A Satisfying Day

Aside from the hour that I spent TRYING to coax my uninterested toddler into taking a nap this afternoon, we spent practically the entire day OUTSIDE today.

Ah, spring. Thanks for stopping in!

We borrowed Lawnmower Dave and his super tractor for a few hours today, to get rid of a pile of construction debris and dirt that was left here by the previous owners of the house. The previous owners who lived here....um....four years ago! Needless to say, the pile is full of dirt and weeds and grass that has come up gone down four times over. The first summer we were here, we pretty much ignored it. The second summer we called those dudes with the "We haul your junk" signs all over town, but they wanted WAY too much money to do our dirty work (go figure!) so since I was too fat and pregnant to do any hauling of my own, we ignored it for another year. Last summer Dave gave the pile a few nudges with his tractor and we took some of the stuff away, but not nearly all of it. Today however, Dave pulled his trailer over here, and we worked ALL MORNING picking rotting lumber out of the dirt, dumping it in the trailer, and smoothing out the land. Aside from the excess dirt on the grass, you'd never know there was anything ever resembling a pile of anything over there!

Next weekend we will dig holes and plant another 8 cedar trees on the south east side of the property (where Dave cleared another pile of lawd knows what today) to match the 8 we planted last year on the south west side, and then we'll likely head over to a friend's house to steal some of her trees to plant on the property line on the west side to protect us some more from Old Man Winter.

After the playing in the dirt and the trying to talk the kid into a nap, we headed off to a birthday party for one of Griffin's buddies. It went EXACTLY as I predicted with a MAJOR meltdown about 1/2 way through the party, when after a diaper change the kid decided he didn't want to go back outside, and figured that the best way to keep himself inside was to absolutely, completely and totally REFUSE to put his pants back on. I humoured him for about 15 minutes, and then wrestled him into his pants to go back out to join the party, where he proceeded to scream and cry for at least another 15 minutes, until he suddenly stopped, turned and looked at me and declared "I feew bedder now," and away he went.

I don't feel particularly relaxed after a weekend like this, but I do feel satisfied. Satisfied at all the work we got done, satisfied that the kid crashed like a sack of potatoes when we got home, and satisfied that I'm about to crawl into bed with Tyra and and those that are "still in the running in the hopes of becoming Americas Next. Top. Model."

Sha-zam.

Hope your weekend was excellently productive, and meltdown free!