A few hours later

Well, we have partial WIKTORY over the lavender behemoth.

It is pruned, if somewhat inelegantly.



Which only leaves the problem of what to do with the pruned bits which have somehow expanded to take up about five times more space than they did on the bushes.....



I could fill up my green waste bin about six weeks in a row with this little lot. Hmm, wonder if I know anyone with a mulcher.....then there'll only be the fun of getting out of my backyard thanks to the design genius who designed a backyard with no entrance except for THROUGH THE FRAKKING HOUSE!

And now I must go shower to stop as much of the itching as possible. As well as being allergic to mould there's some nasty sticky weed thing with little burrs in my grass that scratches you to let the mould in even better. We hates it, stupid weedses.

PS. Trust me, this counts as exercise for the day.

Confessionals

2009 has been a year of feeling like there are too many balls in the air and not many of them staying up there very long.

Writing has been up and down but seems to be smoothing out again (knock wood, cross fingers). Crafting has been mostly up which is good but kind of added another ball to the mix.

Exercise has been a downhill slide all year. I did pretty well until about April then got sick but was still managing pilates and Nia mostly (and got sick again on my holiday in August when I was going to reboot everything). Then I changed my work days so my group pilates day didn't work any more and my Nia class got cancelled so the last few months have been very sporadic on the exercise front. My pants do not thank me for this, so we're starting operation reverse the trend this weekend. Yes, it's hot but I have an elliptical and an air conditioner, so I'm going to start again with baby steps (sigh, I wish I could find the way to keep my mental exercise switch on!).

Last night I went to dinner at a friend's and we ate outside in their little backyard under the trees and it was lovely. And I came home and looked at my own little backyard which is currently a wilderness of long grass, overgrown flowerbeds and a giant lavender bush (the lavender has thrived at least) that is attempting to eat my clothes line and decided it was time to do something about that too. Last summer it was too damn hot to garden and it's hot this weekend too but I'm going to at least do a bit in the cooler parts of the days so I can then get a little man to come in and slash/mow the grass and clean my gutters. I don't have the money to do what I really want to do with the space right now but I figure I can at least reclaim it so I can have an umbrella and sit outside now and then. Plus, gardening burns calories! The orange cat won't be happy to lose his "I'm a tiger" long grass to stalk through but bad luck. So to keep me on the straight and narrow, I shall report back on progress on both goals

PS Not kidding about the lavender bush....



I keep expecting it to start saying "Feed me, Seymour...." but I have secateurs and am prepared to use them!