Productivity...

Is an incredibe thing.

The amount of things I actually accomplished this weekend amazed even me. I honestly didn't start out to do much...but, much I did do.

It started rather innocently after yard sale-ing on Saturday with the idea of raking the yard. I haven't been that motivated to do this...for quite some time I realized, as I started in (trying to find the soil under the leaves and pine needles)

My front yard has the most amazing flowerbeds all over, and there were quite a few...um, rather dead and dried up flowers from last year...well, one thing led to another, and I decided to start on the side parts of the yard as well. My little bit of heaven here has a lot of nice trees and plants...and I guess I did not rake last year's pine needles? So...in the spirit of creating my defensible space (for fire season) rake I did.

For Four hours
with nary a break...

...and I still have quite a bit to do. I stopped after 6 large yard bags and my garbage can full...And yes, those piles you see are still there waiting for me to bag them up...as well as 3 more you can't see, and I only did one half of one of the side yards and the entire front.

So, I was a bit sore and tired, but enjoyed myself quite a bit, as I was outside in the beautiful spring weather...uncovering little new plants and flowers, making me quite excited about the upcoming season of planting.

As you can see, I have these wonderful bushes that bloom the most beautiful yellow flowers. They are kind of native to this part of town, they don't smell...but they are lovely! I also am anticipating my yellow Victorian roses, which grow under the pine trees, and I believe were probably taken from cuttings from another part of town...not to mention all the bulbs that pop up, most of which I did not plant. I was at one time really into gardening and planting...but when I moved to this house, I was married still and trying to hold that all together, and just let that part of my life slide quite a bit.

And now, just the thought of doing something about this now is making me quite happy. It takes a lot of time and money though...and I'm not sure if my budget will support it this year, but maybe that will be good, so I can really plan it out rather than doing sporadic planting. With the drought we are experiencing, this needs to be planned out more than I'm used to.

I also unpacked my Easter things and re-did the mantle...although I'm not too happy with the composition...but it will do for now.

I made this little spring time banner for the front of it as well...a little more pastel-ish than the one I made last year for parties, and just perfect for this mantle project. I happened to save some fabric squares from a pile of sample books I bought at last summers sales (for .25 cents...and why I didn't buy all of them? who knows...I think we always get cheap at the wrong times) and sewed the little triangles onto some lavender rick-rack.

I also decided to make this little springtime flag for the outside of the house as well. I love the colors...and especially love that you can certainly see why I'm trying to save money to paint the house this summer as well. Yes...that's quite a bit of peeling paint there in the background.

I also enjoyed no less than 2 afternoon/evening meals outside on the patio...loving every minute of the changing weather (but still a little nervous that we're going to set records for heat tomorrow)

I bought a pile of fabric (which we will not be discussing the monetary value of...just to say that I am now drooling quite a bit, but I will show you that later) and whipped up a dress for Dina on Sunday as well (maybe in celebration of her posting again?!) And got to play quite a bit as well...

Like I said, it was productive. More productive than I've been in quite a while as a matter of fact.

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend...