You can't really be allergic to yard work

In my springtime ambition, I've decided to tackle the installation of a French drain in my sideyard. A French drain is basically a way to create a void in the soil (with tubing and gravel) where water can sit below the surface instead of on the surface, as it tends to do in my yard.

Anyway, although I want to do this myself, I also want to have help (because the only home improvement project I've been able to complete myself, without being rescued by someone with more knowledge is replacing the caulking in my shower). I even had to have help hanging shelves in my house! I digress. So, I convince my loving other half to help out, despite his insistence that he's allergic to yard work. I don't make him mow and have never asked him to edge/weedwack. (He does wash a mean dish and does most of the cooking around here.) But I need his help with this 41'x 1.5' trench. We work diligently from about 4 p.m. Friday until about 7, then we get cleaned up and head out for a high-caloric Mexican meal around 8. During dinner he starts sniffling and coughing and says, "I think I might be getting sick."

I think, "This is a ploy so that you a) don't have to help me finish the trench tomorrow and b) don't have to go to Easter dinner with my entire family Sunday."

By 2 in the morning overnight Friday, he was coughing and stuffed up -- a sinus infection. It came on quick and he's been battling for a few days, but today he was out for the count. He slept most of today.

I guess maybe you can be allergic to yard work.

P.S. The trench is still not finished. Maybe next weekend...

This ones for you, babe

Apparently, a good friend actually checks my blog periodically. He's disappointed I haven't posted in awhile. So I logged in with grandiose plans of putting some earth-shattering personal revelation in this little entry. But then I think, "why would I put something that personal on the Internet?" and I consider deleting my blog. And I also think about how I wish I could write entries like one of my relatives does. But she's got this great farm that inspires her and all I have are the suburbs. But, hey, this year, I'm going to try to grow basil and tomatoes, and that's a start. Stay tuned for observations about gardening and yard work. It's gonna be an exciting summer!

back to the books

i thought i would accomplish more during my quarter away from campus. instead, i took full liberty to do nothing much at all. perhaps i was a little de-motivated by the ordeal that was painting my kitchen and laundry room -- the one thing i did accomplish this quarter. two coats of primer, two coats of paint, and 10 days of walking on painter's tarps finally got the job done. at least i'm pleased with the result, although i still don't have any artwork on the wall.

for the next three months, it's nothing but studying though. the other home improvement projects will have to wait:

1. plant shrubs and flowers in my front yard
2. plant ground cover in side yard
3. install drainage system and path in other side yard
4. grow grass in the backyard
5. get rid of the white walls in the living room and hallway
6. continue the fight against honeysuckle

it does make me feel better that it's bitterly cold outside right now, which means i can't do yard work.

1550.6 miles

Earlier this summer I arrived at C's house after school one night and announced that I wanted to go on a road trip. We easily settled on Labor Day as the weekend for our adventure and just as easily picked our route once we thought about it.

Day 1
We departed home around noon Thursday en route for Abingdon, Virginia. No one ever knows where Abingdon is, but I do since I have a friend from there. Look on a map close to Bristol, Tennessee, and you should come close. We arrived in Abingdon a little after 6 p.m., changed clothes, drove "into town" to pick up tickets at will call, then walked down the road for a Yuengling. Good stuff. A few short beers and one awkward conversation with the barkeep later, we walked back up the road to see "The Foreigner" at the Barter Theater, which is a historic (and famous) theater. The play was really well done and very funny. Abingdon is smaller than I'd imagined, but it's in a beautiful part of the country so it can't be all bad.

Day 2
We were up around 8 a.m. Friday and back in the car headed toward Yorktown, Virginia, to visit friends there. (Well, actually, my roommate and her husband and son were there, so we were visiting them.) We had dinner with them and just chilled after the longest scheduled leg of our drive.

Day 3
Day three found us on the road again, headed even farther east. Destination on Day 3: Chincoteague Island, Virginia, on the eastern shore. Once there, I found out how "(in?)famous" one of my travel companions was on the island, visited some family, and tried a veritable buffet of seafood dishes: clams casino, steamed clams, steamed oysters, crab cakes, crab dip, oyster fritters, and a few other dishes I can't recall. Just before sunset we took a boat tour of the island. We made a loop around the outside of the island and only covered 16 miles. Oh, and we spent the day at the beach on Assateague, where, I'm proud to report, I was not the one who got most sunburned. I learned how to body surf -- I am not good at it -- and that C is truly a water baby.

Day 4
We wanted to go to the beach or go kayaking but one of the traveling companions was crispy already so we decided that was a bad idea. What was a good idea though was spending more time with family before hitting the road for our return trip around 2 p.m. We drove until about 2 a.m. on Day 5.

Day 5
We slept until 10 a.m., then got up and finished the 2.5 hours left on the road before we could fall into bed again. I napped once we got back here as I was still recovering from a sinus infection and falling ill to a second infection. C got ready for a business trip. Then I went to urgent care to see the doc about the second infection. Since it looks like C and I are going to be together awhile and I've got no plans to stop traveling, we're going to have to figure out a way to lift this curse he seems to bring upon me when I travel with him. That's two trips with him, and two trips to the ER or urgent care as a result.

I'm out wandering around the internet tonight and I noticed my friends Beth and Terry link to my blog as a "good read." Inspired me to actually write an entry for all you followers out there. Thing is, I don't have too much to say, so I guess I'll just ramble for awhile.

It's Saturday and my last class during my first year of graduate school ended yesterday, so I'm celebrating a little bit today. No, I'm not out with friends or eating cake. I'm sitting on the couch watching television, which is a pretty big indulgence these days. Especially considering we also splurged on a movie this afternoon. "Inglourious Basterds" -- honestly the first Tarantino movie I've ever seen. It was good -- violent, but good. Everyone I went with said "Pulp Fiction" was still better, so maybe we'll watch that someday to see.

