Sunday and a SCORE!

After kicking ass on getting the garage sale set up (still have to mark the items), while my wonderful hubby and son cleaned the bathrooms and shampooed the carpet in the familyroom and upstairs hallway, I thought Sunday would be the day to sleep in and relax.....well, tell that to my cat Tucker who thought I should not sleep and woke me up at 6:30am and I couldn't get back to sleep, so instead I got up -

• Read the newspaper


• Went to the gym for a vigorous 40 minute cardio session


• Got the grocery shopping done


• FINALLY finished the rest of my gardening (planted a few more perennials, put the rest of the mulch down, weeded another bed and planted a few more wave petunias)
  

ALL before 11:00am this morning

Well, guess what, after my shower, I crashed for about 2 hours and it felt wonderful, probably better than had I slept in this morning for that 2 hours. Now I'm raring to go again and that's good, because I did want to do some more scrapbooking sometime today. I had a great time at the crop I attended Friday night. It was good to see .Cheri, Rhonda, Jean and Becky. I got 4 pages almost completed. Just have to put the finishing touches on them.

Speaking of gardening, scored BIG time last Thursday morning while on a routine walk through the East Village that I do with a couple of co-workers. The City of Des Moines was going through the Village and digging up all of the tulips in the tulip beds, we walked by the crew and truck and I saw a gazillion dug up tulip bulbs in the back of the truck and I asked what they were going to do with them and the crew said "Why?, do you want some of them?"...."YES" I said and this is how I came to haul back to our office about 40 pounds of tulip bulbs. All said after we broke off the foilage, one of my co-workers and I each came home with about 50 bulbs a piece......SWEET!

I'll be so glad to get this garage sale over with that the garage back in shape. I never did get to share pictures of our organized garage but I will. After the sale, I *think* our projects are over for awhile and we can start having fun on the weekends rather than projects.....I'm ready for the Aquatic center, I wanna play some minature golf, I wanna go to the drive in movies here, we have a couple of concerts to look forward to and instead of the Twin Cities in late June we're thinking about going to Chicago to see THIS! in late July. It's there through September and we all think it would be fun to go see. I'm working on a reasonable hotel room for this visit...yea, right...in downtown Chicago....anybody got any suggestions?

Have a nice Memorial Day!

So much to do....so little time.....and money

So glad for the 4 day weekend I have. Work is fine, even keel, but we have a lot to do around the house and the weekends seem to be the only time for it. I'll be so glad to get this garage sale over with and claim the garage back. Our plans are to set up a workshop area for Connor to do his projects while he's home this summmer......alone. I am just not feeling the love for that right now but we have no other choice, and it's a whole another story and not for here.

I got a pair of new tires this morning to the tune of $189.00 and was told I need brake work in the tune of $371.00. It never ends, although I am NOT going to where I got the tires for my brake work. A friend recommended a small independent garage on the east side that we used for Fred's brake work last year at a much cheaper cost, so we're going to give them a call. Fred's truck is going to need a couple of new tires before winter, so we have that to look forward to also....


I'm heading up to Ames later today for a crop that my girlfriend
Cheri is hosting tonight. I'm going to work on cat photos. I have about 5-6 pages and I'll have all of our cats up to date...then back to our family photos. I'm also looking forward to seeing the women that will be there. It's been awhile since we've got together.

Here's a few my photos of my garden - still not done with that perennial bed and right now I'm not happy with the way it's looking...I'm still holding out hope for all the zinnia and cosmos seeds I planted.


My repurposed metal bakers rack on the deck


A peach iris that I planted from my mother's garden


Another one of my beds that is beside the deck on the southeast side of the house


Little bit closer look. I plant wave petunias in the chair seat, by the end of summer, they cascade over it

Loving that the weather is staying consistent. Not loving how windy it's been. I actually got Fred out from in front of the computer and on a bike ride last night. Holy shit...you would have thought I asked him to boil himself in oil....so because he reacted like a big freaking baby, I treated him like one and shamed him into it...LOL

I hit him with the "YOU are going to be 50 YEARS OLD next month and you don't give a shit about yourself, you food portions are ridiculous, you sit at a computer all day and all night, you get zero exercise and your trigycerides aren't good".....I' DON'T WANT TO RAISE CONNOR BY MYSELF AND I WANT YOU AROUND!

Seriously, he really needs to make some changes. THANK GOD he quit smoking 2 years ago and I'm surprised that he doesn't weight more than he does, but he needs to lose about 30 pounds. I'm not one to talk because I'm struggling with the 20 I need to lose, but I also eat a lot better than he does, am MUCH more active than he is....I CARE that want to take care of myself.....okay....wait.....how the hell did I go from tires to gardening to ranting about my husband????? LOL

Got a busy weekend, sister coming over tomorrow to get our garage sale set up for the next weekend. Tomorrow the bathrooms needs cleaned and we need to shampoo the carpet in the family room and the upstairs hallway....yuck! But I'd rather bust ass on Saturday and then be able to chill on Sunday and Monday, For Memorial Day, I'm thinking about grilling Steak and Shrimp Fajitas and mixing up some Margaritas.

Have a great weekend!

I can't wait....love me some Rob Marshall

Oh man.....

Just two week after I caved and bought Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection pack, they have to tease me with a peek at another new line.....June Bug



I love the little bit that I see already.

Back in the groove again.....

