Five on Friday

1. We're two weeks into our summer reading program and I'm thinking I may have set my expectations too low. ;) Asher's on his fifth book now, Micah's on his fourth and I've read about seven. (Noah has yet to start. But let's not get into that now, lol.) In any case, yay for books! (I'm thinking about either doing posts here about reading lists or possibly starting a new blog just for homeschooling stuff, but don't hold me to that.)

2. We probably won't be getting that last shrub out anytime soon. Nathan injured his finger/hand last night. I'm not convinced it's not broken, though he's refusing to let me splint it or get it x-ray'd. I'm thinking about trying to talk Noah into doing it... 

3. I think I may have a problem, though. ;) The boys and I hit the Fort Collins Nursery again today and picked up five more plants (for the containers) and a packet of seeds that I have no idea where I'll plant. (Will need to figure out a container or bed for the backyard probably...Nathan, avert your eyes. You didn't read that, lol.)

4. I went through all the boys' clothes last weekend to switch things out for the summer. Surprisingly, this time it's Micah who's short on clothes. Not "he's got nothing to wear" short...just much more limited than in summers past. :) The reason for this is twofold: 1) he's getting pickier in his old age and flat out rejected some of the hand me downs (I figure even if I made him keep them he wouldn't wear them so what's the point); and, 2) Asher didn't outgrow much. ;)

5. The debate in the car on the way home from the nursery...who would win? Yoda or Wolverine? ;) Apparently, the matter hinges on whether lightsabers can cut through adamantium. Anyone know? (Yes, there was much discussion about Jedi mind tricks and why they would be battling in the first place and how strong Wolverine's mind is and black market availability of different metals in Star Wars land (related to the question of whether lightsabers can cut through adamantium...something about metals that lightsabers *cannot* cut through and whether those metals are weaker than adamantium) and similar questions.)

And so it begins...

So. I got this wild hare to actually do some yard improvements. We've lived in this house almost ten years now and haven't really done anything to the yard aside from take care of the grass. ;) We easily agree that we'd *like* different landscaping (we have all sorts of ideas)...but we'd truly rather wait until we have enough money to just pay someone else to do it for us, lol.

Regardless, I convinced Nathan that we should at least do some tidying up in the front yard. I'm mostly still standing behind this decision. ;) 

So, we bought some edgers, thinking we'd use them to line the grass border after removing the metal barriers there now (I hate the metal barriers...I know they're efficient and all but they hurt and I just don't like them). Over the course of last weekend, then, I worked on removing all the stupid grass that had been growing in the rocky area. (Sidenote, we also hate our rocks. Whomever picked them was evil. If you'd like them and are willing to haul them, you can have them. Honest...contact me!) It all started out looking like this:

If you look in the bottom right corner, you can see where I've begun to remove the grass. Yeah. That's a lot of grass to get out of evil rocks and it sucked. My hands ache. (I bought a $20 kneeler thing at Lowes and it was totally, totally worth it!) This is actually the side of the house and is not actually finished beyond what's pictured. I'll get to it eventually. Really. ;) 

In the meantime, though, I did finish the main front yard area, which was a pain in the butt but now looks so much cleaner:

(You can't really tell at all since I neglected to take a "before" picture, but I also pruned some branches and cleared out a bunch of debris on the ground. I mention this because you can't really tell and I should get credit, lol.)

While I was working on that, Nathan was tackling the removal of our bushes...that we both hate and that were mostly dying finally anyhow...

He was not happy about this.

Removal sucked. But he got to buy a maddox, so that made him a little bit happier. ;) After getting all the bushes out, he tilled all the soil under there (also first had to remove all the evil rocks...we now have a lovely pile in the backyard corner...but we're not doing the backyard yet, so there...if you'd like them, seriously let me know!) with clay buster stuff and compost stuff as directed by the nice man at the Fort Collins Nursery.

Yes, in between removing the bushes and readying the soil, we made a little trip to the nursery to find some plants. We'd toyed with filling the area with pavers and ground cover or finding sod and just being done with that strip. For varying reasons, we didn't go those routes. So. Plants. A lovely lady named Gail helped us figure out what to plant. (I basically just found the employee it looked like all the other employees were going to with their questions and said "help me!" lol. She was awesome.)

Here's what we ended up with last night finally...(we finished up just as it started to rain)...

Whew. 

