A Greener Lawn

Isn't that what everyone wants?  A lush green lawn without weeds?  So, what do you do to get said lawn?  Call in the professionals, right?  TruGreen.  The company who put flyers on your door because your new lawn at your new house has more weeds than it does grass.  Your neighbors use their services and their lawns look lush and thick and weed free while you've spent hours of your summer hand pulling clover from the yard.  And, when that fails, you try organic options, such as vinegar, that while kills the clover also kills the grass in the process as well.

So, after months of trying and failing, you cave.  You call the number.  Or, well, your husband calls the number because you can't bring yourself to do it.  They come.  They spray pesticides and fertilizers all over your lawn where your kids and dog play.  You cringe.  You don't allow the kids outside for two+ days after every application.  You still cringe after those two days.  Your lawn grows.  Your weeds die.  A few applications later, the dream of a perfect lawn is starting to be realized right before your eyes.  You still cringe when that green truck shows up but you promise yourself that you'll stop treatments after a year.

A year goes by.  You stop all treatments and cancel service as per the plan.  Your husband talks you into just one more treatment in the Spring to kill any potential weeds.  You agree to just one.  You cringe again when the green truck arrives.  Even more so because you now have a baby in the house. You tell the TruGreen employee to only treat the front yard and skip the backyard due to the kids and vegetable garden.  You also tell said employee that they must call and get an OK from you to do any further treatments and that you do not want them to just show up and treat the lawn, which is how it usually works.  They agreed.  You go about your summer happily playing in the backyard worry free about any weed killer/pesticides.

Until today.  Until your five year old daughter walks up to you with a little watering can and says, "Hey Mommy, look at all of the little balls that I found in the driveway".  You look into the can to find about twenty little yellow balls.  You ask your daughter again where she found the balls and she tells you again, "the driveway".

You walk to the front of your house only to find your driveway completely littered with little yellow granular balls.  And then it hits you.  TruGreen was here and did a treatment.  Sure enough, you find the little sign almost hidden behind your lamp post in the front yard.   So, you freak out a bit about the thought of your daughter picking up all of those little fertilizer balls and immediately take her inside to thoroughly wash her hands.  You also ask silly but necessary questions about whether or not she tried to eat or lick the little balls.  And, you're serious because she still, at five, tends to put things in her mouth.  Thankfully, she assures you she did not.

You venture back outside to check the backyard and quickly discover the granules littering the backyard, too.  Upon further investigation, you find them throughout your vegetable garden.  You cringe again.  You find them all over the mulch around your kids' play set.  You cringe even more.  You find them all over the open sandbox and the toys surrounding it.  You start to feel sick.  You then find them in the kiddie pool filled with water.  You then go from feeling sick to feeling very angry.  You wonder how an employee of this company, knowing they are applying something that contains a weed killer, could knowingly spread it onto a vegetable garden, sandbox, toys and even into a kiddie pool that wasn't even in the yard but instead sitting on a patio.

You call your husband and yell.  A lot.  Not at him but at the situation.  He calls TruGreen.   Their services are forever canceled.  You spend several hours after the kids are in bed, spraying the little granules off of your driveway and sidewalk.  You're wearing flip flops.  You don't really think about the fact that while you're spraying the granules that the weed killer residue could be coming off of them and inadvertently spraying your feet.  You realize this scenario about halfway through the job and decide to change into sneakers.  You water your lawn, spray the garden, spray all of the kids toys and decide to throw away the kiddie pool (it had a hole in it anyway).

You come inside, take a shower and finally sit down at the computer.  You write a blog post about TruGreen and it wastes way more of your time than it should.  But it makes you feel somewhat better.  Until you think about the fact that you probably got weed killer on your feet.  And, as you're thinking about it, you realize that the skin on your right foot burns just a bit.  You cringe.  You worry about the fact that you probably have weed killer now in your system and you're still nursing your baby.  Then, you wonder if said burning is all in your head because you worry way more than you probably should about this stuff.  Then, you sign off and say goodnight, hoping that your foot is still intact in the morning and you don't poison your baby when she wakes up to eat.   




 




  

I scrapped!

A page I did last night (click for credits):

I haven't done much scrapping lately.  There just aren't enough hours in the day, I guess.   I have these grand plans to scrap all of the kids' first year baby books and here we are, four years later for the twins and no books.  I've resigned myself to the fact that it's just not going to happen.  There's no way, at this point, that I have the time to scrap every single page that I'd like to see in their books.  And, lets not forget that I actually have a third book to do as well.  Or, the one that I promised my Dad for his 60th birthday (he'll be 62 this fall).  Ugh. 

I'm great at remembering to take photographs and jotting all of the important stuff down.  I have a notebook of all of their "firsts" and funny quotes, things they've said/done.  But, that's where it begins and ends.  I did just recently purchase four 12X12 Martha Stewart albums that were on clearance at Michaels.  I've devised a new plan for the albums and they will hopefully resemble Ali Edwards' A Week In the Life albums.  I do have a lot of pages scrapped already so I'm thinking that the mix of scrapped pages along with baseball card sized photos and snippets will actually allow me to finish the albums and also take the pressure off of designing a pretty page for every photo. 

I'm all for plans that make my life easier.

Happy Father's Day

to the man that I'm lucky enough to call my Dad.  Thank you for all that you've done, all that you've been and all that you are to me. 

P.S.  Your granddaughter seems to adore you as much as I do.

Ten months old tomorrow.

Solitude

umbreLLa, originally uploaded by IrenaS.

I need a vacation. Solo. Somewhere warm and breezy. With a lounge chair in the shade. And good coffee. And a beach. And a cooler full of IPAs. And a fresh stack of magazines that I actually have the time to read. And my camera. And my iPhone with a playlist of new-to-me good music. And no schedule. Just for a couple of days. Or 24 hours? Please?

Sprinkle

I so love my herb garden (and the sweet boy under the umbrella). This is my first year planting one and I had no idea how much I was missing. I will never be without one again.

Project 365

I've fallen off of the Project 365 wagon and can't seem to get back on. How has it become so difficult to take a photo a day? A missed day here or there has turned into blocks of missed days and on a regular and consistent basis. And, this is all in addition to the fact that I can't seem to get around to editing/posting to flickr the photos that I have have taken.

**sigh**
I knew this would probably happen. I've lost my thunder. The project has lost that shiny newness. Still hoping to climb back on and figure a year of photos with a bunch of holes is better than no photos at all.

A Vintage Travel Trailer

Constance 1956 Vintage Caravan, originally uploaded by snailtrail.co.uk vw camper hire.

On my life's wish list. A vintage travel trailer to travel the country with my husband and kids. I so ♥ this one.