The Blog Where I Have Nothing To Say

It's been a really busy weekend for me. It's October, I live in Minnesota, and it was nice weather. That could mean only one thing--yard work.

I got my hair cut, walked 4 1/2 miles, cleaned my car (including the inner windows) and put Rain-X on the windows, then I cut down all my flowers. I have a lot of them. There's the big garden, the tree ring, the patch by the pine trees, peonies up the side of my house, and two patches of bee balm in the yard. The patio furniture came off the deck and into the garage. And just to finish out the day with a thrill, I did three loads of laundry.

Yes, the excitement never stops. I didn't get my house clean, although that was on the agenda for this weekend, too. I also didn't finish writing book copy for my two short stories or format them for e-book readers. Also on my To Do List.

Yard work isn't quite done. I didn't have any cedar mulch to put down over the flowers, so I'm hoping for one more nice weekend so I can buy some of that and finish this last detail. After that, things will ease up.

The one good thing about October is that baseball playoffs begin. I'll be rooting for the Twins and the Braves to make the World Series.

The River O'Shea

Before I get going on my blog, I have an interview up at Leah's Literary Lair. Stop on over and take a look if you have time. This includes a little sneak peek at my July book, Edge of Dawn.

There's been some thawing going on in Minnesota--believe it or not--and I have a river flowing through my backyard. I've christened it the River O'Shea. It originates in my neighbor's yard--I've dubbed it Lake Smith. (I don't know their name. ::blush::)

This is the first time I can remember seeing all this water standing like this and I've been in the house three years now. I think. Time flies and all that.



You can see my poor butterfly bush is in danger of being drowned!



You can't quite see the terminus because it's behind the trunk of the tree, but it's there. I also have my other neighbor's water flowing into the terminus which makes it Lake O'Shea, I guess.

Keep in mind that I am not complaining! I love watching the snow disappear. It's the sign that my misery is nearly at an end. I am so not a winter girl.

So Much For That

Today I'd planned to write. I felt like writing and I have an opening scene for the story for which I'm in pre-book. Perfect. Or so I thought.

My dad decided that today was the day we were finishing the edging project around my garden. If you'll recall, three or so weeks ago, we pulled a gazillion weeds out, put black edging down, and filled it with mulch. We only did halfway, though, before we ran out of edging, so it was tabled. Until today. Groan.

On the plus side, the entire garden is now edged and mulched. On the minus side, I accomplished nothing else today even though I wanted to. It was muggy, the sky gray and the air seemed cloying with its thickness. The bugs were terrible--mosquitoes, flies, and gnats. Don't even get me started about the really weird spider I saw or the grasshopper that jumped into my tree ring. It was a miserable time and now I'm sore and tired.

The garden, though, does look better and the weeds are gone. I'm so sick of weeds. I also got all the weeds out of my garden. Okay, most of them. I think it might be impossible to get all the weeds out of there. And I worked on pulling weeds where my one surviving tiger lily is. Dang deer.

But I didn't write my scene! I did try when I finished in the yard, but my mental edge was blunted by the physical labor. :-/ Now, I'm thinking about going to bed early.

Groan!

I can't believe the weekend is over already! In a way, though, it'll almost be good to get back to the Evil Day Job (EDJ) because I worked like crazy this weekend. After sleeping so late that I couldn't make it to my RWA chapter meeting on time, I cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. I also began the process of putting my music onto iTunes for my iPod. I have way too many CDs and it's taking forever! I nearly have my country music collection uploaded, but the rock is the bigger of the two.

While I'm working, I also had my parents call me--four times! Does anyone else's parents call them like that? I've asked them to refrain unless it's important, but of course, to them it's always important. It was making me crazy.

But anyway, today, I worked even harder. It all started so innocently, too. I took my camera down to the garden to get pictures of my new lilies. I have some white ones--I can't remember their name--and wanted a few shots. On the way down, I grabbed my gardening gloves. Around the stone of the garden, the weeds had set in pretty thickly and I thought I'd rescue my tree lilies.

