Let the Music Play

He tried pretending

A dance is just a dance

But I see

He's dancing his way back to me

He's dancing his way back to me

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, here's a recap of my weekend.


Emi's soccer team went undefeated this season so they participated in a soccer tournament this past weekend. Her team won their game on Saturday (No pics because I forgot the camera!) and that meant we had at least one more game on Sunday. After her game, we met my friend Stina and her kids at the house and the kids went swimming for a while while we adults relaxed in the yard before heading out to the Norman Music Festival.

We ran into Sharmin at the Jack Daniels stage where a cool band was playing their version of "Me and Mrs. Jones".

RDO* Recap

These are my neighbors' trees. See how they are trying to get into my pool? They are really bugging me because they like to leave little gifts.

I have to stand on the pool house to trim the non-mulberry tree.

I don't think that any of the trees were planted on purpose but they sure are hardy and most years the electric company has to come out to trim them because they grow into the electrical lines. I'm thinking the owners should be responsible for their trees, but what do I know, right?

MULBERRIES!

They stain the rocks and concrete...and are a pain to clean up after...

I was going to trim the branches hanging over onto my property before the berries started dropping but the berries beat me! ;.( Me and the girls collected several handfuls tonight and fed them to the chickens so it hasn't been a total waste. I am curious to see how the berries affect the eggs...stay tuned.

I really, really want to get the neighbors' trees out of my yard for good (I have other things I'd rather do with my free time) so that I can plant some trees of my own in my own yard. I am in love with the look of espaliered fruit trees. And I so want to try to get my hands on a 6-in-1 espaliered apple tree to grow flat against my fence.  I am thinking of trying to espalier a tree or two on my own, but I'd really like to get a more mature apple tree so we can enjoy the fruit sooner. And how cool would it be to be able to run to the fence line as a kid and select an apple from 6 different varieties on a single tree?

But my immediate goals are to finish up the big clean up chores around the yard that involve a chainsaw or sump pump or a flamethrower, then I can see about planting that dwarf orchard (say that 3x fast). I can totally picture a dwarf orchard in my back drive area next to the gate (hippie entrance). With purple clematis growing up the fence...

So, anyway, back to the title of my post... my RDO didn't go exactly as I planned but I still got a lot accomplished. So what did I do, you ask?

Let's see, I:

• moved the bags of soil that my sweet husband brought home to me (thank you, baby!) close to the garden and weeded the garden.
• deadheaded roses and trimmed the tulips down to the ground
• moved mulch from the tulip border area to the back beds (letting the lawn grow back in again (I know, I am fickle about my front lawn but I am serious about not messing with that border any more this time!)
• watered my potted plants and seeds and garden bed
• attacked the jungle that is the dog yard/patio (I had totally forgotten about my asparagus bed and now it's too late to harvest!)
• began trimming neighbors random plants/vines growing through the alley fencing.
• took my daughters on a quick grocery trip.
• took my girls on another quick trip to the mall for bras/bathing suit for my big girl who thinks she's a teenager already (so does everyone else! The cashier thought she was 13! Don't worry, I am always there to remind her of her real age!)

And I enjoyed some brownie bites that Emi made for her daddy (who shared them with us). My favorite way to enjoy a bite is like this:

Nutella, I love you!

I hope you had a fabulous Friday friends! And for those of you local, did you get out to the Norman Music Festival? We are going to try to catch a few shows tomorrow...

*Regular Day Off

"Lellow"



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...

#winning

Emi's team won their last game today and they are un-de-fea-ted! I was nervous because Scott said it was a big game against another undefeated team and Emi also spent the night at the Science Museum with her Girl Scout troop last night. A night at the museum! They had science classes and experiments and they had breakfast up there too, but I don't think there was much sleeping going on...and remember last time she stayed at a GS lock-in before her big game(s)?

This was our champ post-lock-in and pre-games...

Well, today we decided to go with Sweet Tea before the noon time game and it proved to be a wise choice. They won 4-0! The girls played so well! It was like they were on fire or something!

Sweet Tea is not considered a performance enhancing drug, is it?

So proud of my baby girl!