School was a stressful year. Working full-time and taking two classes each quarter (except only this summer) has definitely kept me busy. I'm looking forward to having the fall off from formal classes. And I hope I make some progress on my thesis (and my yard!) this fall too. I'm working with a landscaper to design a new patio right now, and a client, turned friend, is hopefully going to barter for a second landscaping consultation in a couple weeks.

Well, I'll try to check in again soon with something more meaningful. Until then...

Getting What You Asked For

There is a man in my life who gets very worked up about things that have no impact on him. Take, for instance, the recent senatorial seat decision from Minnesota. Al Franken won the seat after a long court-protest. (A key fact in this story is that neither I, nor this man, live in Minnesota.) Well, Mr. Man was overheard the next day ranting that "these people are going to get what they asked for" as if his observation were nothing short of revolutionary. I chuckled silently inside, trying to hold back a smirk. You see, that's how voting works in the United States. We do get what we asked for, and then after a few years we get another chance to ask for more of the same or for something different. Oh, for humor's sake...

I'm still alive...

To all my Utah female friends and acquaintances (even those that have moved away), congratulations on all your pregnancies or new births. I apparently didn't get the memo, so I am not expecting, planning to be, or a new mother. Instead, I will celebrate with all of you when your bundles of joy arrive.

A quick update about life:

-- I finished one year of graduate school; I have one more to go. And that's not even really even a year, because it's only two classes and my thesis (one of which I'm currently enrolled in). Comparatively, this next year will be "easy." The moral of this bullet: I spent a lot of time doing homework and research so have been a bad friend to many. My apologies.

-- I had $400 worth of brush hauled out of my suburban backyard this summer and have since created another brush pile of equal size. I do not want to pay to have it hauled away again. I have created a garden and have planted nothing in it. I am currently losing the battle against honeysuckle along my fence line, but hope to reverse the tides by the end of next summer. Today I dug out two stumps left from bushes I cut down last summer. It felt so much like progress, I took a picture of them to blog about. (No, the picture is not posted.) The moral of this bullet: what free time I do have, I spend trying to keep ahead of my landscaping so that my neighbors don't file complaints with the city.

-- I have been dating my near-perfect match (nobody's perfect), who I have sometimes referred to as "C" here, for more than a year. Every day I appreciate him a little bit more, so I guess I'm a pretty lucky lady. He is a good balance for me and reminds me to take time to enjoy life. This is all made easier by the fact that he usually cooks dinner. The moral of this bullet: If I'm not doing homework, or yard work or housework, I'm probably with C because everyone needs to eat.

-- I have owned my home for just about a year now, and it is much improved. Mostly because I work on the yard a lot and my roommate makes the inside look like people who care live here. I'm the utilitarian and she makes things look "nice." I hung shelves in the bathroom because we needed the storage; she picked out the baskets that hide all our things and make the bath look tidy. I bought a yellow bedspread for my slate gray-blue bedroom; she bought a pillow that included both colors and ties the room together perfectly. I guess she's a pretty good balance for me too. The moral of this bullet: my house would not look nearly as nice if my roommate weren't around to take care of the inside while I tackle the mess that is the yard.

That's about it from here. Just wanted to let you all know I'm still breathing. It's hard to believe that it's only been a year (I think) since I visited. I still miss it tremendously -- if the pay weren't so good and the boy weren't so great, I might move back. But for now, I'm here and I'm enjoying it. C mentioned going to Utah to board this winter, so maybe I can tag along to hang out with the new mothers.

Transportation and culture

Do you remember corner drug stores? I don't but I've heard stories about them -- the ones that sat on the corner of Main and Central Streets that had the door angled so that it didn't sit on either road, but on both. No? Well, anyway. Have you noticed that new Walgreens and CVS stores all have the same design? They are square buildings with an angled door and nice awning at one corner. Are they intentionally designed to harken olden days? And if so, does it bother anyone else that they're designed that way but there is no sidewalk from which a person can walk to them? Instead, we must drive to their parking lots. Okay, I'm back to my local planning paper now. Thanks for reading.

Spring days are made for

...attempting to ignore one's homework (especially if it's statistical) and enjoying the sunshine.

I began gathering my homework data Friday evening/afternoon, worked on it for a total of 4 hours today, and still have not completed it. Ugh. I really should log on to the web site to see if my groupmates made any discoveries, but that will have to wait until I can see straight again.

I did take some study breaks today though. I did yard work, which felt surprisingly good. I started the morning by assembling my new patio table. Excellent, and just in time since I used it this evening for dinner. Yay! After I had that together, I broke out the garden rake and began removing brush (again) from my backyard. (I just had the piles I created last fall hauled away last week.) Most people do not get excited about such phrases but: I FOUND DIRT! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in a long time, about 40 square feet of my yard are bare of brush and fallen leaves and sticks and are ready for grass seed. (Too bad I don't have any grass seed. Add that to the "to buy" list.) Then I tore out the ivy that was creeping across another part of my landscape and raked up some more old mulch and sticks, which means that I SAW MORE DIRT! (More grass seed needed.) It's very exciting to reclaim some of my yard from the suburban forest the previous owners let it become. I know there is still much to do, but it feels nice to see progress and to get a little workout while improving the value of my house and the enjoyability of my backyard.

You all should come see it sometime.

just an observation about life

C goes on frequent business trips. When he's gone, I've noticed one thing: I produce about one-quarter of the trash and recycling we seem to produce when we are both at home. This is an observation that might need fixing. We might need to produce less rubbish!