Here's three of my four elodie lilies:



And here are my unknown name white lilies:



After getting these shots, I pulled on my gloves and started pulling. And cursing. Those weeds were out of control and had developed root systems that were incredible. I pulled with all my strength and couldn't dislodge some of them. I don't own a hoe, so I toughed it out, and pulled the entire side with the tree lilies. It looked much better.

But it needed some mulch and I mentioned that to my dad this morning on the second phone call with my parents. He came over with a pitchfork and other tools and we worked pulling weeds on three sides of the garden before he decided he was tired. (Keep in mind, this man had his kidney removed in April and he's already doing things like this. Gah!) Next came putting in the edging to hold the mulch in, then layers of newspaper, followed by the mulch. Half the area around the outside the garden is mulched, but that leaves half left to go.

I'm sore from all the weed pulling and I managed to get a blister on the bottom of my toe which means walking is ever so much fun. I also managed to do a few loads of laundry and load half a gazillion more CDs onto iTunes.

So all the things I meant to do today--like get caught up on snail mail, email, and blog comments--all fell to the wayside. The damn thing is that I should do something similar around the tree ring and then there's the area around my evergreens that seriously need a weeding and a lot more mulch put down. I also could add some more mulch around the house because a lot of that got beat down over the last two winters. In other words, thank goodness I'm going back to the EDJ so I can rest up!

I think it's easier to be on deadline! I hope everyone else had a relaxing weekend.

Adventures in Lawn Maintenance

I thought I might have a story to tell today and I was right.  I decided last summer to get an in-ground sprinkler system installed in my yard.  This way I know my flowers will get enough water and I can start to work on making my grass look better.  It did not come out of last year's draught in good shape at all.  I'd hoped it would come back this year, but it did not.

So today was the big day my system was set to be installed.  My dad as usual was acting as construction supervisor.  They were originally supposed to come in the afternoon and be finished around 5pm, but the company called on Monday and asked to start in the morning.  They'd send a technician back at 3pm when I got home from work to run through the control box with me.  I'm thinking, how hard can this box be?  And I think I can figure out the instruction book, but whatever.  My dad wanted me there for the box run-through.

There I am at work, frantically running around, trying to do six million things that managed to pile up on my desk, and the phone rings.  I never like it when the first thing I hear is, "The good news is...."  Okay, so what's the bad news.

Despite the fact that all the utility lines going into the house were marked, the guy managed to sever the cable and phone lines.  Apparently, he got just a little too close.  When my dad reported in, he'd already called the cable company and they couldn't come out until Wednesday--before 1pm they promised.  That means no baseball on while I write!  That means no e-mail or internet!  He'd taken out the primary (cable) and back up (phone line for dial up) internet systems.

I didn't expect to still see the guys there working when I got home, but they weren't quite done yet.  And they patched up the break with tape so that I can have cable until Comcast can get out here and repair the line.  The phone guy showed up around 4:30 and that's fixed.

So I am online and I do have baseball (even though the Cubs are losing as I write this), but the patch slipped once before the crew left, so the possibility is still there that I could lose it again. The guy said he only misjudges and cuts a line about once a year.  Gee, great, it's my house that gets the yearly boo-boo.

I hope I love the sprinkler system after all this.

Yard Work Can Kill You

Or an alternate title for this blog: Adventures in Yard Work. Take your pick.

I had a lot of things I wanted to do on Saturday, but I got a really late start. First, I headed over to my parents' house and helped my dad take the window air conditioner down. Then my dad and mom came over to my house. My mom resumed her attempt to balance my checkbook and my dad and I headed into the yard. Mission number one: Plant the burning bushes that the bulb company sent me as my "gift."

After we got all the equipment together, we tried to decide where to put the bushes. My ideal location was out of the question because of the underground power cables in that space, so I had to pick alternates.

The instructions said that the hole should be twice the depth of the roots and twice the width. For plant 1, that meant 18 inches. My dad started the digging, before we switched to the plant auger. It's a long thing that fits into a drill like a bit. I can't remember what my dad headed off to get, but he left me alone with the shovel. The hole was nearly a foot deep then and the shovel was all the way in the hole. I stepped on the top with my toes and twisted my knee. I tested it, though, and it felt okay. I decided to leave the shoveling for my dad.

