How I spent my weekend

 So I hear you all asking what I did with my first weekend at home, so I'll tell you.  I worked in my "garden."  

If you remember, this is what my garden looked like in the real estate pictures.  (you can find this post here)

And this is what a summer of ignoring the garden looks like.

There are roses along the fence, 17 of them to be exact (I know because I moved them all).  They were covered in bindweed (also known as morning glory and trumpeter vine, but Google says the invasive stuff is bindweed, it is a vine with white flowers). There are planter boxes in that mess, well, you can see them in the above picture. 

After 2 days and 6 bags of cheap potting soil, I transferred the roses to 10 gallon garden bags I bought off of Amazon.

I mowed the parts I could, and Damian weedeated the boxes.  Then I sprayed the hell out of the weeds with noxious weedkiller.  I know it's not ideal for a garden area where I plan to plant vegetables, but there's no way I will get rid of the clover and bindweed without chemicals.  Bindweed travels above and below ground, google says that it's roots could be 9 feet long and every time you pull it out, it strengthens the roots and it grows new shoots.  Also, if you leave even a small piece of a root, it will regrow, very hard to get rid of.  Google says chemicals applied regularly is the best way to kill it.  So I guess I will be destroying the ground for awhile and then will have to work on making it better once I can get rid of the stuff.  

This was taken from my balcony, the space between the fence and the planter box is where all the roses were.  It was a lot of work, but I love gardens and want to get as much done this fall that I can so I can start on it in the spring and hopefully have flowers at least.

We did have to stop on Saturday and take Maddox to his first soccer game, and I kept having to go back to Lowes to get potting soil.  6 cu. ft (2 bags) is not enough, I ended up buying 7 and used 6 bags.

Once I was done with that I decided I wanted to finish the fake wall tiles in my bathroom.  That has been a project I've worked on here and there since we closed on the house.  The first picture is after I painted and I had put up one peel and stick tile before remembering I should take before and after photos.  

And the vanity area.  There was a mirror, but we took it down to paint.

And this is the end of the peel-and-stick tile.  It turned out so good, although, I feel like I need a trim.  It looks even better with the shower curtain up.  

I had finished the vanity a long time ago, but here's the after.  Obviously I have a few things still to do, like hang the toilet paper holder and towel rods, but I'm so happy with how it turned out.  The counter looks messy in this picture, but it really isn't.  The back of the toilet is with all the things I need to finish.  I also have a hanging cabinet I want to hang up above the toilet, as well as the towel rods.

So that's how I spent my first weekend at home since moving in.  Also, I did not unpack even one box.  I guess that's a project for next weekend. 

Just Checking in

Well, I finally will have a weekend at home.  This last weekend I went to eastern WA for my sister in law's 40th birthday.  She has cerebral palsy and has been confined to a wheelchair her entire life.  She was not expected to live to her 20s and she just turned 40.  It was also the last weekend I have to go anywhere until October.  Which makes 6 weekends in a row that I have not been home.  

We did our big move the weekend of July 22nd.  Then July 29 and 30 we finished up cleaning and such at our old place.  That was the last time I was home for a weekend, the last weekend in July.  All 4 weekends in August I was gone, granted, the second weekend we were finishing up our normal August vacation, but still, not home.  

I am very excited to be home for a weekend.  There is so much to do.  We've lived here a month and a half and still have a garage full of boxes.  I have a garden I would really like to start getting rid of weeds in so that I can have at least a little garden next spring.  I want to be done with it all so I can fully enjoy my house and not have to think of all the things that still need to be done.

I am still running at least one mile a day, the miles have been short, August was only 48 miles, which means that I only ran 8 days out of 31 more than one mile, and no more than 3 miles at a time.  Today marks 1414 days in a row.  

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to end my streak.  This summer was a summer of short runs, mostly only one milers.  From June through August I only ran more than one mile 26 days, not even a full month's worth of runs.  So sometime in the middle of July I decided I'm going to get to 4 years and then end it.  November 1, 2018 was when I started my streak, so October 31, 2022 will be my last runstreak run.

Running isn't very much fun when you have to figure out every single day when you are going to run.  I don't like feeling like I HAVE to run every day, I'm tired of it.  I'm hoping that I will start to enjoy it again if I don't feel like I have to run.  I'm not sure how I feel when I end it.  I'm not going to quit running, it is the only exercise I do faithfully and I usually love it.  I just want the pressure of it to go away.  Maybe I'll start entering races again.  

Today's run was cold and I could feel the damp air.  It rained this morning, and i have to tell you that even though it's been a hotter than normal summer here, it started so late that I'm still not ready for fall.  I don't want to go back to rainy and cold days that makes up fall, winter and spring.  I really do like all seasons, but I don't like the constant rain, which encompasses 3 of 4 of them.

On my current running route I almost always pass a yard with beautiful flowers.  Today the owner of the yard was out cutting flowers so I said something to her. Her house is on the other side of the dog park that is right next to our yard, so basically a neighbor.  She was super friendly and showed me her backyard.  It is beautiful!!  She said it's her "covid yard"  They did most of the work on it in the last 2 and 1/2 years.  It gives me hope that maybe it won't be 10 years before mine looks good too (probably not as nice as hers though).  But she sent me home with some flowers.  They are beautiful, I definitely need to make friends with her.  😁

A busy August

A whole month with no posts, I haven't done that in forever. Also, my formatting is weird again, I don't know how to change it. I'm sorry! Last time it did this I couldn't add images either.

Well, that worked for you, I can't see it in editing mode though (which annoys me). 

Are any of you using Bloglovin'? I haven't been able to get on it which means I can't read any of the blogs I follow. It's quite annoying. Anyway, August was very hectic. We finished up moving and cleaning our old place at the end of July. Then I spent the first week in August going to my Dad's house with a uhaul to help my sister move into my dad's house and grab my stuff from there (inherited stuff), came back to unload, and went straight back to my dad's the next day to help my sister paint her room. (I was voluntold by another sister I had to help, although I had no help from them). Then we went to the Lake the second week of August for our vacation. Which was nice, but definitely not long enough.

I realized that I tend to take pictures of the same thing over and over, so I quit taking pictures. Looking at what I did take, I don't have very many this year and I can't find any of me in my favorite spot in the morning with a coffee cup, or in the evening with a wine glass. I thought I did, but I can't find them, so you're stuck with a bunch of sunset pictures, with a few others. 

The picture of my sister on my paddleboard was meant to capture her dog on the board. She was very reluctant to get on, but couldn't stand being so far from my sister. 🤣 After the hectic months of moving, and going to my Dad's to work there once a month, I am still feeling the affects of it. Although, that might also be because I have not been home for a weekend since July 30th. I was looking forward to one weekend at home, but then we found out before our vacation that Chris's Grandma died, so we had to go to her funeral the one weekend I had at home. 

The last weekend in August I had to go back to eastern WA to help my sister paint her son's room and visit with my Mom's cousin, which was a lot of fun. Then Labor Day weekend I went on an overnight hike with some friends, and guess what? Next weekend I have to go back to eastern WA for Chris's sister's 40th birthday party. That will be 6 weekends in a row I was not home. This means that I still have a house full of boxes that hasn't been unpacked. Plus, it is time to start working on my garden so it (hopefully) will be less work next spring, but I haven't had time. I have so many plans, I just can't get them all done. 😔 I may have some time at the end of September to do things at home, but who knows.