What a weekend!

Let's see; gardening, shopping, playing at the park, and getting locked out of the house, yes it was quite a weekend.

GARDENING is a new thing for me. To say that I am not much of a gardener would be a severe understatement. Every time in my life that I have tried to take care of a plant it has ended badly for the plant. I either have no idea how much to water it and end up drowning or starving it to death (enter my new tool the handy dandy water meter) or I get busy with other projects and totally forget the plant exists until it is no longer a plant and just a bunch of dried up leaves. Now that we own a house (and my kids begged me to plant some flowers "like Nana") I have decided to try my hand at this. First stop the library to find out what types of plants do best in my area, followed by which need the least amount of upkeep, and since I plan to start in our back yard which is mostly shady I needed to find out which plants are best suited to shade or light sun. Then off to Wal-Mart and Lowe's we go to get some tools and plants (this is where the SHOPPING part of the weekend comes in). Get home Friday afternoon and start digging a hole to plant my new Dwarf Gardenia plant and fairly quickly I discover that where I want to plant is already home to several large tree roots from the large shade tree 6 feet away (who thought tree roots would be so close to the surface this far away from the tree, certainly not me) so after digging a 3 inch deep hole and being blocked by roots to large to pull out I decide this is not going to work. Then I get the brilliant idea to just pot the plants and set them in the spot I had chosen. Okay, tomorrow, more SHOPPING.

So Saturday morning we head back to Wal-Mart and get the pots. It is such a nice day we stop on our way home at the PARK and play for a bit. But, alas, the fun ends when the ice cream truck shows up and the girls start whining for ice cream and I have to explain to them that the ice cream man won't take debit cards and that is all I have on me. Then I remember that we have popsicles in the freezer at home and figure this will keep them busy while I start potting the plants so we head home. Two popsicles later I have only potted like half a plant and they are already begging to "help" so I let them "help" (and I use the word help very loosely) me plant the flowers we got and then they swing for a while. Now somewhere in here between them running in the house to wash their hands, let the dog in/out, changing into flip-flops, and going potty the door gets locked and closed but I'll get to that later. About halfway through the potting of the plants they start playing first with their watering cans full of water, then a bucket full of water, then the mud made from the bucket full of water and I realise that it is probably a little too cool for them to be playing in the water but I let them anyway because I figure all kids should get to play in the mud when they really shouldn't once in a while. Okay, who am I kidding, I let them play in the mud and water so they will leave me alone so I can finish this gosh darn potting before my back completely gives out! Finally I am finished. I still need to clean up the mess we have made but they are starting to complain they are cold now (I wonder why) so I hose off their feet and hands and we head in. Or not. We are LOCKED OUT!

At this point I curse a string of profanity that my sailor husband would be proud of, and no 5 year old should really hear and beat my head against the door hoping it will magically pop open. When it doesn't I try to "bump" it open like they showed the criminals do on the evening news the other night but no luck. Of course I haven't got a spare anywhere, my cell phone is in my purse (in the house) and my husband is out to sea for a month. It is truly one of those "Calgon, take me away" moments. So we head over to the neighbors to beg the use of a phone to call a locksmith, and she couldn't be nicer but I feel like such a loser. Luckily the locksmith says he can be over in a half hour so we head back and clean up our tools and sweep up the potting soil mess. Well I should say I clean up the mess while my darling daughters huddle up in the sleeping bags I drag out of the garage for them because they are "freezing". Some days it just doesn't pay to try and be productive.