Today was a little better than yesterday. We made homemade pizza for dinner. Robin decided to make a calzone instead, and it came out of the oven looking like a Rolling Stones album cover. She didn’t see it. Girl has no imagination.
Tag: backyard
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August 18
Christina walked home from school today and within 20 minutes of getting home, this happened. A huge tree fell in our neighbor’s yard, just a few feet from his house. The weather here lately has been crazy. Two very strong storms in the span of a week, near-record high temperatures every day for weeks… when I run in the mornings at 7am, it’s already over 80 degrees outside and the heat index is over 90. This is not normal. The world is definitely changing.
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August 11
This afternoon’s car line experience was still soul crushing, but it was soul crushing for less time than yesterday. I think tomorrow I will try to arrive later and take the long way home. Even though it adds five miles to the drive, I think it will be faster. It’s bad enough sitting in one car line. Sitting in two at once is just bananas. I tried a new recipe for dinner and it was pretty good. Nice salmon with an herbed caper sauce and red beans and rice. I was disappointed with my class’s performance this last week and decided today to pivot. We’ll see if that helps. I did not succeed at this morning’s run. It felt like I was running while wearing a hot, steaming wet blanket over my shoulders the whole time. It was a speed run and it was a challenging speed run and honestly I didn’t even feel like running in the first place, so it was just destined for disaster. It wasn’t really disastrous, but it wasn’t fun, either. Still, it’s done! I got out there and I did something and it counts. I pulled 15 pounds of fur off of Jackson today, and that was just on his left shoulder. I think he hates me now.
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August 1
It feels so good to finally have some pavers down! I’m really excited to be so close to being done. There are some spots I need to fix that aren’t level, like the edge where I didn’t think I needed gravel. Oops. Looks like my gravel days aren’t behind me. There’s a big surprise. Luckily I have some left over.
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July 28
I FINALLY finished building the foundation for the patio today. After more than three months, it feels overwhelmingly awesome to finally have this done. I have a lot of gravel left over, but that is still better than not having enough. I got it up to the height I needed and it looks pretty good. I’m very, very proud of it. I can’t wait to see some pavers down, maybe this weekend. We are coming down the home stretch!
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June 6
I laid the first layer of gravel for the patio. It may not be thick enough and it’s definitely not level, but I put down a pallet’s worth, so it’s not nothing. I also tried to level out all the dirt piles in the big depression in our yard. I think I did about a B job on it. It’s a little nuts that all that patio dirt still doesn’t make that area flat. But… it’s better, so yay. Two birds with one stone and all that. It’s starting to look like something.
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May 31
Phase 2 of the patio project is done. Next weekend I’ll spread my first layer of gravel and then I’ll be ready to start compacting. Once that’s done, I start laying pavers and the whole thing will start looking real. I think at this point I’m looking at Labor Day to be totally finished, decorating and all. That’s kind of perfect timing. I’m pretty proud of what I’ve already accomplished. I’ve come further than I thought I could and I’m still enjoying it. Other than this, Robin got her hair cut, we went food shopping, and I did laundry. I don’t really want to go back to work tomorrow, but so it goes.
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May 9
I thought I was going to finish digging today, but I didn’t anticipate all the roots I was going to have to deal with. Or the humidity. My clothes were drenched when I came inside. I only have a little left to do, but I promised Christina we’d go paddling tomorrow, so it’ll have to wait. The footprint I dug is making it look real. Assuming I do it right, I think it’ll be beautiful when it’s done. It rained a little today, which is nice. Florida needs rain. Otherwise it was a slow day. We went food shopping – less than an hour from the time I got off the couch to the time I sat back down. Made fish sticks for dinner. Watching the Yankees game and trying not to get too mad at them for giving up the lead. I guess we’re all human.
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May 2
I had to throw in the towel early today because it started thundering and sprinkling. With bad weather predicted, it didn’t seem worth it to push my luck. Got a good bit done anyway. Christina had dance team auditions for next year and then we went out for lunch at the Loop. Afterwards we went to Myrna’s house to get some Penn State things she is giving away now that she’s moving. Some of the stuff she gave Billy is pretty cool. When we got home, the girls and I went to the mall for some shopping (I am a sucker and bought pretty much everything they asked for) and to get Christina’s ears pierced (second piercing). They look great! Long, busy day!
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April 26
Today’s work went faster than yesterday’s. I got into a rhythm with the roots and got twice as much done today as yesterday in the same amount of time. I think two more weekends of digging and I’ll be ready to lay the gravel. And then the part I’m most scared about… compacting. ChatGPT insists I can operate a compactor. Billy says I’m crazy to even try. I’m not there yet, but I’m going to need some kind of plan. Once I finished up this morning, I picked up Christina from her sleepover (which we dropped her off for two days ago). She had a good time. I spent the rest of the day doing chores… food shopping, laundry. Billy suckered me into baking cookies. Not a bad day, but tomorrow it’s back to the real grind. I haven’t run in a week. I’ve gotten quite inconsistent with my workouts and my eating, and it’s showing on the scale. Baking cookies today didn’t help. I need to find that mojo that I’ve had these last two years. I can’t go back to where I was.
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April 25
Started digging around the patio today. It was very slow going, thanks to the massive number of roots I had to dig around and pull out. Digging is so much easier than moving 10+ tons of building material. I felt like I could have gone longer, but I’m trying to pace myself. It’s exciting to see something starting to take shape, even if it’s just a small start. I can’t wait to get back out tomorrow.
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April 9
I’m going to have to do a lot of ground leveling for this patio project, which I realized as I was grilling cheeseburgers. Luckily I will have lots of fill. As I wait for the materials to arrive, I’ve been creating a hard labor playlist on Spotify, which has been fun. I haven’t made a playlist in forever. I love discovering new music. Reminds me of this dream I had the other day where someone asked me to make them a mix tape, actually on a tape. So I had to start thinking about where I was going to find a tape recorder, and a CD player, and then I would need CDs too… And then I realized I had a turntable, so maybe I didn’t need CDs, except I didn’t have any records either. It was a dilemma. Spotify makes this all so much easier.
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March 29
I’ve been wanting a backyard sanctuary since before I had a backyard. I’m feeling ready to make a true effort. It won’t be the $30,000 version I had in mind originally, but I think it will be nice. I have a screened in tent, some cushion covers, string lights, a shopping list, and a plan. Robin is skeptical. Her skepticism is my fuel, folks. And when we finish with the patio, I’m moving on to the garden. I’m excited. I will probably finish just in time for it to be too hot to want to use it. But it’ll be ready.
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October 22
I feel like all I do here lately is talk about running, but lately running has been the best part of my day. This morning was a tough fartlek that I didn’t 100% complete. I was feeling pretty crappy about it until I looked at my stats and saw that when I stopped to walk for what I thought was a minute or two, it was actually only 15 seconds. And while I’d thought I’d skipped over several easy run intervals, I only actually skipped two. And also my hard pace was a 9:00 mile and my easy pace was a 11:30 minute mile, and both of those are much faster than my normal easy effort pace of a 13:00 mile. So actually it was a pretty good run after all. Plus I got to see the sun rise and it was beautiful. Otherwise I’m getting more ok with things at work. Not really ok, but more ok. And still making octopuses. Or aliens. Or jellyfish. Maybe all three. And the weather has been amazing. October in Florida is the best.
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September 6
I had all intentions of sneaking away to do some writing today, but not surprisingly, the day got away from me. I did, however, build Legos with Robin. We’ve completed the 3-in-1 that Christina gave me for my birthday, so we went to the store and bought some more. Robin’s already finished it. Too bad Legos are so expensive. There’s always her birthday.
