Day 171: Getting Things Done !

 

Today is day 171 of Nutrisystem 2.0 and since it's Saturday I was able to sleep in until almost 9 am ! Got up to some much needed rain ! I love listening to the rain. It moved out before 11 am and I took a walk to the post office to grab my mail.

Breakfast was pancakes with sugar free syrup and a yogurt. Lunch was the remains of last nights General Tso's chicken. I discovered that most of the "sauce" was in the bottom of the container, but I still won't ever go to that place again. Afternoon snack was cottage cheese & the last 2 oatmeal cookies. I am no longer going to spend $6.50 for 8 cookies. Going forward I will have fruit with my cottage cheese. Dinner was green beans and a meatloaf sandwich. Evening snack was a lemon zest cake. Much later I had some wheat thins & peanut butter.

Since the 4th of July is only a week or so away I put my decorations out on the front porch today. They're jars with red, white and blue pom poms, hats and stars on picks. They look really cute ! The jar and pom poms are from last year and I bought the stars and hats at Christmas Tree Shops a few months ago. 

Last time I mowed the lawn I noticed that there is a ton of wild strawberries growing in my yard ! I have no idea where they came from, as I've never seen them before. I haven't mowed the lawn myself for a few years so I never noticed. I suppose they are good food for the birds ! I don't know if other animals eat them, but there is plenty ! I also found a dead mole in the yard a couple weeks ago. It's possible the stray cats did that and I did notice a hole in the yard that was likely from a mole. Good riddance to him/her ! I read online that they are solitary creatures, so I don't know if there any any more around. The nice thing about having the stray cats around is they likely help keep rodents in check ! I've always enjoyed looking out into the yard after it's mowed, but now that I do the job myself it feels much more satisfying. I don't regret spending $700 for the mower and weed trimmer because they'll pay for themselves in a year or two and it's good exercise for me. Next year I'd really like to have some professional landscaping done to increase the curb appeal of my home. I'd like to design something around the rhododendron, as removing that is not an option. Although the woman I bought the house from has passed away, I feel like she would be happy to see it remain. The daffodils, peonies, tulips and hosta's she planted are all gone. All that was ripped out after I hired someone to remove the fence, clear the brush and grade the yard in 2018 when I moved back in after the fire. I do like peonies but I'm interested in having honeysuckle, jasmine, roses and hydrangeas, along with some greenery. I might also rip out all the existing lilacs and plant something new.

This afternoon I decided to address all the tools and other junk out in the garage, so I posted it all for free in a local Facebook group. Within an hour I had someone here hauling away the smoker, the 3 boxes of wood chips, the smoker cookbook and the majority of the tools ! Somebody else came later and took the rest of the tools and the tool boxes ! Someone is coming tomorrow to take away the old lawn mower, grill, dryer, snow blower, car rim and other assorted metal. Someone also wants the solar cover and the winter cover from the pool. I hauled the solar cover out to the driveway so that it can air out a little and be ready for the person that wants it. They will need to scrub it but there is nothing wrong with it. The other cover is brand new and still in the package, so I put that out there too. If I end up stuck with the covers I will have my siding guy haul away the solar cover and the other one can go right in my trash. The garage will be in great shape for the demo of the workshop and I will still have a lot of storage space, now that all the junk is gone ! I am simply amazed by how much I got done today in such a short time ! It just goes to show me that I can do anything I put my mind to. I have a full bag of trash but it's too heavy for me to lift, so I'm going to break it down to 2 bags. I still have the cat tree out there but I think I'm going to hang onto that and maybe put it outside for the stray cats after my siding is done. If I don't do that, I will just break it down and throw it away in pieces. I've noticed that the garage smells really musty and I suspect part of that is because of the rotting wood in the workshop. I think once the siding is done the garage will be more watertight and less likely to smell musty. I have some old stinky cardboard out there too, but I plan to put that out with the trash this week.