Here's a little inside to the craziness that lives inside my head. It's the weekend and I have made an appointment with my trainer at the gym for Monday morning. We had just gotten rid of two lawnmowers which left a nice big, fairly clean area on the patio. So I decide that Jim and I should go to Home Depot and get some bolts for my new punching bag stand. I have every intention to set it up on the back patio. We head off to Home Depot and get the bolts and come home. Then I take another look at the patio and decide that it needs to be cleaned up some more before I set up the bag. I have to have room to move around to hit the bag right?! Well Jim grabs a broom and his gloves and is going to help me clean the patio. Well by that time I didn't want to do it. I wasn't sure where I really wanted the bag. Okay, project one, abandoned.
Then I get this wild hair to tighten the chain on the chainsaw. I drag it into the house, look at it, and go ask Jim for some assistance. I have tightened chains before, but this one looked different and I didn't want to break the saw. He got it tightened for me, and off I go. The first victim is the Camellia out front. I cut it down as far as I can. Jim takes the pieces out to the street for me. Okay what's next?!?!?! Ahh...the hibiscus tree out back. Jim HATES that tree and now it's getting in the way of things. So off I head for the back yard with chainsaw in hand.
Now I know you may be wondering what this photo has to do with me and my chainsaw experiences, but trust me it's relevant. The above photo is that of the shallow end of our pool. Those fish you see in the photo are mosquito fish put in there about, oh, four or five years ago. Yep we did the responsible thing and had the fish put in. Now when we had them put in, you couldn't hardly see them. These are the size of them now! Anyway, the hibiscus tree is right next to the pool. Hence the reason Jim hates the tree. However, we haven't swam in the pool for years!! It was time now to go and start hacking away at the tree.
Now this is the tree after I hacked on it for a few minutes. You notice that the limbs are hanging over our neighbors yard. That wooden shed looking thing is his bird aviary, where he sells birds. I had to be real careful not to let the limbs drag or fall on the roof. That would be disastrous!! But I got it done. It was past lunch and I was ready to stop for awhile anyways. We headed out and grabbed something to eat at McDonald's. I know, how is that food good for me. Well I did get a fruit salad, a grilled snack wrap, and some chicken tenders. Shadow got most of the tortilla on the wrap, a bite of every chicken tender, and a little bit of apple. So I actually only ate my one cup. But I realize that I just made an excuse for eating poorly. Anyway we got back home, ate, and I went back to take the limbs out to the street for Wednesday's pickup.
Here is the pile that I ended up with. Jim was surprised that I was able to get all of that out to the street. I had only worked on it for a couple of hours, with cutting and then dragging and carrying it out front. It really wasn't that bad. Of course until I really felt it on Monday!!
So here are the plans for the up and coming weeks ahead. This area is hopefully to be done by Father's Day. What I mean by done is cut down and all the limbs out to the street. This is going to be a job within its self.
This is the next weeks project. This section is not going to be fun. There is a small area between the fence and the pool. Not much room to be moving around. Not to mention that there is a huge holly tree in that mess and I think a rose bush too. Ouch. As you can see there are grape vines running through it all. This is going to be the week of major calories, water, and probably brain cells lost!!
Then this is the week after that. Which will hopefully take me to the 4th of July, so we can enjoy being outside. We will see though. This section has bamboo that has been left to run ramped for many many years.
Now all of this came about because I decided to go back to the trainer at the gym. So what possess me to kill myself before the trainer? That I'm not sure I can answer. The only thing that I can tell you is that I felt fantastic that I was able to do this, and felt even better when I saw Zach on Monday. I am still dealing with food issues and eating right. But at least for this time, I'm getting back on the wagon and getting my exercise in. Not to mention the pride and self confidence I'm building by being able to say that "I did this!!!"
I got up this morning and decided that it was time to do some more yard work. It was a fantastic morning. There was a nice breeze blowing, and it was nice and cool in the shade. So I drug out the lawnmower and headed to it. The lawn only took me about half an hour to mow, and since I had more energy I headed out to the back yard. This is what I did with the other half hour this morning. Not bad eh?!