Happy birthday to meeeee!!!

Hands down, this has been the best year of my life.

Just like last year.

And the year before.

I like this pattern. 🙂

Gardening! Also, I’m smarter than the folks at Home Depot.

If not smarter, I’m at least more open-minded 🙂

We moved to a new house in October 2013. Only half a mile down the road from our old house, it gave us another bedroom, another bathroom, a nicer pool, and an actual backyard. The only thing I miss about the old place (besides the neighbors*) is my garden. My rosemary bushes were all about waist high; I still had parsley and Greek oregano and thyme and a few other herbs.

I didn’t want to dig up the lawn and make a garden bed, so I decided to try to imitate this idea instead.

I put the pic on my phone and asked the lady at the front of Home Depot what she recommended for the grate. She didn’t really understand what I was asking for so she called the Garden Guy to the front desk. He hemmed and hawed and told me there was nothing in the garden section that would serve; I should go ask the folks down at Lumber. Which I did.

Lumber Guy thought really hard and brought me to the gate section. Thick, sturdy fencing securely attached to a rigid metal border. Perfect! . . . wait, does that price tag really say $159??? Holy crap!

Lumber Guy agreed that it was a pretty expensive solution and recommended that I build a frame of two-by-fours and staple fencing to it. I explained that I don’t do home improvement stuff, just garden stuff. I wanted to tell him I don’t do staple guns, only real guns, but it didn’t seem productive. He regretfully told me there was nothing in the store that would suit my purposes.

So I wandered around until I found the security bars to put over windows and decided they would suit just fine. THEN I went out to the garden section to measure bags of potting soil and discovered the garden-fence-section racks. PERFECT. *EXACTLY* what I needed.

A few sawhorses, bags of potting soil, seed packets and assembly later, I had the makings of my garden:

Next post I’ll show you how my seedlings are doing!

*It may seem funny that moving half a mile down the road has such a drastic impact on how much I hang out with the nice ladies by the old house, but it does. We all have kids. Whereas previously I could poke my head out and see if anyone was outside playing, I now have to text them and work out schedules to visit. I’ve lost that casual the-whole-neighborhood-is-chatting-at-the-corner vibe.

The return of Workout Wednesday!!!

Good evening all!  Well, my resolution of posting every day didn’t last very long. I’m in the midst of transitioning Bubber to the preschool that Little Gronk attends, but I’ve been trying to introduce him piecemeal – an afternoon here, a morning there. I will say that Bubber seems perfectly happy there and it’s more my own anxiety trip that has led to my crazy driving back and forth and commuting.

Also, there’s gardening.

Also, multiple book reviews.

Also, at least one film review of a movie that I thought was just plain awful.

Also – Workout Wednesday!!

So, I’ve run exactly one 5K in my life: the Wounded Warriors / Operation Giveback run/walk/roll on May 11, 2013. I ran it in a hair under 30 minutes, which made me super-happy. And obviously it was for a great cause.

A month later I got pregnant (again). A month after that the fatigue hit me HARD, and I went from doing three miles on the treadmill to panting when I walked up stairs.

And so, yet again, I’m starting the Couch to 5K training app. This is the app I used to get me up to three miles; and then again, after I had the stupid foot injury take me offline for a YEAR; and then AGAIN, once I had recovered from birthing Little Gronk. Slow and steady makes one able to race!

Before I introduce this week’s songs, I would like to state for the record that if you’d told me my favorite radio station would be Christian Rock, I would have laughed in your face. Laughed so hard I choked. Laughed so hard I’d be rolling on the floor. Laughed so hard they’d have to sedate me and cart me away for observation.

But I *DO*. I love it.

My station is 106.3 The Rock – “positive rock alternative.” What that means to me is:

1) No commercials

2) Really great rock music that I don’t hear anywhere else

3) No swear words when I’ve got kids in the car. (Bitch, whore, sex, etc.)

And it really is VERY good music.

So here are your three songs to inspire sweating this week: (Just listen to the music. I’ve no idea what the videos show.)

1) “Unless” by Everfound:

2) “Electric Ladyland” by Kingsdown

3) “Off with her Head” by Icon for Hire

Happy Exercising!!