Monday, June 13th
I have found that I accomplish much more if I set daily goals for myself.
I generally try to go to sleep with the next days goals in my head, otherwise, I tend to be rather aimless and just sort of roam around the house, not being able to decide what to do.
My biggest goal for today was to get as much of the back garden cleaned up as possible.

My second goal was to get the four Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Lanterns that I just bought in place around the perimeter of the garden (they look lovely and do a great job repelling Mosquitos!).

My last two goals of the day were to have my evening coffee in my garden on my chaise AND find time to cook dinner!


Goal #1 was an extremely daunting task!
You see, I had done a major clean up back there the summer before last. My husband wanted me to put all the yard waste in these huge paper bags that are meant specifically to hold yard waste. (The idea is that the bag will decompose along with the waste.)

Unfortunately, my husband never had time to take the bags away to the landfill and over time, the bags tore and rotted away leaving all of that yard waste on my handlaid patio!
Using these bags had been a huge and difficult job. I had endless problems; the bags wouldn’t stay open, they are too long for me to reach into, all kinds problems but I got it done!
And to have the bags rot away, leaving all of this waste on the patio was extremely disappointing.
And so, it sat there, because I was so discouraged that I would have to do it all again.
Plus, along with that set back, my mother became very sick, my son had to move far away for work and I became extremely depressed.
My depression was so bad last summer that it was I could do to put one foot in front of the other and work on my little front yard toad garden.



And then, I got sick. I was sick for a long time with something my doctor said was “almost pneumonia”. It was terrible. Even my hair hurt! I was so weak, all I could do was stare at the ceiling and listen to myself wheeze.
So, this summer, I’m concentrating on getting that mess all cleaned up and hopefully (fingers crossed), finishing the patio!
Here are some photos!





