a productive weekend, I must say.

we've been puttering around the house all weekend, and it's been seriously lovely. the weather cooperated and provided a most agreeable climate in which to tackle our yard, which needs heaps and heaps of TLC. margaret ann turns 9 months old on tuesday and she's doing new things every day, which is thrilling, scary, and bittersweet all at once. here are a few photoz of the girl:

with grandma and momo in Hico:

hangin' out in her Amy's Ice Cream onesie with the berry paci and toasted hole 'n ohs (we're so into using out fingers right now):

"this is a local green bean, everybody":

playing the pots:

but not for very long. I'll just sit here and chew this spoon please, thanks.

we cleared all the cacti and giant creepy aloe vera from this front bed. there are still a lot of rocks to pick up, but we're making good progress. here's mikebell digging everything up - I marked the outline of the bed I want with the garden hose. fyi, somewhere in those rocks below is a little garden snake we encountered... we let him go his merry way. I'm hoping the dirt under all of the rocks and things our renters used in this flower bed is rich and good, as I used Mary Fritz' organic recipe for most of the beds years ago...

here's our yard debris from the weekend. we mowed/weed-eated the front and back yards, dug up a bunch of wild onion growing in the back, attacked the front flower bed in front of our bedroom and hauled/scooped up a lot of rocks out of both it and the front planter (and there's more to pick up!), and mikebell set up our new compost bin in the back yard. MB also performed most of the physical labor this weekend, it must be said. maggie hung out with us and did pretty well most of the time, playing in her pack 'n play and watching everything intently. see the crazy creepy aloe vera on the end?? it looked a little monstrous both in and out of the flowerbed.

I'm excited to plant more of the type of plants I enjoy. I want to go back and find photos of what I did with it when I lived here years ago, just to compare. we have more prep work to do, but it's a good start.

things that are really good:

--I made it to the Y three or four times last week. I know it seems dumb that I can't really remember how many times, but that's how things are. it was at least three, and THAT is awesome.

--as a birthday gift, we went to Luke's Locker Saturday morning and I got fitted with some Brooks tennis shoes, which are light as air and were on sale to boot.

--I got a new client last week that should be fairly steady, which is always good.

--I cut my soda and sugar consumption this past week and we ate really well, which just felt super-good.

--I'm loving Aveeno's tinted 30SPF daily moisturizer.

--this week we're doing our taxes. let's get it over with.

-m.y.