Boy has the weather been good this week. Last night I finally got the rest of my vegie garden planted and part of my perennial bed re-mulched. I was so jazzed when I went to Lowe's on Sunday that they had marked down the Lollipop Gerber Daisies 50%. I LOVE them and they were exactly what I was looking for, for a couple of spots.

Here's some photos of our vegie garden. It's not very big but it produces WAY more than we need and it allows me to give vegies to family and friends.







I've got 4 different types of tomatoes, 2 hills of cucumbers, sugar snap peas, bush beans, zucchini, yellow squash and basil.

I've also got a herb planter on my deck that has flat leaf parsley, dill, rosemary and thyme in it.


Here's a close up of those wonderful Lollipop Gerber Daisies -





I also had to get a photo of these.....Calla lilies.....sigh....





It was such a beautiful day that I took two 15 minute walks today at work...one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I also got my ass in gear and rode my bike up to the gym and did a 50 minutes workout. 25 minutes of strength training and 25 minutes of cardio.

On the iPod playlist today:
I Don't Want It - Montrose
Woman of Mass Distraction - Alice Cooper
Bye Bye Bye - N'Sync
Animals - Nickelback
New Sensation - INXS
Control - Puddle of Mudd
Black Cat - Janet Jackson
Stop and Stare - OneRepublic
Paradise Cafe - Arc Angels
Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5
Bad Girlfriend - Theory of A Deadman
Hold My Hand - Hootie & The Blowfish
Bring Me To Life - Evanescence
To Be A Lover - Billy Idol

Have a good week. I'm working from home tomorrow and I've taken Friday off...Yoo Yoo!

Immediately.......

go download Green Day's new CD 21st Century Breakdown. It is brilliant! I though Dookie was brilliant, then came American Idiot, which I thought was even more brilliant, but this new one is a masterpiece of a rock opera. You won't be disappointed. Trust me.

We've been listening to it all day while reorganizing our DVD collection, well, listening to that CD and finally finishing season one of the television show Lost.

I'm Home and Scrapbook Page Share.....

I'm home, everything is fine and I'm resting on the couch in the family room. We got home earlier than expected because the Doctor was running ahead of schedule, so when we arrived at 10:30, they were ready for us and off I went......

The doctor told Fred that he removed several cysts and sent them off to pathology, but he is not anticipating anything at all. I just glad it's all over....now we just have to wait for the bills... :(

Here's a couple of pages that I've completed. One of them I did at the crop my friend Lori hosted last month and the other I did last week after I had purchased the Little Yellow Bicycle paper at Memory Bound.

My Week....

is almost over.....trying to stay up so that I sleep in tomorrow. My surgery is scheduled for 11:30 (we have to be there at 10:30) and I don't want to get up too early because I can't have anything to eat or drink.

I did get motivated and got the rest of my containers planted tonight. They all look very nice. Now I just have to get the rest of the vegies planted (cucumber, zucchini, pole beans and butternut squash) and the 6 bags of mulch down that is waiting for me and I'll be done with the gardening for the year.

Hubby is going to get our new bookcase put together tomorrow afternoon while I'm resting and then we'll be able to get that into place. I'll take photos once I have everything rearranged and organized.

I still need to get photos of my potting shed, which I love, love, love...it's really worked out well this gardening season....love having everything right where I need it and not having to walk all the way around the front of the house to the garage is nice.

Some not so great news..... :(

I found out today that I'm going to need some minor surgery this Friday. This may be a tad TMI, but I had a GYN appointment today because I experienced some bleeding that lasted for about 8 days and it's been 2 years since I've had a period. My GYN wanted to see me when I called last week and today was the appointment.

After a pelvic exam and an ultrasound, my doctor decided he wants to take a look inside, do an endometrial biospy and then a D&C. He found a cyst in my uterus and he wants to know why my uterine lining is much thicker than it should be, so we are going to go ahead and do it Friday since he is leaving on Sunday for a 3 week Canadian fishing trip and he doesn't want me to have to wait another month.

I'm a bit nervous over the whole thing, only because of my family history. Fred is taking the day off to take me and then get me home and I should be A-Okay to go back to work on Monday. The only thing I said to Connor was I needed to have a procedure done Friday and he said "Could it be serious?" and I assured him it wasn't.

On a much happier note:

We had a blast on our day road trip yesterday. We left the home around 7:00am, got to IKEA around 10:20, they were doing FREE breakfast for mother's, so we had a leisurely breakfast at IKEA, then started shopping....shopped until 1:30pm, I found a bookcase (long story....scored a great deal), didn't get my stainless steel pots, but I still managed to drop a wad of money. We also ran over the Mall of America so I could go to Archiver's, use my 30% off coupon and then we headed back home. We stopped at Owatonna to have dinner at the Famous Dave's BBQ that is across the street from Cabela's and then drove the rest of the way home. We got home around 8:00pm, so still early enough to unload the car and get things put away.

Today was my flex day and other than my 2:00pm doctor's appointment, I spent the day trying to find some CHEAP bedding plants. I CANNOT believe the prices that some places are charging for bedding plants, it's ridiculous! so I've cut way back and I'm buying only the cheapest I can find.

I watched my niece and nephew this evening for my sister while she is in clinicals and we spent most of the night outside planting said bedding plants in my containers. We didn't get it all done, but at least we got most of the front of the house planted. Since have a few more things in front and then the containers on the deck and I'll be done. I'll get photos when I have a chance.

Hope everyone has a good week!

A Little Favorite of Mine.........

For all of us parents out there......