All in a Row

Inspirational song: Fire Water Burn (Bloodhound Gang)

I don't want to think of Purge Week being over yet. However, I had to get mostly back to my normal routine today. Kids weren't here the last couple days, but they were back today. Mr S-P is still on his trip to help a friend do some projects at a farm two days drive from here, so I was blessed with the company of my foster daughter to help wrangle children. She was immensely handy to have around, and I am grateful she was here. We tag-teamed a lot of the baby holding and playing and whatnot. Having her playing with Val left me free when I needed to go put Dmitri down for a nap, twice. I know I will be wishing she was here tomorrow, when I am flying solo the whole time.

I started off my day working outside. I had a few plants that were struggling by still sitting in their nursery pots on the porch. One or two weren't getting sufficient water in that setup. I put up the last two coconut-lined hanging baskets along the front of the porch overhang. Both of those had petunias, so hopefully they'll trail a bit. Then I potted up some osteospermum (African daisies) in tall terracotta, three herbs (basil, rosemary, and sage) in a shallow terracotta, and a stock in a clay pot with an iguana design. I packed up all the loose plastic nursery pots into a big Rubbermaid tub that I will be hiding out of sight behind the fence once I finish all planting. There is still a lot of clutter and debris up front, but I should have a handle on that soon. I looked at my array of pots lining the stairs and thought, even with bringing a bunch of my indoor succulents out, this is way less than I had out there last year. I have maybe two or three big pots left I could fill, but I'm not in a rush. I'm going to enjoy this for a while, and see what summer brings.

Of the big things I want to get done before the Mr gets home, I think the most urgent is the dining room. It's sloppy as heck right now, and I need to tidy it enough to pull the large ficus Benjamina out of the corner and roll it onto the back stoop. Then I can rearrange the Ikea shelves so the plants that didn't get pushed up to the front porch have prime lighting and access. I'd like that to be done by noon tomorrow, but I shouldn't do that much strenuous work before solo babysitting. I'll try to pace myself.

(Professor Grabbyhands strikes again)