’s been, like, forever since I last blogged. I have explanations. Not excuses, but explanations.

One: Last week, was sick, and as he was healing I seem to have caught some of his cold. Or maybe a different cold. Can’t be sure. I didn’t do much all weekend long, but started feeling better on Tuesday morning when it was time to go to work. Of course.

Two: I have taken a database project upon myself at work that I promised would be done by the end of January (which may have been too ambitious – it’s too early to tell). I am at the terribly boring and tedious part of the project, and I’m afraid that if I pause too long to browse the internet or otherwise have fun, I won’t go back to the terrible stuff.

Three: I’m working 9-hour days in January, in order to make up the hours that I’m at the middle school. I asked for this. I’ll also be doing some work from home.

Four: Life has otherwise been fairly boring. The most exciting thing in Minnesota might be the weather, which has been very weird this winter so far. Last Thursday I went to ‘s for Christmas ( kept his sick self at home) and had a fun time. I posted pictures to Flickr but haven’t had the time to blog them. came over on New Year’s Eve, and we had guacamole, glogg, and watched some movies. Totally missed that whole ball drop thing. I made a new skirt and wore it on Wednesday, but didn’t get pictures yet. Did my nails to match, and am totally in love with this manicure. I might never take it off (we’re on day 3 and still no chips!). I have some photos from my iPhone that don’t adequately capture their beauty.

So, there you have it. And now I should get to work on that less than fun project. I will leave you with a link to one of my awesome Christmas gifts from : History of the Political Parties. Instant social studies classroom mix; just add classroom.

Side note: Had glogg for the first time this weekend (using this Saturnus Glogg concentrate I’d been given a year or two ago) and discovered it’s fabulous (best way to consume red wine ever), and am now disappointed because I can’t seem to find it anywhere in a store near me. I know it’s sold at stores that are not in Minnesota, but it’s not on Amazon and only online at one retailer that I’ve not heard of before). Still looking – haven’t given up hope yet.

Our trip to Illinois was good. ...keep reading]]> There are still two more Christmas get-togethers for me – and and I don’t usually get together until January. I like to stretch this out as long as possible (plus, I almost never have gifts ready for them by Christmas, so it’s nice to have the extra weeks).

Our trip to Illinois was good. Short, but good. I cannot properly explain in words the perfection of Christmas Eve, and I don’t even have pictures, but my heart is full of images and memories. Perhaps it helped that I was sure that things were going to pretty much suck this year. Last year, on Christmas day, Grandpa died, after being removed from life support several days earlier. Christmas Eve dinner is always at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and things just wouldn’t be the same without him (and his Christmas sweater) there. And true, his recliner sat empty, and there were some conversational lulls because we were missing some of the links that connect us to each other. But Grandma was so happy when we arrived, full of hugs and smiles. This was the first time (in my memory, at least) that she said grace before the meal, and she was overflowing with love and thanks to God for her many blessings. It’s hard to be sad in the presence of so much joy.

On our way home, we took the long way so I could see some sights. I had the strangest feeling that it would be the last time (for a long time) that I’d get to pause and take a moment in St Charles. drove by the house I spent most of my childhood in – it’s still there, and nothing much seems to have changed on the outside. Then we drove down main street to see the lights. Perhaps it was something special only for those of us who have seen it all our lives, but it was beautiful. All the light poles have trees on top of them with multi-colored lights, and at the big parks the trees are all strung with white lights. I found a few pictures for you on Flickr: bridge over the Fox River, and this short (34 second) video of photos.

It was, as much as possible, a perfect evening.

We also spent some time shopping, with family, tons of time eating, and talking. We found out that Grandpa had owned some very random properties that are now owned by – one in New Mexico (total desert, absolutely nothing around at all, and the streets have been marked out in the subdivision but nothing was ever done with it) and one in Missouri (wooded area, dirt road, but at least there’s a house across the street). No one is quite sure why he owned them, but it was fun to find them on the internet ( did that part) and look at satellite views. A reminder that there’s always more to know about someone. Gifts were exchanged, cookies were eaten, puppies were pet.

While we were slowed down by some snow on the way down, the weather on the way back was beautiful. Sunny and clear skies – it reached 50* here yesterday! I almost had to complain about the sun, it was so bright! This is the first time, in my 10 years living in Minnesota, that there is not snow on the ground at Christmas. This time last year we’d had snow for over a month, and it didn’t all melt away until the end of April. It seems a bit strange, but I’ll take it. The wind was quite biting this morning, and as I waited for the bus I was regretting my choice to wear a skirt.

This should be a fairly slow, normal week. School is out, so I’m at work every day. Classes at Metro don’t start up until January, so no homework. Christmas with the other side of my family is Thursday, and there are gifts to wrap for that, but nothing else needs to be done. I’d like to sew. I’ve got about half an hour of knitting left on ‘s scarf, and then I can go back to focusing on a mustard yellow knitting project I started two weeks ago. Hopefully I can make it over to get a massage, as my right shoulder is hard as a rock.

Life is good.