Rearrangements

I was fortunate to spend most of yesterday outside. First on a picnic blanket at the soccer fields watching Emi, then lunch out in the back yard, and after nap we got out in the yard to check on what's growing and blooming these days.

I saw that my Asiatic Lilies were coming back and bringing friends, but they were being encroached upon by my healthy lavender plant.

BEFORE

2 lilies have divided into 5 over the years...

So I got my spade out and tried to fix the situation.

AFTER

I may only have 4 now as I accidentally severed the smallest plant from its roots. Fingers crossed that it will come back.

I also spotted a Butterfly Ginger plant coming back to life on the other side of the lavender plant! I moved it a little further from the lavender plant so that it can have some space to grow. I'm hoping for some purple and white intoxicating blooms this summer.

Speaking of surprise finds...look what I found at Sam's:

Emi left my go-to lunch bag at school and it's long gone (I even braved searching through the lost and found) so this was definitely something on my list to replace...yay for giraffe print!

Today I got distracted inside with an astronomy project for the kids. Last month when we went camping we actually got to see many constellations while sleeping under the open sky. We were so intrigued with the stars that I bought a Night Sky deck of playing cards to learn more. I'll be honest in that most of the sky looks like the Big or Little Dipper to me, but I want more for my kids so when I found a pack of unused glow in the dark stars in Emi's room, I asked to use some for the Little Ones' sky...and Emi's too.

From the deck of cards I found the following and recreated them in the Little Ones' room:

• Orion (because David kept "spotting" the hunter while we were camping)
• Camelopardalis (The Giraffe - that one was for me!)
• Andromeda
• Cygnus (the Swan)
• Corona Borealis (the northern crown)
• Ursa Minor (the little bear)

For Emi's Night Sky I created the following:

• Cancer (her zodiac sign)
• Aquila (the eagle)
• Canis Minor (the little dog - this was just 2 stars..har!)
• Cassiopeia
• Sagitta (the arrow)
• Pegasus (the winged horse)
• Gemini (the twins - this one reminded me of the little ones)
• Cetus (the sea monster)
• Lyra (the lyre - this is where I decided to move on to other chores)

I also hung the biggest stars 'A' and 'D' and the Little Ones immediately saw their initials in their sky before naptime. Back when I had stars on my ceiling (in college) I didn't bother organizing them into constellations. Maybe that's why I can't decipher the sky these days...

So later, Scott and I tackled an unlovely chore of removing the wonderful graffiti that some sweet kids gifted us with recently.  It seems like only yesterday when this happened the last time.  This time Scott sanded the paint off the fence and I followed after with the wood sealer.

You can hardly tell that there was anything spray painted on our fence at all, right? (Right!)

I am almost embarrassed to say that this is after sanding and sealing (and moving gravel and partial weeding). This does look so much better than before but we have plans to 1) paint this section of fencing a heather gray and 2) truck in some larger sized gravel to pave the back drive better.

This section of the back drive could be a really nice area (once was, in fact) for extra parking and maybe a creekside garden but it's overgrown with weeds and vines. And this is after I filled 4 lawn bags with vines and "corn" looking stalks. It's hard to see in this picture but this walled area is not flat.

See?



This area is getting ready to be attacked by Round Up and flames before I lovingly transfer in some clematis and English Ivy and mulch (and gravel).

For now I am good with the work we got accomplished on this Earth Day and pray that the hoodlums find another place to post their messages...