And, yes, you may have noticed that we ended up using most all of the edgers just in this area. We decided that it wasn't worth the work to pull up the metal in the other areas since you wouldn't really see the edgers anyhow. I'll live with the metal and try to stay on top of the things encroaching. (Yes, we realize that really we should pull up all the evil rocks (which we'd love to have someone else do) and put down new barrier stuff and all that. That's a bigger project than we can take on right now...so maintenance will have to do.)

So, now... 

• I have to exercise patience and wait for things to grow. :)
• I'm also working on finishing up a couple of containers/pots near the front door.
• Nathan's going to take that last bush out, too (the big one in the back between the trees). And then we'll figure out something to put there, maybe a bench or some chairs? (I'm not holding my breath that this will happen in the near future. Nathan's been a good sport about it all (thank you, my love!), but I think it would be asking too much to get him out there again soon, lol.)
• I'll eventually finish pulling out the grass along the front side of the house.

And that will mostly cover our front yard plans for this year. (Someday I'd also like to replace the front door and the outdoor lights and house numbers and stuff. And I wouldn't mind replacing a couple of the trees...and maybe doing some plantings around the bases of the trees...)

Also. Please don't look at our backyard. We put all the stuff from the front yard there. ;) (And I can't tell you about any plans for back there because Nathan would definitely throw things at me... )

Across the miles...

A dear friend sent me this photo earlier today from the cemetery where I grew up (the one I visited every Memorial Day with my dad), letting me know she was thinking of me...

I can't be there to place them on my dad's grave, myself, but here are the peonies I picked out for him:

And, now, rather than just repeat myself, I'll direct you to last year's post for my thoughts on Memorial Day...and will wish you all a blessed rest of your weekend. 

We don't write a lot of essays around here...

So. This morning I was working on some math with the younger two...doing some review work before moving forward again. I had printed out a couple of practice tests and was having them work through them, explaining to them that I do this because I wanted them to have at least some experience with test taking and to learn the importance of reading the instructions rather than just having me talk them through it. All good, right? Right.

So then Micah starts asking about what other tests might look like and we somehow got on the subject of essays. 

He looked at me. Puzzled.

"What's that?" he asked. I explained about grouping paragraphs together and some such stuff.

Still puzzled. "But. What's it stand for?"

Bafflement. "Huh?" 

"You know. What's S.A. stand for?"

As I was trying to collect myself and stop laughing, Asher offered up that it stands for "Student Awesomeness." 

Guess we'll be working on Student Awesomeness this fall... ;)

Ten on Tuesday.

Things making me happy today...

1. Micah was working on his vocabulary lesson this morning. The word he was trying to figure out was "contortion." I tried to offer a hint by asking what it's called when Asher twists himself up like a pretzel. Micah's response? "Gross?" ;)

2. I think I finally figured out what I'm doing for our "summer reading program" this year. :) Boys have decided they're too old for the library program, so I came up with my own...complete with penalties for failure to read a set amount. Bwahhaahahaa.

3. I love that Asher's totem pole project for his art class includes an Enderman (from Minecraft) and a uni-beam on its forehead (from Iron Man). Very indicative of the boy's interests right now. ;)

4. Yesterday, my friend Deanna and I had an awesome day. She beat me to the punch and described it better, so just read hers.

5. In preparation for the new X-Men movie coming out later this week, we've been watching all the previous X-Men movies. Next up in my Netflix dvd queue is "X-Men First Class."

6. Speaking of which, we watched "The Wolverine" for the first time last night. And now I may have a lead on another possible costume idea for the Denver Comic Con. Asher, Micah and I are going. We've been talking about going as Frigga, Loki and Thor (Frigga is Thor and Loki's mom). The trouble with this is that it's really hard to find costumes for Frigga and Loki. Anyhow, after watching "The Wolverine," I'm toying with the idea of going as Yukio instead. Ideas?

7. I just blew the boys' minds by telling them that the voice of Ash (one of their favorite characters on the Pokemon tv series) is done by a woman. ;)

8. Sunday night, my baby brother and his wife had their first baby...Alice Mae! That makes four nieces for me! (I have four nephews, too.) Mother and baby are doing well.

9. Woohoo! I literally just remembered that I brought home some sweet tea from Raisin' Canes yesterday and found it in the refrigerator. Yum!

10. Micah, in his quest to author more books, came with me to the library recently and checked out four books (from the children's non-fiction section) on how to write a book. He started reading one just now and promptly came to inform me that he needs a free-writing book, because that's a good first step in being a writer. ;) Man, this kid keeps me on my toes. 

And now I should go try to make more progress on Micah's haiku book before he asks me again... ;)