As I am typing this, my hands are sore…and I am feeling a little worn out.  I’ve spent several hours this weekend outside working in the yard (while the inside looks like a disaster zone).  My goal was to get the lawn mowed and create some nice play areas for the kids.  They helped out a lot, even though mostly they just wanted to play.  We washed the inside of the playhouse and cleaned out all of the spiderwebs and dead leaves and weeds.  Then we spread out a bag of mulch on the ground.  We are missing the plastic for the skylight in the playhouse, so when it rains water comes in and splashes down on the dirt – because we don’t really have grass growing in there anymore – and makes it really muddy…so I am hoping the mulch will keep it a little cleaner in there.  We took the little picnic table up to the car wash and Sam sprayed it until it was clean.  Now it looks like we just bought it at the store!  We weeded, ripped down vines off the fence and cut back the wisteria vine that grows up the side of our house.  I pulled all the weeds around the swingset, and put 8 bags of mulch around it.  We put together the new sandbox and filled it up.  We swept the patio and part of the driveway that still had leaves from fall.  We dug up all the rocks that border the flowers that grow on the side of our house and replaced them and then added mulch around the plants.  Everything looks so much better, we are even considering having a Memorial Day thing with our friends.  It’s been a while since we have entertained outside, because our yard really requires a lot of maintenence.  Which is weird, because we have dug up and removed SO many plants!!!  You should have seen it before…seriously I think the previous owners must have spent 8 hours a day outside between May and August just maintaining the yard/garden.  Who has that much time?  Certainly not a mom with a full time job and four kids.

So as we were cleaning up around the patio, Sam decides to get rid of the grill.  We already have a new one on the way that we have ordered from Amazon.  We bought this one because the reviews on it were great and we can take it with us camping.  It will be so much nicer to be able to have a grill to cook on while we are out at the fairs this summer.  Our old grill we have had for at least 10 years…actually, I think longer.  It no longer lights with the ignition, so you have to turn on the gas and light it with a lighter…and risk singeing the hair on your arm.  It only will light on one side and the grease cup was missing, so we had attached a soup can hanging from a coathanger wire to the bottom of the grill.  It was a great grill when we first got it, but I don’t even think we have used it for a year!  So Sam says he’s going to put it out by the road with a free sign on it. I am thinking to myself…WHO would want it?  It doesn’t even work! But he insists…and it’s gone with in 5 minutes  – SERIOUSLY!  Then we decide to put our old red lady bug sandbox (that we bought for Savannah when she was a baby) out by the road.  The eyes are missing and it has had rotten leaves and moldy sand in it for a year…disgusting.  I’m thinking no one would want this…but I am proved wrong again…and within minutes it’s gone too.  Sam and I think that this is one GREAT thing about living on 3rd street.  We have saved so many trips to the dump by just sticking our old broken stuff out by the road…I don’t know why people would want it…but someone always takes it…the couch sofa with the ripped seat cushions and broken legs (we had to break them to get it out of the basement), the old water heater (that didn’t work any more), and now the grill and the sandbox.

Anyway, I hope you all got a chance to get outside and enjoy the weather this weekend…I am loving Spring right now!