A LITTLE CLEANING & GARDENING AT THE LAKE

Happy Monday, everyone!  After a busy weekend at the lake, it's good to be home.  We've left on Sunday (last night), and for some reason, although it cuts our day short, I feel more refreshed waking up at home here on Monday mornings.  When we leave on Monday or Tuesday, we're up at 5:00 a.m. and make the two hour drive.  I arrive here feeling tired and lazy and usually need a good nap.  As I've said, the lake can be a lot of work.  Even fun days on the boat, swimming, cooking out, etc, can leave you tired.   Maybe it's all the activity and fresh air, I'm just generally wiped out.  But we really had a fantastic weekend, The Husband and I.

Saturday was rather warm...okay, super hot and humid!  I spent most of the day inside cleaning.  I know, I know, you must already thing I'm a cleanaholic, but I'll let you in on a secret, I'm getting to be an old lady and I really just hate the heat.  I see The Husband outside doing yardwork or tooling around his workbench and I just feel super lazy.  So I stay inside with the air conditioning on and make myself useful.  The floors felt gritty as usual from the beach sand, the patio and the garage (which The Husband got around to blowing and power washing), so I swept, mopped, cleaned the bathrooms and cleaned all the dead bugs off the window sills.  Fun!!  At least I stayed cool. 

Later in the afternoon I went out to the grocery store and to do a few errands.  The Husband went out likewise in his truck, he's always needing a new tool or part for something.  He beat me home and when I pulled up, there he was standing in the middle of the garden with a shovel and his work gloves on.  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I thought, "What is he planting now?".  Then I saw the two rosebushes.  He must have read my last post where I mentioned I was going to plant some climbing roses on my flowerless arbor.  If your heart can go in two directions at once, I guess mine did.  I really wanted to buy the roses and plant them myself.  The Husband has a way of taking over the garden,; weeding, watering, fertilizing, you get the idea.  Somehow the daisies are no longer Blondie's daisies.  They're his.  The climbing roses on the trellis are no longer mine because he has been babying them for the past two years.  You get the idea.  So I sat and watched as he planted them.  He then advised me that if I took good care of them, watered, pruned, fed, etc., they could be "mine".  So what do you think of that?  I felt like an unruly child.  They are just gorgeous, they are called Eden Climber.  I love him and I told him so.  And I am going to be so on top of these plants all summer long that he won't have a chance to get near them! :)

I spent my Sunday working on the Summerhouse (my little screened in getaway).  Here you can see my little chair where I can look out at the lake and relax, the main house is in the background.

It's a little cottage but it gets really buggy and dirty over the winter.  I take a broom to all the spider and cob webs, clean the window sills where they collect (seven windows), wipe down the furniture, sweep and mop the floor.  Then I'm good for the summer.

So here it is, aired out and spotless.

Layla acts quite like the princess at the lake.  Since she has to be on a lead line or she will run away, I put her in the Summerhouse a lot where she can lounge on the window seat and watch the world go by.

I know there is a sign craze right now, I think Emily must have one in every room...about home and family and friends.  I just never cared for them until I saw this one in a shop window on a trip to Galena, IL, last summer.  I froze when I read it.  It touched my soul, my spirit.  Please enlarge it if you can't read it.  It gave me shivers of happiness when I first did.

From the Summerhouse porch you have a closer view of the bay we live on, so I thought I'd take a picture of The Husband's new baby, the fishing boat.  He goes out on the lake about 6:00 a.m. every morning (and I get to sleep late!).  It's so relaxing for him after a week of wearing a suit and tie and commuting to downtown Chicago.

Last week I got a lot of comments about the milkweed on the side of my house that I was going to pull out.  I had no idea that milkweed was so essential to the butterflies that are heading toward extinction, like the monarch.  It's rather weedy looking...

...but the flowers are pretty.  I have decided to transplant all but a few to my herb garden.  If they don't make it, I will keep the remaining.  And I thank you ladies for opening my eyes...you are not only sweet and kind, you are a smart bunch!

I should have lightened up this picture a bit.  I wanted to show you how crazy my wisteria has gone.  It grows on each side of my front porch.  It has finally reached the balcony above the porch and his heading to the arbor above that.  That was my goal, to sit out on my balcony with a birds eye view of the lake and a canopy of purple flowers and leaves.  But I tell you, it is a plant with a mind of it's own.  It wrapped itself around my front porch furniture!  And it tangled it's way through my day lilies and hostas to the side of the house where it has tightly wound itself around a power line. Needless to say, I wasn't going to try to cut it off an electrical line so next weekend I am going to put on my safari garb and crawl under it all to cut it away from the line at the root.  I was warned it was invasive, not life threatening!

The Husband grilled some bratwurst Saturday night which we had with roasted peppers.  I'm not going to go off on a long tangent on eating healthy because I know so many of you have been doing that for a long time.  And I know that all of you know from reading my blog that I am a yo-yo dieter and sometimes actually go to a gym.  Last week I read (in two evenings), a book that made such an impact on my thinking about food that I can't stop thinking or talking about it to The Husband, my kids and friends.  It's called Obsessed by Mika Brzezinski....you can find it on Amazon or just read the description of it if you like.  Mika is a co-host on the show Morning Joe which is on every morning at 6:00 a.m. on MSNBC.  She has written a very comprehensive and well researched book on food addiction and the continuing rise of obesity in America, as well as the role of the media and food manufacturers in this epidemic.  As much as we now have access to fresh fruits and vegetables at the many farm markets that are springing up, women now spend an average of 1.5 hours preparing food in their kitchens, as opposed to 5.6 hours that was the average in 1960.  With women in the work force more now than ever and the crunch for time that all women have,  we are relying more and more on processed foods.  I am 100% guilty of that.

I came home last night and I looked at the 3 shelves in one of my cabinets that were filled with packages of instant potatoes, boxed rice and noodles, jars of sauces and gravies.  Let's just say I had a hard time sleeping.  There are going to be some major changes here in Blondieville, but don't fear, I'm not going to stand on my soapbox and preach about healthy eating.  I'm going to make it a real goal and let you know what I'm doing and how I'm doing from time to time.  But do let me have your thoughts.  How do you approach  cooking?  Do you feel any guilt like I do for not always cooking from scratch?  Have you been struggling with your weight for as long as I have because you just make all the wrong choices?  Feel free to share if you want.  It's really just my thought that you might want to have a look at this book, and my hope that you will support me in my goals to start eating right, exercising and and getting healthy, as well as shedding a lot of this excess weight I'm always complaining about!

I hope I haven't bored you.  I don't like ideas pushed on me either.  So take it for what it's worth.  Now, I'm going to just wish all of you a great week and get to getting my house in shape.  The floors are super sticky...I thought my kids were done throwing parties while we were away! ;-D

I'm joining Tracie at Fishtail Cottage for her Garden Party.  Check it out!

XO,

Jane