i just wanted to get back to where you are

Second to last day of freedom - but is it freedom if you don't leave your house? I'm going to say it is. I spent the whole day hanging out at home; I didn't write, but I did spend several hours taking care of v. necessary tasks in my backyard. My trees were shooting up suckers, and I'm in a doomed war with the tree of heaven that is coming up on the other side of my fence (but may, in fact, be on my property - I can't tell, as it's coming up between my fence and the neighbor's fence). So I cleaned up my backyard, cut down all suckers, trimmed some tree areas that were starting to grow into the path to my garage, and weeded my rocky areas.

Then I did some illicit cutting on the tree of heaven from my side of the fence; I can't get rid of the whole thing, but I did clean up what I could. It was quite gratifying, even if it will now send out runners to take over my whole yard (which is already happening), and even if the foliage really stinks when you cut it.

I also tested out my new grill - I am still missing a knob for it and I kind of doubt that Lowes will actually figure it out, but we'll see. However, it lit up immediately, and I did the suggested twenty-minute preburn; it appears that everything is working as intended, so I'm looking forward to experimenting with it.

I had to take semi-frequent breaks while doing this since it was approx 95 degrees, but I filled my entire compost cart and my backyard looks great. I want to plant my pansies tomorrow, but for today I was satisfied. Then I took a quick nap and a shower before joining a call with Jen, Joann, and Jane (the friendship renewal group). We talked for almost two and a half hours - they'd caught up a couple of times more recently, but since I was in Iowa and on vacation, I was six weeks behind on news. It was great to talk to them, and it made me nostalgic for when it was possible to renew our friendship in person.

Then I was pretty lazy the rest of the night - I did some planning and some journaling, then sat around and read twitter, and then attempted to plan out my meals for the week so that I know what to get at the farmer's market tomorrow. And now I need to go to bed - goodnight!