School's Out

School's out, school's out teacher let the monkeys out! Isn't that the truth? I'm thrilled the kids are out of school fro the summer, but it seems like that last school year just flew! What does that say about the upcoming summer?

This is probably the first summer as a family we have most of our time planned. Vacation days are set, the girls have most of their activities set, and I have what seems like an endless list of things to do. I feel like the Sandra Boynton song "BusyBusyBusy".

We have a lot of hopes for this summer: sleeping in once in a while, time for reading, enjoying the sunshine, finding respite in a pool, working and playing in various gardens, seeing beloved family and good friends, fun and thrills at parks, seeing new and favored places, and taking time to just be happy and giggly.

Here's to school being out! Let summer begin.

Coming along...

The Children's Garden project had a pretty good week of work from me. Moved soil for about 5 hours total and I'm beginning to see it taking shape. I also had a productive meeting with a fellow gardener interested in making arbors, fence and a building for the garden. Very nice.

My youngest daughter finally got accepted into a gifted and talented program at her school, so I'm much more hopeful that she will learn more next year. This past year she was bored more than 75% of the time. So maybe I won't have to home school her this coming year. ;-)

My eldest had a wonderful band concert last night and she and her group sounded much improved--even though the last concert was in March!

I'm so proud of both of my girls! We all seem to be coming along nicely with our projects.

Surprise!

Yesterday morning, I got a surprise while working with a few of my fellow master gardeners. The surprise was the information that The Children's Garden project received a $1000 grant for plants and seeds. There was even a photo-op in the afternoon when the President of our organization received the check. I hid in the background because I was dirty, hot and sweaty from working all morning and half the afternoon.

As far as recent work on the garden, I got lucky and a fellow MG tilled most of the paths so we could start removing 3-4" of soil from the paths and relocating it to assorted beds to raise some of the beds in the plan. Once the paths are cleared. then we will add mulch to the paths and the real fun can begin of adding compost, plants and lawn. I can't wait to see some other color than dark brown with polka dot weeds!

Now, if I could just get more than nine people signed up to help with and that can work when I can...I think I need to go on a sales campaign and get the group as excited about this as I am. I'm going to think about this a lot over the next few days. Perhaps, I should break the project down and see if I can get people assigned to more specific sections after the plan is clear from the soil excavation and path mulching. For example...someone to do an Alphabet garden gets this section, someone can do the Herbs here, someone can do the Butterfly garden here, another could do the Senses garden there and so on.

It might also stop this ridiculous "Cheryl's garden" thing. Ah, NOT. I have my own at home, thank you. I have wanted other MG's to come forward with their ideas and to incorporate it into the garden all along and actually I have informally assigned a few sections already. I wanted to see other people get creative and think about how they play with their kids and what they would like to see and do in the garden. So maybe if I could get a chance to really sell it at the next meeting rather than the backhanded version of "what's going on?" I might be able to get them more involved. That's been my hope all along, and I'm still hoping.