While mom's away.....

...the daughters will do major yardwork/manual labor! Ugg!!!

So, my mom has been on a well-deserved 3-week vacation in Seattle with my dad's sister. She has most definitely deserved this vacation and I am so happy for her! She's ending her trip with a long weekend in Ohio to see my dad's brothers. So she'll get to catch up with everyone.

What have I been doing, you ask?! Well...yardwork...yes, yardwork. Something that I so am NOT a fan of! I'm also pretty sure I gave the neighbors something to talk about though! Imagine a "landscape artist" doing yardwork in shorts and a tube top! Yes, a tube top...hey! I have to work on my tan somehow! I surely am not getting any color sitting in an office all day Monday thru Friday! And that Jergen's stuff just wasn't cutting it for me anymore, orange just isn't my color!

On to the yardwork...I started on the 18th bright and early (well, 11:00...that's early) and dug up this little garden that my dad put in the front yard that had somehow overgrown out of the little box and had also acquired many Lillies of the Valley. I was so naive going into this project...I never realized that those little puppies had roots! I thought I could just rip them up and dig up the dirt and be on my merry way. Boy was I wrong! Those things have roots! Deep roots! I dug that stuff up for a bit and then went on to my next task of destroying these barrel type things that were in the yard too. They're like planters, but they pretty much just had weeds in them. There were 4 and they came apart quite nicely. I only took apart 3 of the 4, as the 4th one seemed to have what looks like a snake hole in it...so I left that one. I don't do reptiles...or whatever a snake is classified as! After destroying those things, I moved on to weeding the gardens to prepare for my next task....mulching. Woo hoo!!!

That following Tuesday, I ran to my mom's house during lunch to find a bird on the front walkway. I attempted to scare it away, but it would not move. I tried to avoid the thing, as I thought it would attack me if I got too close. Before I left the house to go back to work, to checked out the front door to check on it and it was still there. I ended up leaving through the garage. After work I had to stop back at my mom's on my way home and the damn thing was dead! Great! Another thing to deal with!!! Ugggg!!!! That poor thing stayed there until the following Saturday, I didn't have the guts or patience to deal with disposing of the dead critter during the week. I was kind of hoping that the boy that cuts the grass would find it and dispose of it, or that the guys who delivered the mulch would have found it and disposed of it...wishful thinking, huh?

Now on to this past Saturday...another "early" morning drive to my mom's. Today was dispose of dead bird and do the mulching day!! Wahoo!! The bird is now resting peacefully in the over grownness of crap back by the shed...RIP Birdie. And now the fun began! Let me tell you a little secret...with all of this yardwork, I had NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING the whole time! Just a little disclaimer. Luckily, I had a little helper for the mulching in the form of Sarah G. Patram! I was so happy to see her. Until she started making fun of me for wear jean shorts and my toes not being in the best condition, but I digress. We had a ball mulching together. And the gardens look fabulous! I think our mom will be very happy with the end result. After mulching, I attmepted to dig up more of the one garden that I destroyed the week prior to not much avail. Oh well, it'll get done eventually I suppose. I'm just glad we got the mulching done and everything looks pretty.

My mom is, as we speak (I think), getting on a plane to return to the East Coast area. Well, she's on her way to Ohio for a long weekend. And Sarah and Tristan will be leaving for Ohio tonight/early Friday morning to go retrieve her. Speaking of Sarah...the poor girl has had the 2 weeks from hell. She got picked for Jury Duty LAST Tuesday, and has been busting her butt between Jury Duty, work and Tristan. To make matters even worse, a tree fell on her house yesterday! There were some pretty craptastic storms in the area, and her house was one of the lucky ones to get a tree to fall. Luckily no one was hurt and there was no major damage (that has been found) to her home. Ugg...poor kid.

Adventures in Knitting

I've started to knit. I know, I know, I'm 28, not 88. But it's actually fun and relaxing! And not too difficult. A few weeks ago, my mom and I were at Barnes & Knoble and we picked up Knitting for Dummies. It's quite a good read, I must say! Although, we honestly didn't read it much, my mom taught me what I needed to know and I just watched her. She needed the book for a bit of a refresher, as she hasn't knit in quite some time. We started a 'practice' piece and I did a bit on that, and then decided that I should stop working on that to start working on what I really wanted to make. I have two friends that are expecting babies in the next couple of months (well, one in September and the other in October) and I thought it'd be nice to make them blankets for the new babies. (I'm not sure if they read this, and I do believe they both know that I'm not very good at keeping a secret, so it's okay if they find out. I actually think they may already know about said blankets as I have made it my Facebook status that I am knitting.)

So, I'm still working on Blanket #1. I've now started the damn thing three times!!! Oops! At least I wasn't too terribly far along either time I took it apart. I also decided, when taking it apart once, that I should probably roll the yarn into a ball, as to make it easier to use while knitting. That took me about 3 hours one night...what a mess that was!! Yarn was everywhere and so were the knots! I'm not doing too bad on this blanket, I just hope I can finish it soon and figure out how to crochet a border around the outside. Maybe I'll hire my sister to do that??? Or maybe they have Crocheting for Dummies?! That'll be fabulous!

I'm not going to lie either...I've been sneaking in some knitting at work lately too! It's been kinda quiet in the office, and when the bosses are out, it's something to occupy my time. It's not like I'm doing anything terrible...you know, like looking at porn or anything like that! I also have been doing it when at lunch too. I just drive to a parking lot and whip out those needles and get to work! It's calming...I like that...the calm. It's also something I can do while 'watching' television. Bud thinks I'm a nerd, and he tells me that at night when I'm knitting. I usually attempt to come back at him with a whitty comment...usually not so whitty, but I try!

I think once the baby blanket making is done, I might start to make Prayer Shawls for my Church. They just recently started a new Ministry and it seems like something nice to do to give back to the Church community. We shall see though...I'm not sure how much my fingers can take!

Four Months To Go...

Wow! Only four months left. Seriously, I can't believe it. I have been telling myself that I have so much time to plan and figure things out and save money and make decisions...now, in a short four months, all the planning will be over and it will be THE day! Let's see...a lot of the big things are done, now it's just the final touches and final decisons and meetings. Oh the meetings! Man! That's going to take up a lot of time. We have to do three one-hour sessions with a counselor, meet with the photographer and DJ, meet with the people at the William Penn Inn (for the food and for the flowers), and I'm sure we'll have to meet up with the preist at some point. We still need to get the invitations addressed and all ready to be sent out to the guests. I hope my NEW gown comes in super quick. Yes, I said new...it TWO SIZES SMALLER!! YAY!! And then the alterations for that puppy...hopefully that won't be too painful. Hmm...how am I going to wear my hair?? I have no idea! Right now it's not long enough to get it all up, hopefully it will grow in the next couple of months and I'll be able to get it all up somehow.

I must say, this whole planning experience has been great! I'm lucky to have a supportive family, and in-laws-to-be who have been great in helping with the planning! I'm so lucky! Now, I just need to get on the ball with all the other details of the planning! Wish me luck!