I was sitting around Friday evening thinking, “Gatehouse Networks, you will RUE THE DAY you decided to stop delivering Fresh, Crispy (New and Improved!) Internet to my house. Usually, when our internet goes out, I just connect to the neighbors and use THEIR internet (oh how I love wireless stuff). However, the internet was out forever.

But that’s when my neighbor who’s internet I was going to steal without even asking first knocked on my door and saved me from an evening of boredom and subconscious rankledness at World of Warcraft for grabbing my husband, dragging him down the stairs bodily and keeping him from me.

So I went to my neighbor Selena’s and hung out with her and Angie and Selena’s friend Jerry, drinking our body weight in margarita’s. Oh my god. I love margaritas. Selena and Angie had run out, so I popped back to my place to grab MY bottle, and Angie, I love you because without you, I would never have realized the goodness, that is the margarita. I think the salt on the glass always put me off them whenever I tried them before. Just ditch the salt people, they’re good w/ no salt.

So there was drunken poker at Selena’s house yesterday. And rototiller renting as well. As soon as I rented that rototiller, the gods looked down from the heavens, saw me witha rototiller and the intent in my heart to till something, smirked, and started raining. Those rototillering gods, they suck. James ended up doing all the tilling, because I’m just a tiny little woman who can’t manage those sorts of machines, you know, the sort that take off with you in tow, bouncing over the compacted sod without making a dent while you cling desparately because a lone rototiller bouncing over a neighborhood in the suburbs would surely make the homeowner’s association frown. So James, my hero, tilled. there are many many rocks in our clay earth. And the earth is pretty much all clay. Lots of water retention. I had read up on what sort of additives to … well, add to the soil, and so there were many bags of perlite and humus waiting to be added, you know, in that additive way, to the soil. So after James had cussed out the grass and the rocks and the clay, I trudged out there and froze my ass off picking up rocks and pieces of sod and tossing them under our deck. then I spread down some perlite, humus, and the miracle grow garden soil I had intended to put in the front, but changed my mind, and James tilled that all in as well.

It’s still not a pretty site. I think we’re just basically going to have to build a bed UP, because it’s only like the top 3-4 inches that are improved.

Oh, and did I tell you I made a compost bin?

I made a compost bin. It was very easy. I did it last weekend, after I found a multitude of gardening blogs that are guarenteed to suck my time away from me and found an article on urban composting. I’m not that urban, but it’s not like I have room for a compost heap, so a bin it is! I’m having a hard time finding the “greens” that are supposed to go in on top of the browns. I keep forgetting to take stuff out there that can go, like egg shells. James however, cut his hair and dutifully swept up all the clippings and carried out to the bin and dumped it in. My contributions have been the rough inedible parts of the 3 pineapples I’ve carved up in the last 2 weeks. I love me some pineapple. Oh, and 2.. count em, TWO tea bags. I’m sure that will make the difference between compost and just a bin full of kitchen and garden junk.

Oh, in all the excursions to the bin and to the tilled sites, I have to tread carefully, because our dog is put on a chain out there and so the area is literally, scattered with shit. So you have to carefully step your way around, and you have to keep your eyes on the ground…. which was how I managed to catch site of some MULTICOLORED DOG SHIT.

That’s right. it was blue, and vibrant pink, and neon green… because our dog eats EVERYTHING it can, including PLAYDOH. Obviously, it’s non-toxic, and it came through just fine, because there it lal was, in a big turd of many colors. Joseph would have been proud. (You know, the one with the coat. the coat of many colors? Didn’t you go to sunday school, sheesh! Ok, I’ll put it in terms you can better understand, Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat! THAT GUY! HE would have been proud of the technicolor poop… “Oh, it’s red and yellow and ..” ok i’ll stop now. too much drama club for me in highschool, evidently.)

I’m a little happy on margarita goodness right now, because I went out and purchased some fun STRAWBERRY flavored kind and have been administering it to myself liberally all evening. I should get going to bed though, but tomorrow, I promise, PICTURES. Pictures of the multicolored poop, because YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO SEE IT, even though if someone asked, you will wrinkle your nose in disdain, pictures of the rototilling, pictures of the compost bin, AND pictures of the 2 new flats of flowers I planted, which are putting in an appearance. Also, pictures of my NEW herbs, because, that’s right, I killed the last ones because I forgot about them and they died of boredom. I mean thirst. The new set is coming along nicely, probably someone warned them that rationing of the water is a must in this household.

– amy put the bop in the bippity boopety bop!