Wow, long week, eh? I’ve not written in the journal. The semester ended, we had a lot of meetings, I caught up on gardening, etc. Later this afternoon J and Mell arrive from Chicago. The house is almost clean. The laundry needs folding, I should clean off the back deck in anticipation of the raising of the gazebo, and M’s out working in the garden. After that I think we’re done. Oh, I have to hang two prints. Then I’m done. The second “Blinking Lights” is playing, and except for a brief interlude when I had to keep Nathaniel from trying to fill up the watering can in our bathroom (for some reason, by the way, the watering can was half-filled with sawdust) I’m feeling calm for the first time in a couple days.

Yesterday was decent but cold, fifty or so and windy as hell. The yard work I had planned on completing didn’t get done. I cleaned the house instead while M observed student teachers. The Wii returned after a week of disappearance thanks to small children fighting over who got to be which character on Super Smash Brothers. After school T and I saw “Prince Caspian”. N had baseball and S was at a friend’s so he and I took the opportunity to see a movie for which his brothers are too young. I thought the movie was great but way too intense for little kids. T and I bond over films like “Prince Caspian.” He likes the broad, sweeping epics. I think he also likes doing “older kid” things with me. We both gorged ourselves on popcorn and diet pepsi. T’s a good kid. He should get what he wants sometimes.

After the movie we picked up the SOTL poster from the framers (slight scratch, was it there when I brought it in?) and drove home. I cut the grass quickly before sundown, took a bath with Outlander, and channel surfed until downing some melatonin and falling asleep near midnight. I slept badly. Not sure why.

This morning T and I finished the deck planters and flower boxes. We also hit the local plant place and picked up basil, peppers, tomatoes, sage, watermelon, cucumbers and some others I can’t remember. Once we got the boxes/planters done we turned over the garden to M. Half the neighborhood was over, including the shrieking neighbor children. M finally told them to play something different when one of the girls got bitchy. Oh, and S and N fought over Wii again so I relieved them of the video game privilege again. I swear, sometimes I wish we had never bought that machine.

I need a mellow weekend. I’m in a good place. I just need a mellow weekend.

More pictures in a minute.