Back to Where we Started

This weekend we are travelling back in time, to the land of our former home. It will be a short and sweet visit, as all others (until Matt actually gets vacation time next year) from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Saturday we are heading to Elmira and to a park festival (with fireworks! One of my FAVORITE things). Sunday is church in the morning then heading to Little Meadows. Gotta split up grandparent time equally, after all! Corynn is anxiously awaiting the visit because she tells me often how she thinks she should see everyone much more. I only hope this weekend doesn't result in an "I'm staying HERE" breakdown. That would be BAD.

I spent yesterday afternoon thinking of my endless possibilites for the house. I drew up some plans for our vegetable garden and my herb and flower garden, something I have been meaning to do for quite some time. I spent so much time on my patio set, in fact, engulfed in my own planning, that I got sunburned! I am envisioning sheep and goats in the next year or two. We will be cutting down all those chokeberry bushes and replacing them with BLUEBERRY bushes, and planting apple trees (hopefully toward the end of summer?). I would also like to plant some lilac bushes near the entrance of our driveway. Several years ago, Matt built a pergola over the garage for a family from our church and did such a nice job, I think I might get him to make me one too. I took a picture of it after he did it, I will try and scrounge it up. I think that might be JUST the thing to dress up the garage side of the house. I will probably plant clematis to climb on it. These plans are all just that-PLANS. They won't actually take place for a while and I need to remind myself of that. Sometimes I get so GUNG-HO and impatient!

For now I need to focus on creating supports for the gardens. I will be getting some rain barrels to help with the watering of my gardens and I am going to be working on making a large composting bin. With the soil so terrible that we need to bring in our own dirt, we will be needing some SERIOUS help if I want my gardens to thrive. That is where little bunny FooFoo comes in, the composter, and eventually our sheep. Lots of fun stuff to think about...now if only the bossman would haul in the dirt!

On a different subject, I am almost embarrassed at the great spoilage Matt showed me for my birthday. The start was rocky but the finish was a grand finale. I think that Renaissance readers will benefit also from one of the gifts, the results of which are posted below. Drawn out garden plans and of course, pictures from the drawing machine at Chuckie Cheese. While silly machines and video games were greedily eating away at other peoples' tokens, I was tossing my precious treasures into this drawing machine. All tokens were .25 and I used nearly a handful. HOW, may I ask, could I pass that UP?!?! Seriously though, when we installed our computer, our old scanner did not work and so I had no way to scan the pictures I take with my Canon. That made me more than a bit sad. I can see how a scanner/copier would be an asset for homeschoolers too. But, while a simple scanner would have worked, NO-mi esposo went above and beyond the call of duty and got me a whole PHOTO CENTER. I am like my own Eckerds!

So that's the scoop. (BTW~I started having operator trouble with the vegetable garden plans so you will only be able to see the herb and flower garden. If I can figure it out, I will post the veggie's too!)