My weekend, and the early part of this week, was about nothing more than weeds and mulch. No, that is not my special diet or a new celebrity get fit trend. Weeds and mulch, or more appropriately, the act of weeding and of mulching, have been my exercise oasis for the past four days. I have on my hands and knees, getting down and dirty in the garden and trying to make the numerous beds around our property somewhat presentable, and at the same time, getting a strenuous workout. Add that to my normal three-mile walk with a push-mower attached to my palms and the fact that this is finals week at school and you can imagine how beat I have been of late. My eyes have not seen the later side of 10pm and my body has zero desire to roll out of bed in the A.M.
Normally, the gardens are my wife’s domain but as she is 36 weeks pregnant with our second child, the tasks of weeding, mulching, planting and such have fallen on my large shoulders. It was either that or pay someone, probably hundreds of dollars, to do all this labor intense work for us – and with the baby coming any day now, that is one luxury we cannot afford.
The menu this week has been really screwy. Because I was to be in Memphis on a business trip for much of this week and because I do all of the hefty cooking, we did not purchase any meat or poultry at Whole Foods on Saturday. My wife was planning on skating by on soup, cereal and a pizza for the three nights I would have been out of town. I say would have been because the trip was canceled at the 11th hour. So, we all had pizza last night and cheesy-scrambled eggs tonight. This evening’s feast was too be BBQ chicken thighs on the grill with rice and corn but we stopped off at the library for some new kids books and at Goodwill to donate some old clothes – which means after our evening stroll around the neighborhood (the weather is just too nice NOT to be outside!) it was way too late for that type of meal. I did double duty though and cooked the chicken on the grill using indirect heat while we ate the eggs inside, so we will have a more upscale-than-usual lunch tomorrow afternoon.
Until the weekend!
Dad’s Losing It articles are published every Saturday and Tuesday. Follow Jeff’s journey during the rest of the week in the Dad’s Losing It Forum. In the Forum, Jeff discusses his individual workout routines and soundtracks, among other tidbits and musings from the week.
Jeff is a Family Fun blogger. Read more of his posts here.