Weekend warrior

Dragon Mood? -- moving a tad slowly and grimacing

Doing this weekend warrior thing is tough on the body! It's another Monday, I'm still unemployed and ... and I'm feeling S-O-R-E!

AFTER two weekends upnorth, building the aforementioned handicap ramp for Grandma, our home in the pine trees was in sore (ha-ha, get it?) need of some attention.

S completely busted a*s, mowing our almost-an-acre yard, weed-whacking, spraying our several birch clumps to prevent bugs, pulling weeds, removing some plants that have become pesky -- overgrowing their allotted space -- along with other various and sundry tasks.

I splurged, spent our grocery money and bought flowers (hurray! - flowers are not a luxury item in this household) and planted cheerful red salvia in our concrete containers at the front of the house.

In the camper, I vacuumed all the little mouse poop left by the little buggers over the winter, cleaned and sanitized all the horizontal surfaces along with some of the walls, sprayed Lysol on all the mildew spots on the camper canvas along with removing and washing all the camper curtains. For being nine years old, the camper curtains were in amazingly pristine condition -- they just needed the mothball smell to be washed out of them.

I also washed 4 or 5 rag rugs, along with several loads of clothing.

I brushed the dog vigorously (as she's blowing out her winter coat) and trimmed her Cruella DeVille-like nails. Then she got a bath. As she's getting older, I think she's enjoying those warm, scrub-a-dub-dub things all the more!

Oh, I forgot to mention that I walked with our friend, Joanne, yesterday at a nearby nature center for about an hour, while the dogs forged ahead, hunting, sniffing, lapping up nasty standing water, mock-growling at one another to see who's the real alpha dog and just happy to be there. Cisco's tail was wagging non-stop. Joanne and I both commented what a pleasure it is to witness such canine joy.

Two other notables for this weekend. S and I both got our hair cut on Saturday. After 14 weeks with no haircut, believe me, I was ready! In another attempt to save money, I had my hair cut by a less-experienced hair stylist named Mandy. While it doesn't have quite the "style" that Robin imparts, she gave me a very functional summer haircut. S got a darling bob, kind of a 21st-century version of a Buster Brown-do. It's longer underneath, shorter on the top and frames her face nicely. I like it.