Still going.

O man am I sore! We have been so busy this week that it makes my head spin. What a week!

Seth is home. He had the week off. Well, technically, he's on stand down, which means he has the week to himself as long as he drops in on appointed days and notifies the command that he's still in the area. It's not the same as a vacation, but if you don't mind getting up early twice a week, it's just as good. We were thinking about doing some touristy things in the local area, maybe finding a bed and breakfast for a night or checking out a couple of small towns that we haven't seen yet, but Saturday morning, we bought some stuff for the yard, and we've been at it ever since.

We started with the area around the deck, which was desperately in need of weeding. While I weeded that area, Seth mowed the yard and cut down most of the tall grass on our slope. We seeded that area with wild flower seed. Then he joined me in the bark. We pulled half the weeds and sprayed the other half with Round Up. (Of course all the pictures are of Seth because he doesn't think to take pictures for blogging. Not that I should talk. I've never taken this many pictures before in my life. )

Then Seth got an idea for the back yard and went off to work on it, and I remembered that with all the long grass on the slope, we couldn't see the beautiful climbing roses that the previous owner had planted. So Seth put in this neat little path that you see here, and I began pulling a small haystack out of the roses. Note to other amateur gardeners: always wear gloves when working around roses. I had so many scratches that I looked like I got into a fight with a cactus.

On Monday, Seth and I finished pulling up the weeds that the Round Up didn't kill (and it didn't kill many. I didn't realize that I would have to saturate each plant completely in order to kill it. ). We added more bark to the flower gardens. Then Seth went back to put rocks around his path and began a new project: a wild flower garden near the driveway. I didn't expect him to take out quite so much dirt, but it covers a bare spot in the yard and removes a spot that was difficult to mow.

Nothing is sprouting yet. All the packages say two to three weeks. We keep watering and waiting. At least the roses have bloomed, and the bleeding heart hasn't died yet. My transplanted pansies look very healthy, even though Max decided to dig up one of the tulip bulbs I planted in their garden .

On top of all that, I've subbed twice this week: once for elementary P.E. and once for high school math. Seth is looking at online master's degrees in computer science ( I thought he wanted to do military history.) We looked for fabric for Seth's medieval costume but had no luck -- I really have no idea what I'm looking for. And today we took a walk through the Clear Creek Nature Preserve that runs through Silverdale. It's no national park, but it is a very pleasant place to walk. When you come visit, maybe we'll make time to take it in.

Love to you all.

Jennifer