Mother's Day Weekending

Well, it's Monday again, which always seems to happen so quickly. But at least I can say I had a pretty relaxing weekend, and that's just what I want for Mother's Day. Aside from not having a lot of plans, it was also a pretty crummy weekend weather-wise. It rained most of the day on Saturday, and though Sunday was dry, it was pretty chilly. The house was cool enough that we turned the heat back on -- even the Mister was wearing a sweatshirt inside!

I did manage to get a walk in Saturday morning, while the sun was briefly out, and then went to get my first haircut in about a year(!). I now have at least three inches less length and all the dry, unhealthy bits at the end are gone. In the afternoon, when there was a brief break in the rain, the Mister and I went to Home Depot to pick up my Mother's Day gift: plants. We do not have a great nursery nearby like some of you do, so Home Depot is the best we could do, especially because our synagogue's preschool seems to have stopped doing their annual plant sale. We didn't buy a ton, but we got some impatiens and polka dot plants for the front borders along the grass, some more hostas and pachysandra for the back bed (which is very shady and thus not great for the garden I originally wanted there), some sedum and bugleweed to fill in some of the empty areas in the back, and a few vegetable plants for the front planter -- tomato, pepper, eggplant. I have another planter coming for the other side of the yard because we had our landscapers come and remove a tree that was growing at that corner of the house and that prevented most of the stuff I'd planted on that side from growing in years past. There's not much to see just yet, but here's how everything is looking at the moment:

This is the left (and bigger, because of the porch) side as you're looking at the front of the house; if you click to make the photo larger, you might see the impatiens and polka dot plants in the dirt just behind the grass. In front of the porch are hydrageas, and to the right of them are a boxwood that we transplanted several years back, lavender, our Japanese maple, and two arbor vitae shrubs. The smaller green things in front of the downspout are salvia from last year that happily came back.

Here is the other side of the front yard. Right by the downspout on this side (and in front of the view of our neighbors' car) is where the tree used to be. Here you can see the new plants a little better. The other greens are two more arbor vitae shrubs and hostas that I planted last year.

Finally, this is the bed in the backyard where nothing would ever grow well because it's so shady. I planted three hostas and a bunch of pachysandra here in the hopes that it will spread and fill in over time. I also split up the sedum paver with the same idea. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in a few years, all this dirt will have much more green and we'll have a little oasis in the back.

Yesterday we had brunch at my brother- and sister-in-law's house (this is my SIL who is the fabulous baker, and she's been hosting Mother's Day brunch for many years). Sadly my other sister-in-law couldn't join us, as she's been under the weather the past few days with suspected strep throat (she's going to the doctor today). But my brother and nephew were there and gave me a card that I had to open right away:

That's right -- after three nephews, I'm finally getting a niece! She's due to arrive around Thanksgiving, so you can expect to see lots of girly knits in the coming months!