When CJ and I bought our house about two months ago, it was clear the owners hadn’t weeded the (mercifully small) front garden in a while. Yesterday – an unseasonally warm day after two days of weed-loosening rain – we finally cleansed the entire garden bed (excluding the bits I’d done already, and the forlorn strip along the driveway). It’s planted entirely with Australian natives, which means I’ll probably water it about once a year – in keeping with the “easycare” theme of the rest of the house (oh, how I love this house). The ground is solid clay from a few centimetres down, so one of our annual jobs is to treat the dirt with gypsum and mulch (over several years, this will magically turn clay into more actual dirt) – and, in order to cut down on the proliferation of weeds, a layer of newspaper too. Today is the absolute perfect day to do so. . . .but it’s cold and sunless outside, and I’m still sore from the weeding.
Will we begin our epic trek towards an (even) lower maintenance and less weed-prone garden? Or will we live for a year with several bags of gardening supplies lurching guiltily on our front step? ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN PEOPLE!!!!
In other news, I DON’T have a chronic hip problem! Yaay! I’ve been in constant pain for about two months now (not uncoincidentally, ever since we moved house) and finally had my free physio appointment last Thursday, expecting to be told that it was the same thing I had last year – a displaced hip due to leftover relaxin hormone from pregnancy (the hormone that makes your muscles turn to jelly months in advance, in order to help with labour). But it wasn’t! It was a brand new non-pregnancy-related problem. . . which means that not only is it fixable, but the nice young man doing the massaging doesn’t have to spend a large amount of time massaging my bum (which is, inconveniently, where one’s hip is located). So that’s good news (I compressed a disk while we were moving house – it should be fine in a month or two).
Meanwhile, I’m adjusting to the new state of hormones brought on by my new contraceptive. It’s not easy to handle a chemical change, but I think the worst is over, and I’m also seeing some positive effects already. If you’re the praying type, pray that it doesn’t cause weight gain. . .
Aaand, in other news, it turns out that if I do a Certificate 3 in Child Care (a qualification that will be essential from next year, and which I was already planning to get as a courtesy for my Early Learning Centre employer) as a traineeship, it saves me $3000. I need to be doing a regular 15 hours per week at the centre – and my ELC is willing to give me that. So I’ll very shortly be working more than thirty hours a week. Which is extremely exciting both in terms of money gained and in terms of self-respect (yes, I have something to prove to myself), and somewhat scary. Can I really handle THAT much poo and screaming? Can my back?
…….we’ll see.