The Gift That Will Keep On Giving? (I hope.)

I knew we weren't going to be home for most of Mother's day, yesterday (Sunday). So I decided Saturday would be my day to do some Mother's day things for Anna.

I took the boys to karate class, and went to Sam's Club afterward. Those are things I would have done anyway, but on the way home, it was lunch time, so I picked up some lunch for Anna from Carl's Jr.

We needed more rice milk for the boys, so Anna sent me to Trader Joe's to get some more (they have the least expensive rice milk). I invited Jennan to go with me, and she came along. Before we went to Trader Joe's, I stopped off at the Home Depot. Since we've lived in this house, we've always said we'd like to put a garden in on the west side of our backyard, but 4 years (this month) later, still no garden. So I decided I was going to get the wood I needed to build a couple of garden boxes for Anna for Mother's day.

I bought four, 10 foot long, 2x12s. I had them cut the wood in half, and I had enough for two, 5ft. x 5ft. boxes. I would be using the dirt from the slope in the backyard to fill the boxes, which would get us a little closer to putting up a retaining wall, which is another thing we've talked about doing the past few years. I also picked up a couple of bags of manure to till into the dirt, once the dirt was in the boxes.

Then we went to Trader Joe's to get the rice milk, and pick up some flowers for our moms.

Jennan and I came home, and brought in the rice milk. I told Anna her mother's day present was in the van, and she followed me out. She saw all the wood, and said something like, What's this for? (in more of a happy/excited tone than a questioning tone) I told her it was to build garden boxes, and she was very excited!

I figured I would build them sometime in the next week or two, but Anna said, "Can we put them together today?!" "Um... yeah, I guess we can." is pretty much what I said in return. Anna held the wood in place, and I drilled and screwed. (That's a pretty naughty sentence.)

We put some of that weed blocking fabric under the boxes, and some paving stones between the two boxes, just to make it look a little nicer. We put a little gravel on the seam of the two fabric pieces to keep anything from growing between them.


Here's what they look like.

They're ready for dirt!

After we got the boxes this far, it was time for me to make dinner. Anna wanted something with chicken, so that's what I made. I grilled some chicken breasts that were seasoned with seasoning salt, cut up a couple of navel oranges, heated up some veggies, and it was time to eat. Anna couldn't believe that all I put on the chicken was seasoning salt, because she thought it was so good. I was just glad she was enjoying her mother's day dinner.

After dinner, Anna talked me into doing some of the digging for the boxes. She said she would help. The sun was going down fast, so we were only out there for about 20 minutes or so. Luckily, it was too dark to continue... my arms were already fried from swinging the pick-ax, and shoveling. It was only enough to scratch the surface of what we need, in terms of dirt in the boxes, but it was a start. ( I don't have any pictures of our start yet.)

Oh yeah, I did pick up a few packs of seeds: zucchini, cantaloupe, and pumpkin.

I also grabbed a bouquet of flowers for Anna from Trader Joe's.

Aaaaawwwe... blech.