Dirt Diggin’

I am still recovering from the weekend.

Travis and I REALLY worked hard on Saturday and Sunday, and the muscles in my back and legs are telling me about it. I feel like most weekends we are pretty productive (although sometimes without a lot to show for it), but last weekend we took it to the extreme.

We spent literally all day on Saturday trying to get our flower beds ready for planting. We were outside before 8 AM shoveling dirt into a wheelbarrow and dumping it in the backyard. Around 9 AM, we took a break and headed to Across the Pond for some soil conditioner to mix into the dirt in our flower beds. Since the dirt in our flower beds was mostly red clay, we felt like mixing soil conditioner in them would help shrubs and flowers grow better. They sell this stuff by the scoop, and it is a BIG scoop. So, we brought that home and kept working…digging out red clay to make room for the soil conditioner.

Around mid-day, Travis decided that we needed to totally reroute the drainage pipe that goes through the left flower bed. It was originally buried right in the middle of the bed….so it would be in the way of planting stuff eventually. If you are a loyal blog reader (which makes you probably one of 5!), you might remember that we patched that drainage pipe 2 weekends ago because several parts of it had holes. Well, that was a complete waste of time. We ended up replacing a really long section of the pipe AGAIN (after finding MORE holes) and moving it to the very front of the bed right along the sidewalk so it won’t be in the way when we’re ready to plant stuff. I may or may not have gotten very mad at some point in there that we wasted our time 2 weeks ago, but as usual, Travis wanted to “do the job right” and I gave in and admitted in the end that it was a good idea. BUT, we’re both in agreement that we never want to touch that drainage pipe again, so if we have more problems with it, we’re just calling in a professional! :)

Finally around 6 PM, after moving who knows how many wheelbarrows of dirt to the backyard and filling in the flower beds with soil conditioner, we were finally finished. (Although, it took Travis another hour to get everything cleaned up and put away). I was SO sore!! My arms and back aren’t used to shoveling dirt, so they really got a workout!

Sadly, at the end of the day on Saturday, no one could even tell we’d done any work! I’m sure our neighbors are wondering how many times those crazy kids are going to dig in their flower beds with nothing to show for it! :) One of these days, we’ll have stuff planted…and if it doesn’t rain, maybe it will be this coming weekend!

As if Saturday wasn’t enough to wear us out, Sunday afternoon we went out for a long run. We were actually supposed to run on Saturday, but as you can see, we ran out of time. So, between church services on Sunday, we went running. We were supposed to run 9.5 miles, but we both ended up getting lost and only running about 8.5 miles. Oh well. At one point, I looked down at my watch and I’d been running for 55 minutes, and it seemed like about 20 minutes, so I guess that’s a good sign! About halfway through the run, my right foot started hurting on top, so I’m hoping it’s nothing serious. It’s still hurting a little bit today, so we’ll see how it does on my 30 minute run this afternoon. Can’t believe the half marathon is next month!

Friday was a difficult day with the bad weather and tornadoes coming through the area. We both had to work, so that made it worse because we weren’t home, and we weren’t together. Just about every patient in pre-op had their TVs on watching the weather, and I just had this terrible feeling in my stomach all morning. It brought back really bad memories from last year. At one point, someone told me that a tornado touched down about a mile or two from our house, and that was enough to send me nearly into a panic. Travis ended up leaving work early just to go home and check on everything. He wasn’t able to concentrate on work anyway. I think I’ll always view tornadoes differently after last year, but I’m hoping with time they won’t just make me completely panic like on Friday. I felt like I couldn’t even focus on what I needed to do at work because I was so worried. Luckily, we had no damage this time, and no one we know was hurt or had any damage at their house either. That’s something to be thankful for!

Mom is going to be finishing radiation sooner than she originally thought. They are cutting back on the number of treatments because she is having SO much itching and soreness. Her last treatment is next Thursday, the 15th. Hang in there, Mom! You can do it! :)

It’s crazy that March is here, and spring is pretty much here as well. Daylight Savings Time is Sunday, which means it will be staying light longer at night! Hooray for that! I’m looking forward to warmer weather, running in shorts and a T-shirt, pretty flowers blooming in our yard, Fripp Island (which will be here before too long!), and lots of sunshine. Springtime makes me smile!!!