Let it go...

This week has been one of a bit of stress.  

Monday was busy with deliveries for the remodel and I had to go re-qualify at the Range for the year. 
Re-quals are very stressful.  You have so many seconds to shoot a silhouette target at different ranges.

Firing a Glock and a Shotgun while being timed is...well, let's just call it what it is.  A real brain drain.

So Tuesday I woke up and decided that after all that was going on, I was going to de-stress myself.  I decided to pick a project and attack it with some gusto.

So I talked with our neighbor and asked if I could dig things up around our mailboxes and see if we could have a small flower garden there.  She liked the idea.  I drove to the ridge and proceeded to spend most of the afternoon cleaning up an area and planting seeds.

I'll know in about 14 days how well the older seeds did and if the garden is a flop because of the shade, I'll get a flat of begonias which would do very well there.

I put the red mulch around the area to mark it.  Both of our husbands have just mowed through here so I wanted to make it clear that there was something besides roadside weeds around the mailboxes.

I pulled poison ivy and dug up as much wild parsnip as possible.  I showed our neighbor what the poison ivy looked like and will walk her wood trails with her to see if any is growing where the kids can get into it.  
I found this little plant in the mailbox garden and have not figured out what it is yet?

Anyone with any idea?

That is my gloved hand next to the plant.  I have seen this before but cannot for the life of me figure out where!

Anyway after working on the garden area I went back home and put my tools away.  

My old house is fading away.  It was nice though to have the basement covered now and be able to come through the old entrance.

Still feeling restless, I decided to take a small walk through the woods.  I found one trillium that was already blossoming.  

Mental note, ... I would love to hike to the 'back valley' and see the hillside of Trillium!

I stopped by the Hawthorne Tree and admired its leaves and flowers. It seems it is nearly done flowering, as the blossoms are fading.

Yesterday was another day full of activity.  
The crew came and worked on the house.  Rich and I went to town so he could get his 'annual' haircut and then I took him out for ice cream.

It was nice to get away from the sawdust and the pounding.  

After the crew left I went to sort out blocks of wood.  I had asked the contractor not to toss the chunks in the dumpster.  I'd sort through the wood and give some to my neighbor who has a wood cook stove.

I had ideas for some of the other chunks.
When I was a child we had a box of wooden blocks that my Grandmother had carefully sanded.  It was left over wood chunks that had come from her house when it was built.
I have fond memories of playing with those blocks for hours on end.

My mother did the same thing for her grand children when she built her house.

And...

Well, not all my grand children are small nor would they find blocks fun to play with.  But I've also thought of some other fun things I can do with the blocks.

Paint, stain, stencils...I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do, but sanding and listening to the the orioles sing in the trees above me last night was very relaxing.

I know this is kind of 'kitschy' but I thought it might make a cute project to do.

I am thinking more of something along the line of using each block to make a letter of our last name...or something else neat.

I really like this idea from 'diddle dumpling', on how to make a wooden 'vintage' sign using an ink jet printer!