Without the Kids

I must say, for all the "lazy" I sometimes think I am, a lot can be accomplished when I don't have three underfoot or asking to be fed! Walvy, Pip and Birdie found their way to Nana and Papa's this weekend (Elle with two ear infections, but I was not to have my plans foiled again!) and Mike and I set to work on some projects that seem to consistently get pushed off.

Outside we gardened, by which I mean we made a garden, Mike digging up our yard and mixing in topsoil to all our "sand." Why not? Our grass is terrible anyway! We did start a couple things from seed: peas and corn. Almost all the rest were inexpensive seedlings from the local garden center: 3 kinds of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, cucumber, honeydew and cantaloupe, and pumpkins.

The best treasure in the garden though is a gift from Nana's garden: strawberries!!!

I also planted a small herb garden by the patio and tried to transplant 3 non-blooming rose bushes I found under a big tree along the fence and 3 shoots from the old lilac Mike took out recently. We put them in a little Miracle Grow organic soil and I added rose food to the rose bushes, but I'm already worried about them. I'm crossing my fingers for all of that.

Inside we patched paint scrapes in both the kids' rooms and went to work fixing up Ellerie's room and a bed for her. We've had the beds (it's actually a set of bunks) for awhile, but Nana and Papa bought them for us used so they needed new plywood platforms and to be painted. Elle, of course, wanted pink. I also painted up a little bookshelf white that Mike has had as long as he can remember (used to be dark stain) and added white to the pressboard stuff that, at some point, was used to cover where the screen would have been in this old pie cupboard (a former glimpse here).

The mattress was actually such a tight fit to the bed frame that we realized, after naturally, that the side rails would not fit down inside the frame with their big plastic bases. Michael, being the smarty that he is, took the rails out of their bases and drilled holes down into the plywood and just wedged them right down. Perfect! Ellerie might have done alright without the rails as I don't generally find her rolled up against them or anything, but three seems so little to go without as some babes are still in their cribs and it wasn't too long ago that I was only setting up a toddler bed! I was a little overwhelmed by the pink as we were painting. Anyone in my family will tell you that they find it hysterical that I have even allowed my child to have a pink bed. And, I admit, as we were going along I found myself getting a little nervous about the color and the amount of pinkness. But now that we've made up the bed and got it settled in the room, I really love it. It's a very vintage kind of girlie pink and it's gonna look even better if I ever manage to get her quilts done!

I also managed some sewing this weekend on a little commissioned project, but that is for another post. After being so productive this weekend, I have told Michael today is back to meals and laundry: the bane of my existence. The kids have settled back into their usual whiny, testing selves rather quickly so I guess we are ready to face the week in the regular way. Boy, I did miss them though.

But not so much that I wouldn't do it again!