Work Weekend!

Saturday, Matt and Jake took down that huge tree in the front  yard.  It was covered, COVERED in wooly aphids that had drained the leaves until they were black.  It had lady bugs, blood sucking cone nose and other undesirable things all over it.  It had started to spread to my maples, I ended up cutting several of their branches to add to the fire we kept going all afternoon.  Luckily there was no wind and it was totally clear, so the smoke went straight up-no lung attacks for the hacking population.

The tree was also directly in front of the internet antenna, so our connection speeds are better now.

We mowed, I mean super mowed where you get the corners and edges and all that.  I ran around with the clippers and clipped down the bigger weeds growing along the fence across the front and foraged into the brush pile across the road and an hour later, found the mailbox.  Well, 1/3 of the mailbox, but it's the third she puts the mail in, so that was good.  The past couple of months it's been just a door in a wall of green things that was fast becoming a tunnel to a door in a wall of green things.  I had to take scissors with me if I needed to raise the flag. I trimmed the rose bush, the butterfly bush, the forsythia, the quince and took down one million or so privet springs with the clippers or the mower.  Then I raked them all up and burned them.  Then I put weed killer directly on the stumpy bits.  YES.  Death-dealer.

The tree limbs and all the brush were burned over the weekend, all that's left is a stack of wood from the trunk and bigger limbs and the stump.  And a huge pile of ash.  Update: we made a fire pit!

I love it!

We bought stuff to finish fixing the hall bathroom floor and redo the shower floor in here, we bought enough paint to at least finish the front of the house and the kids already have a whole section double-coated, it looks great!  We bought wood to replace that last row of fascia board, we bought curtains for 3 more windows.  I bought paint for Ben's previously pink and purple closet doors.  Now they are green.  They need one more coat to be done.  We bought solar lights to go next to the frog pond I dug as a joke in the spring.  It has 11 frogs now!  It's very badly located as far as walking around at night, so now there's a little light right by it, I hope the frogs don't mind, but I did not want to step in it and squash them all.

The new curtain for the front door.  Still lets in light, but makes it more private!

.

The budget house is spent for this month, but it's a great start.  I got up one day last week with enough energy to do something big, but not enough lung capacity to exert myself, so I tackled the budget for next year and worked out how much we can set aside to put on to projects and still do things like get a down payment for Matt's newer car, replace the roof, pay off Ben's braces and take a vacation.

I have tried to take it somewhat easy this week, after making the fire pit yesterday I felt like my rib was jabbing into my lung.  I ended up calling the nurse line out of sheer nothing else to do for myself.  She went over my symptoms and said it sounded like that rib may be broken.  Well, there's nothing to do for that other than prescription pain meds, which honestly have never helped much anyway.  They make me feel more like I don't care that I hurt than actually make it NOT hurt.  Tylenol is fine, thanks.  Found out if you wrap it, you can give yourself pneumonia.  Makes me wonder if bras are such a good idea.

We have a camping trip next week and Matt's vacation is coming up next month, I am looking forward to being elsewhere for a little while, even getting so much done around here, I have been around HERE for a solid month, barely even left the yard.  Have not even seen friends since we got back from Tennessee.  It's been a very lonesome summer!