I got a call from the nurse and they're not worried about the mammogram results, so said that they'll just have me come in every 6 months for a while to make sure. I can cross that one off my worry list. I also need to make a note to quit researching the Internet when I'm waiting for test results. BAD BAD BAD idea!

So, what does RG do when she's really tired? She makes herself even MORE tired by doing physical labor. The bearded eye-roller was hanging out with his step-mother (something I no longer have to do- yahoo!), so I had the day to myself to play in the yard. Well, in between rain storms, anyway.

The pathways through the gardens were driving me NUTS because there are pine needles and dead grass clippings all mixed in with the gravel. I've tried to rake it off, I've tried sweeping it off, but all it does is sweep/rake the gravel into a big pile. There's just TOO much of it to get it all out by hand, and the pine trees are constantly sluffing off, so it'd be a never ending battle anyway. My neighbor even told me to 'give it up'. Apparently my neighbor isn't on to the fact that I'm a wee bit OCD when it comes to clutter.


See? Wouldn't that drive YOU nuts? No? Well, OK- maybe I am a little over the edge.....

I got myself all coffee'd up and went to the local hardware store yesterday in search of things to improve the ratty looking garden (HA! I'm kidding! My garden is a thing of beauty!) I bought a few annuals to replace all of my precious recently transplanted seedlings that the bunnies had for dinner (grrrrrr).

While in the garden center, I saw bags of river rock.

Ding! The lightbulb went on in my head. If I used river rock instead of gravel, then the pesky grass clippings and pine needles would fall through the rocks after it rains (or I hose it down). So, I bought five bags just to see how far it would go. Holy moly, those bags were heavy. I'd guess they weighed about 30 lbs each.

Hmmmm, get a clue RG- they are ROCKS!

They didn't go very far, but I could see that it would look REALLY cool when it was all done, so I headed out to the hardware store and bought 10 more bags. Lessee.... 15 bags of rocks at 30 lbs each... that's 450 lbs I moved from the flat to the cart, from the cart to my car, from my car to the wheelbarrow, and then from the wheelbarrow to my yard.

River Rock (and why, yes- those are my oh-so-fashionable Crocs, tyvm):


Gravel (and some river rock):


I think it makes a HUGE difference. If you don't think so, keep your yapper shut because it's hard work, dammit! I want the payoff of hearing how fabulous it looks- so co-op-er-ate with me here.

Here's where I'm at so far. The line is where I've placed the river rock, and the circle is where there is just gravel. I'd say that I'm less than 1/4 of the way through the pathways (not all of the pathways are in this picture) Click on the picture to see a larger picture without the markup. You know you want to.