Yard Work and such

We don't really have a yard. But we do have plants on our little patio. Its sort of like a stepping stone toward becoming capable of caring for a yard someday...someday. I never understood why people raked leaves. I always look at piles of leaves, in the fall especially, and think it looks so beautiful. Why would you rake them and throw them away? Live and let live. Nature is so charming the way it is so why interfere. I thought so especially when I moved into our lovely new abode and inherited the beautiful beauganvia (I really have no idea how to spell that) growing on our patio, escalading up onto the walls and roof. The bright pink paper-like flowers shed worse than my dog-except the effects of such are much more beautiful. I have been sweeping them into the dirt that surrounds the patio since we moved here thinking, "Oh, that's so lovely. A bed of bright pink completes this serene scene quite nicely." So yesterday, while Adam and I were enjoying that serenity eating breakfast-my new favorite hobby-we literally almost suffocated. We had been gone for two weeks and returned to this awful, thick musty smell outside. Had it rained and ruined the couch? Did Duane do something terrible out there? Epiphany. This is why we rake leaves folks-and throw them away, I might add. I get it now. Otherwise, pretty though they are, they smell of death. I was beginning to think that something had actually died out there. Duh. The leaves had died. Sometimes my head is so thick. So alas. The leaves must be raked.

What else? Oh yes. I am in constant pain all the time now for some random unknown reason. I feel like I'm ninety. It started last Tuesday after I went to Lagoon-against my husband's advice. Ever since then I have had this constant wrenching pain in my low left back. I have self diagnosed it as sciatica and Dr. WebMD says it should just go away within two weeks to four months. Awesome. I love phantom pain that appears for no apparent reason which I am supposed to just wait out. Unfortunately I didn't snag any of Matt's powerful painkillers before I left. Fortunately though I didn't take all of my percoset from when I had Eli. That's how bad it hurts. It barely takes the edge off. But the part that makes me the most angry is that I can't run. I can barely walk. So if I run the marathon in October I will be even less ready than I was planning to be. I didn't want to train very much anyway because its too hard to do long runs while I am nursing and I don't like leaving Eli that long. Anyway my back hurts all the time and I am really not happy about having this kind of intense pain when I did nothing cool to incur it.

Everything else is great though. We have a few more weeks before Adam starts school. And it looks like I am probably going to start working from home next week. I spoke with my prospective "boss?" ( I hate that word.) and I think we are going to meet on Monday to discuss terms. But right now we are just getting everything set and enjoying the heat and our once again functioning air conditioning. Everyone pray that it keeps working.