Birthday, deck, sick, garden

Birthday: Maren officially turned 3 years old. We brought oatmeal m&m cookies to daycare, along with the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game that didn’t make it at her party. She had ice cream and presents at home. There were balloons to play with. I think she had a pretty great 3rd birthday. 

Deck: When we bought this house, our deck posed many accessibility challenges. It had four different sections at different levels, no railings or handrails (so getting safely from one area to another required some really careful maneuvering), and cut the yard in two.  This meant that the faucet for the hose and the garden tool shed were separated from the garden and main yard area by the deck, so that it was necessary to go up over the deck and down a handrail-less set of steps and then back again if I wanted to water the garden. So basically totally not functional for me. 

Starting the week of the 17th we had our deck totally redone, and it was finished last Wednesday. We also had a weird section of our fence replaced. The results are amazing. Our deck and yard both feel hugely bigger, because there is so much more usable space. The deck is smaller, but it’s all at one level and there are railings all around, so the entire footprint is usable space, not having to worry about step-down areas or falling off the side. We now have two sets of steps, both with handrails. There is still a lot of work to do to make all of the yard space usable, but just having it all connected as one yard makes it feel about twice as big. And now I can garden independently, which I am pretty thrilled about. 

Sick: I found out on Tuesday that I have iron deficiency, and started supplements on Wednesday. This explains some bouts of extreme fatigue I have been having, and hopefully the problem will resolve quickly. On Wednesday night I started to lose my voice, by Thursday it was pretty bad, and Thursday night I had all kinds of trouble sleeping. Then Friday morning I could barely speak, my throat was extremely sore, and apparently I had also contracted some kind of stomach virus. I was pretty miserable all day Friday, but after a good sleep felt immensely better by Saturday. I still sound bad, but feel almost normal. 

Garden: Saturday morning was for spending in the new backyard. We harvested all the carrots and potatoes from the garden, and Jeff raked leaves. The carrots and potatoes were the only things spared by the rabbit who used our garden as a salad bar, and I was quite happy with our yield, given how neglected the garden was this summer. 

It has been colder than normal, and it was chilly and very fall-like this morning, but sunny and a lovely day to be outside. I am happy to be less sick. Overall, I would say this has been a good week 😊