aloe

The boychild spent the day at a waterpark with my mother and her boyfriend. It gave me a much needed breather and an opportunity to head up to The Junior High to visit with the secretary and my department chair about the coming year. I also had to re-enroll in health insurance and other fun work-related paperwork. It was a good visit. Many comments were made about my recent drastic haircut and a couple of people walked past me not recognizing me. (I also ditched my glasses and returned to contacts over the summer.) I think the reentry into my work life will be less severs now that I've stuck my toe in the water for a bit.

After collecting the boy and heading home I finished the first Harry Potter book. Yes, for the first time. Yes, I'm slow. I'm glad that I had the foresight to buy the first two books together so I don't have to wait for my paycheck to dive into the next one.

When I was done indulging myself with a good read I decided I should do something productive around the house today. One of the things I inherited from my mom's house was a very large flowerpot with a plant I know nothing about, and a huge mama aloe with two large babies and what appeared to be some grandbabies. I gathered all of my empty flowerpots, which come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and started planting.

I left the big mama in the original pot with the unidentified plant and split the remaining nine plants into the seven flowerpots I had collected. I have some bare patches on either side of the front steps to my house which are currently covered by large pots but I'm thinking of transferring the two biggest offspring into the ground. I'm a little nervous because I think they may take over that area.

Now my front porch has been reorganized, taken over by aloe vera plants, and swept. I love my front porch. Minus the mosquitoes, that is.

the road goes on forever....

I go back to work in 5 days. This seems unreal to me, but I suppose I should get on board with the idea because a week and a half after that I start my first semester of graduate school. The boychild will be entering 4th grade. I keep wondering when life will give me a little bit of a breather but I don't see it happening any time soon.

The boyfriend and I went by my mom's house to pick up her lawn equipment. She is selling the house and has already moved into an apartment so I inherited an electric lawnmower (that I am not-so-secretly in love with), various shovels, hoes and picks, some lovely flat stones, and more aloe vera plants than I know what to do with. We spent the afternoon trying to clean up my disaster of a back yard. There was fire involved. Tomorrow I plan on mowing the driveway and front yard. If the boyfriend remembers to bring me his large clippers I'll probably attack the bushes that are threatening to swallow my house. Of course, I'll be repotting aloe veras. If you live near me, expect some plants.

I've started this blog as a way to chronicle my journey through, well, life. I occasionally look around and realize that I have a lot going on. These days the feeling is particularly overwhelming. I am in love, raising an adolescent boy, teaching junior high students, and now pursuing my MSW. Somewhere in there I have a house to keep in order and a very large yard that I want to turn into my sanctuary.