After putting the first plant in, I watered it per the instructions, but the water wasn't sinking into the ground--probably because we've had so much rain the last two months that the earth is saturated. We decided to leave that and move on.

But before planting bush two, my dad decided to find the places in the yard where the rocks were on the surface, dig them out, and fill the open space with the grass that was taken out of the spot where the bush went. This really started what ended up being big trouble. I dug one small rock out, smaller than my fist, and then I found another one. This one was big, I could tell because I had trouble finding the edges of the stone to pry it up. I figured it must be about the size of a brick, maybe a little larger.

My dad ran into the same problem and we decided to plant the second bush and then return to the stone. The original choice for location on this one didn't work--we ran into roots from the tree--and we shifted our location another twenty feet or so. We ran into more tree roots, but my dad said these were from a tree the builder took down and since he was pulling pieces out easily enough, I figured he was right since they were rotted.

There was a really big root, though, that he needed me to yank on while he used the shovel as leverage. I pulled with all my strength, but too much of the root was still in the earth. I pulled harder, the root snapped, I lost my balance, and my knee took the brunt of it--and my back since I was tugging while bent over. Now I was starting to hurt, but it wasn't that bad. We got the bush in and watered.

Now it was time to tackle the stone.

It turned out there was the big stone and another smaller broken stone right against its side. My dad was trying to pull the broken rock out, but I could tell that he wasn't jiggling it the right way. I took over. It took a little more force than I expected, but I got it out. We turned our focus to the bigger rock.

Rock might be a misnomer. Perhaps boulder would be a more accurate word. It turned out that like an ice berg, 90% of this behemoth was beneath the surface of the smaller, flattened top. My dad had the shovel in alongside the stone when I saw it--cables. "Don't dig!" I shouted. "Don't move! Cables!" He looks down and says, "That's from that old green carpet. I thought we got all of those." He bent down and tugged the fibers out. He went back to using the shovel to try to lever the stone out of the earth.

At one point, I tried to roll the stone out of the hole using both arms. Stupid mistake. Not only did I not move the boulder a centimeter, I finished torquing my knee and my back. The stone remains where it was found, a project for machinery rather than humans.

While we were working all day, the box elder bugs and Asian beetles were in attack mode. We were constantly fighting them off. As the afternoon grew later, though, the mosquitoes came out, and after all the rain we had, these things were mutantly huge.

As we reached the stairs leading from my yard to the deck, a large one flew toward me, and gardening tool in hand, I slashed at it--and put a nice, deep gash in my arm just above the wrist. It wasn't as bad as the time I sliced my other arm with the box cutter, but I decided dispassionately, this one was deep enough were it was borderline whether or not I'd need stitches. Or rather a stitch. It wasn't a very long cut. I opted to forgo the trip to urgent care for this.

It wasn't bleeding much, but enough so that my dad sent me into the house to get patched up. He took down the deck furniture by himself. Good thing I only bought cheap, plastic stuff, yes?

It was after I got the wound washed out and bandaged that my knee really, really started to hurt. I ended up sitting with the heating pad on it, but I figured it would be okay by the time I woke up Sunday morning--and it seemed to be. It was my back that was really bothering me. About 1:30, though, it was like someone flipped a switch. I could hardly walk. I don't know what happened, but between my back and my knee, yesterday was not the most enjoyable day ever.

So I spent Sunday hobbling, taking Advil, and running a heating pad for my back. I was having some fun, let me tell you. Then about 4, with the same suddenness that it came on, my knee felt better. Not 100%, but not excruciating. I keep wondering if it'll stay this way or switch again. Anyway, I learned my lesson. No more tugging at rocks or roots. Gah!

While I was hobbled yesterday, though, I got a lot done on my edits. I'm through chapter 22. Yea!

No Sign of Rain

For reasons known only to my dad, he decided last night was a good night to resume watering the lawn. Keep in mind that the grass is yellow at this point because we're in a horrible drought and we gave up on the sprinkling about 2 weeks ago since it was impossible to keep up. But last night, I hear the water spigot and look outside. My dad was over arranging the hoses. When I get home this afternoon, I'll have to remember to look and see if it did any good or if the grass is still as yellow as it was.

