Gardening

I am sitting on the couch with my Fred Flintstone feet propped up in front of me. As I type, D is practicing Jill. Over and over again.

I hurt. A lot.

Not because of D and his song, but because I accidentally worked out yesterday. (Which reminds me just now that I had a dream last night about jogging, and I woke rather concerned that I had exerted such energy, albeit in an unconscious state. Perhaps in my moments of drowsiness, I thought I might accidentally do something similar while awake. Who knows. Anyway... that is not why I am writing this post.)

I did accidentally work out on Sunday. See, this past weekend D and I went to St. Louis to celebrate my sister's birthday. My grandmother actually hatched the plan, convincing my mother, aunt, and uncle to join her in surprising my sister. We showed up on her doorstep on Saturday morning armed with presents, but unfortunately, no birthday cake. She seemed surprised and happy to see us. After a day of relaxing, eating LOTS of yummy food, and playing with her new puppy, Mia (not a birthday present), D and I returned home.

The weather on Sunday was gorgeous - sunny and in the 60s. As soon as we stepped foot on our lawn, I was itching to do some work outside. Long story short, I convinced David to NOT go play Frisbee with Scott and Joel (I'm such a cruel wife), but to stay with me and mow the lawn while I did some gardening in the front. I'd been anxious for weeks to get out and clean up the gardens in the front, but I'd been either A. thwarted by the weather, or B. stalled by the fear of working alone... that I would, in my preggo state, get down on hands and knees and not be able to get back up again. And I'd be stuck there until evening, when Vid returned from wherever he was. Or that I would faint in one of my low-blood-pressure-or-low-blood-sugar-no-one-really-knows-why-I-black-out moments. But man, today was the day.

See, sometime in February, one million little snowdrops sprouted in our garden. They were sort of pretty for about a week. I mean, who doesn't like to see growing things in the winter in Illinois? But the thing is... they had populated the available soil in a really odd way. One side was practically carpeted with the tiny flowers, and the other side was sparse. Some places there was just one bloom, and other places a whole big bunch grew together. And then all the tiny little blooms wilted and died in about a week... leaving us with what looked like a garden full of crab grass. And, while I like flowers a lot and feel guilty at the thought of ripping perfectly healthy growing things out of the ground, they had to go.

So that's what I did. I dug up one million billion gajillion little tiny snowdrop bulbs. I left the crocuses and the tulips alone. And our garden looks much better - much cleaner. (And now I want to go buy different flowers to add a bit of color to the front of the house. Ironic, right? A waste of money? Remember people... they looked like crab grass...) The job took about three hours. I was on my knees or my bum the entire time.

And by noon today, my body was on fire. I hurt from the waist down. Even the palms of my hands hurt (I assume from gripping the spade?) and my fingers ache.

I'd love a glass of wine. And maybe a soak in a hot tub. Alas, alack.