Sunday, May 1, 2011

On a gardening mission

I woke up at 7:30 am, putzed around a bit until 10 am and then the work started. First, I went to the Garden Center to get containers for the tomato plants and also tomato cages. I also wanted to get herbs and also got a couple long planters for the herbs. While there I picked up more hostas, a couple bleeding hearts, a thornless rose bush, and a cute little flower with silvery grasslike leaves (can never remember the name of it), and then the herbs - basil, lemon basil, two types of cilantro, oregano and Italian parsley. I'm so excited to get all these things in the ground!

First though, I needed to weed, weed and weed some more. I've weeded the front of the house and the side of the house last fall, but of course, the weeds are back. I have never weeded the area around the back of our house near the AC, so it was a real mess. I did that for about 3 hours? Maybe 2.5 hours. It was easy enough, just a lot to do as each of those areas are quite big and bare (no mulch).

I came in, had lunch (an apple with peanut butter), and then went back out. Now, I watered all the plants I had picked up and then started carrying them to the area I'm planning on planting them. Some I knew exactly where they would go... others I had no clue, so I moved them around a bit until I felt fairly satisfied.

In the meantime, I was also making a loaf of bread. In the morning before going out I started the sponge. After lunch I kneaded it all up and let it rise. Partway through the arranging everything through, I punched it down, shaped it and let it rise for it's final rise. That last rise is only 35-45 minutes, so during that time I was blowing bubbles with my little guy. I popped it in the oven and started dinner. I first marinated the chicken (we have a really cool and great Marivac machine), I cleaned up the asparagus, heated up the grill, started the potatoes and the cooked everything. The dinner was done the exact same time I pulled the bread out of the oven.

I ate really fast, getting up from dinner before the others were finished and started mowing. It was already 6:15 pm, so I needed to hurry to get it done before the grass started getting damp. I cam in at 8 pm, totally exhausted. I had been working in some way all day since 10 am. WIth an hour break for eating and blowing bubbles.

After relaxing a bit, I took a hot bath and came back to life. The bath was successful at washing a tick off my body (it takes them more than 24 hours to adhere usually), so it had a double bonus. Then, I climbed into bed with my iPad and was asleep shortly after 11 pm.

I tallied up how many calories I burned yesterday, and it's somewhere around 2500 calories (and that's a conservative estimate). I consumed about 1150 calories yesterday. Gardening is a great way to exercise! AND I have another full day of it today! I need to buy potting soil and mulch as well as some annuals. And then, planting, planting, planting and then mulching, mulching, mulching. My neighbor is going to let me use her wheel barrow, so I'll have to make some goodie too - either bread or some sweet thing. But that I can make tomorrow.

I'm on a mission to pretty up my yard - FINALLY! Like in our last house  - first the inside, and then the outside.

Oh, and the scale is still cooperating, though slower than I would like! Which means I lost 7 and a half pounds in April - which is right on target! Woohoo!

Stats for 5/1/11:

Beginning weight: 255.6  Now: 218.8 (just shy of 37 pounds lost)
Exercise total hours/minutes in 2011: 118 hours
Total walking/biking/running miles in 2011: 367/1000

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