I have a brand new lily! It bloomed sometime yesterday and I saw it when I got home from work. I would have taken a picture of it, too, although it's unlikely I would have subjected any of you to it, but it was too close to the chicken wire to get any decent shots. But I have two flowers in my tree ring and the promise of more to come! I can't wait for the Sumatra Lily to bloom--that's a ways a way from the looks of things, though.

And to round out my day, I shoe shopped online. I'd been flipping around while I waited for the 6pm news and landed on QVC. No, I didn't buy shoes from them, but that had some cute stuff from Skechers on. Whenever I see shoes on QVC that I like, I always check online because Zappos and Shoebuy have free shipping and free return shipping. And as luck would have it, Shoebuy had sent me an email coupon yesterday. Since you saved $5 with one pair and $15 with two pair, I made sure I found two pairs of shoes I liked. :-) I know, I know. But two pair really were the best deal. Besides, I'm picky enough about shoes that the odds of my keeping both pair are about zilch. Actually, the odds of my keeping either pair aren't that good. This is why I try not to buy shoes online, but it's oh-so-tempting--especially since I hate shopping.

Big Deal or No Deal?

I've had a pretty lazy morning so far and I shouldn't. I need to be working on my revisions. It was nice, though, to sleep in, and last night, I did a load of laundry and was outside dragging the hose around because the lawn needed watering so bad. My tractor sprinkler jumped the hose line three times and that necessitated some rescue trips. :-P After all that, I woke up at 3am to lightning. Yes, it rained and it must have come down for hours judging by how wet things were when I got up at 9. Oh, well. As dry as it's been, I'm sure the extra watering didn't hurt anything.

You know, even as I wrote the above paragraph, I'm thinking when the hell did I get so into my yard? I water my flowers every evening, on my day to water, I'm out there dragging hoses around. I check on my peony tree and lilies almost every day. And I'm someone who never used to give a rip. The only thing I can think of is it's the difference between owning my own home and not owning one.

My revisions were waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday. Yea! Um, kind of yea. ;-) The part of me that worries is glad they're here and not lost. The part of me that wants this story finished is thrilled too. It's the part of me that's still tired of this book that's balking. I've never had revisions turned this fast before and it must be some kind of mental thing.

Parent story. My folks went to Chicago for a bridal shower for one of my cousins. She's registered at Target, so I went online, bought a gift and had it wrapped and set to be delivered to the cousin that my parents are staying with this weekend. I barely get in the door yesterday afternoon and the phone's ringing. It's my dad. The gift hasn't arrived yet. I'm like dad, it's no big deal. If it doesn't come before the shower, it'll just have to get to her later. It's not like no one is ever going to see the cousin getting married again.

Maybe I should call Target, my dad says. Sigh. It's 3pm in the afternoon. I explain that it's coming UPS. He finally seems to get it. The gift might still be delivered that afternoon. Then I logon to the computer and I have an email survey from Target asking if my inquiry had been handled satisfactorily. Yep, he called Target and must have done it almost immediately after I we hung up.

Is this one of those ways that parents are supposed to drive us nuts? The things I think he should worry about, my dad blows them off. The things I think are unimportant are critical in his mind. I just don't get it.

The Garden/Yard Things

I finally took some pictures of my new yard stuff. I know, I know, I keep bringing them up, but I'm all excited. My tree peony isn't dying, I have a super cool tree ring, and while my flowers look a little wilted, they're still alive. :-)

First up, this is the infamous tree peony that I keep talking about. Notice how it's successfully adding new shoots! Yea! I plan on taking pictures when I have beautiful red flowers and post those here, too. Of course, that will be a little ways off as you can tell from this shot. The cage is to keep the deer from eating it.

These are the porch flower boxes I bought. I have three for my deck, too, and they're planted, but until the guy who's staining the deck makes an appearance, I can't put those out. I think these add something to my porch.


And here's the tree ring I wanted so badly. It ended up costing a little more than I expected, but I think it looks sharp and adds something to the yard. I'll be planting flowers in there when it stops raining.


A slightly closer view.


And a close up.

Pretty darn cool, huh? :-)