Another Productive Weekend That Ends With Good Food...

There's nothing better than ending a nice busy weekend with a good meal. I'm currently cooking roast beef with a red wine reduction, parsnip puree and roast potatoes. After the productive and physically active day that I've had, I think I deserve to eat something good.

I spent the day out in the garden. Even though the day began wet and rainy, it cleared up nicely and even though it was wet, it made it easier to pull up the weeds. And I had a LOT of weeds. In the end, I pulled up as many as I could but decided a thick layer of mulch was the best way to cover up the remainders. The easy way out, I know but it looks much better. Also, carrying ten bags of mulch that easily weighed forty pounds each because they were wet was a nice physical workout.

Yesterday was busy too. Mother Monkeypants is coming down to stay next weekend. I'm quite excited by this. It's been a long time since I had a house-guest and it's doubly nice that it's my mum. She's an easy guest to have around and even when we don't actually do anything of significance, we still have a good time in each other's company.

The problem was that since I haven't had a houseguest in a while and I redid my family room, I've been using the guest room as a storage facility. As you can imagine, now that someone's actually going to sleep in there, I had to do something about it. My solution is to move it to my office for now. I've decided to actually have my own yard sale when our neighbourhood has its annual sale in August. I have a lot of junk. Much of it is stuff I've bought at garage sales over the past few years. Someone else's junk became my treasure and now, sadly, it's my junk which means...it can be someone else's treasure. I like circles like that...

I did get the room cleaned out. I also scrubbed the house so it's clean for Mother Monkeypants. Of course, since then I mulched the garden and somehow, those wood chips get everywhere so I have a feeling I'll be cleaning again before she comes down on Friday.

All in all, it's been a busy weekend but I've decided I like that way. It's fun to get stuff done because then, after I've spent the day being extremely produtive, I get to relax outside with a glass of sparkling water or a glass of wine or even a beer, depending on my mood. It's firefly season now and it's a beautiful thing to sit outside, watch the sun go down and then see the fireflies come out.

Tonight, I probably won't catch many fireflies. For one thing, "True Blood" is on HBO and another...it's kind of cloudy out there. There's a chance of storms tonight. I hope we have one just because it'll be good for my mulch but since we had one last night and I spent the entire storm, lying in bed with a dachshund trying to cram herself as physically close to me as possible because she was afraid, I won't be too disappointed if we don't have another one.

Even though the weekend is winding down, I find that I feel a sense of accomplishment because I did get some things done this weekend. The thing with being a homeowner, I've learned, is that there's ALWAYS something to do. I do have plans to start a new novel but, for now, I've decided that it's nice to get outside and enjoy the weather while it's still nice enough to be enjoyed. Soon enough, it'll get hot and humid again so I figure that will be my writing time.

Tomorrow marks another Monday but it's the day before a holiday weekend so even if Monday presents itself in true fashion, I can live with it. The bright light of a three-day weekend is enough to make even Monday bearable.

Although, as always, I hope it's a good Monday that doesn't need to be 'beared'.

Happy Monday and I hope you had great weekends too!