Garden Improvement Project

I may have spent $30 and given a whole day of my life away to feed the squirrels.

It wouldn't be the first time.

I've never been one to attempt to hide the fact that I do not have much of a green thumb. Our neighbors on all sides have beautiful lawns and shrubbery and flowerbeds. Our next door neighbors have a vegetable garden that should be featured on HGTV. He likes to come over and watch me working in my pitiful little garden. And tell me what I'm doing wrong. Maybe one of these days I'll take his advice and things will turn around for me.

I have officially taken the standpoint that it is because all of these said people are retired and have no children living at home. They have the time necessary to make a yard look nice. I have no time, and four children to make it look even worse than it already does.

But every spring I look around at all the beautiful little crocuses peeking up through the dirt and the tulips and daffodils and I get really, really jealous. I want pretty flowers in my yard in the spring too. So I can try in vain to protect them from toddlers and remote-controlled vehicles and such. Because that sounds like so much fun!

Anyway, so I went to Lowe's and made my selections. I came home with around 60-80 bulbs to hide away beneath the soil until spring rolls around. I tried to forget what happened every other time I so lovingly placed these precious little seeds of life into the ground with high hopes for winter's end.

Those stupid squirrels. Rats. I hate them. I hate them with such a vengeance that I don't mind using the word I constantly tell my children not to say. (I think we can see why they constantly say it...)

They dig up my flowers, eat the bulbs as if it were a rat buffet, and then go on their merry little annoying way.

I did my homework, and I had a couple weapons in my arsenal this time. I'm hoping maybe one of them will convince the little varmints to keep their creepy little paws off. I doused all my bulbs in baking soda, because apparently this inhibits the squirrels ability to smell them. Then I put a thick layer of cayenne pepper over the top. Surely that will deter them. I wouldn't want to dig in dirt covered in cayenne pepper.

Hopefully they won't either.

It's ten and my children are quiet. The house is clean. I have nothing to do for the rest of my wakefulness tonight but write. So I'm signing off to go work on my book.

Goodnight!

Updates.

So I've looked some more into medicinal herbs and I'm thinking I'm going to plant a few in my garden next spring. I'm going to try Feverfew, St. John's Wort, Lavender, Peppermint, Chamomile, Sassafras, Yarrow, and maybe a few more. I got the idea in Yorktown, actually - they had a post-Revolutionary farm and in one of the gardens they were growing medicinal herbs all along the edges. I'm excited to try it.

I've discovered as well that the Shred makes my hip and sciatic nerve hurt. So far I'm just pushing through it. I'm hoping it won't get any worse, because my son grabbed the camera a few times on vacation and took some lovely full-body shots of me that made me want to cry.

At least it was the reminder I needed to make myself get better about actually taking time to eat breakfast and lunch rather than just grab snacks all day until the kids are in bed. I've been making sure I sleep 7-8 hours and drink enough water as well.

Am I the only woman out there that has such an uncooperative body the year after a baby comes? I think it has to do with nursing, at least for me. It's so frustrating to eat right and exercise and still look like I frequent buffets and sit on my duff all day.

But I digress. All I can do is try harder.

How is everyone else doing with their commitments to stay healthy? Time for a weigh-in! (Pardon my pun...) Hit the comment button and let us have it.