No Shred this weekend

And this is why.

This is a picture of my backyard - this picture is taken about 1/3 of the way in. It is large enough that (at the time of this picture) I had 4 apple trees, and 2 birch trees -- all about 30 years old AND still enough room to fit an outdoor table set, a back yard climber, a sand box and still have a garden (that's about 20' x 30'). Since we took this picture, we've taken down both birch (which had died for some strange reason along with every other birch tree in the neighbourhood) and 1 of the apple trees (which had been taken over by a nasty ant colony -- killed it from the roots!).

So - every fall, I rake. Not only do I still have 3 apple trees left to clean up from, but it seems like every tree's leaves in the neighbourhood fall into my back yard. I rake and I rake and I rake. Then we go through what seems like an eternity of snow and cold - and suddenly there's spring - warm and beautiful and green. But it's hiding. It's hiding under dead grass and yet more leaves that need to be raked up.

Yesterday, I spent 4 hours out there raking. I only got a little over 1/2 of the back yard. I still need to do the front (which is about 2/3 the size of the back). That will be done today. I truly feel that this is the equivalent of doing a shred workout. Maybe two.

Oh, I also rearranged my daycare room. Moved the furniture around, added some new toys, put away some old toys into storage. Lifted couches, vacuumed everything possible...mopped floors, cleaned bathrooms...sanitized and disinfected -- yeah. There's another Shred workout.

On the schedule today is yet more raking (hopefully getting it all done), running around the city for some last minute groceries, stopping by my accountant's office to drop off my tax info, then coming back home to teach my 6 year old how to ride a bike. Okay, so the stuff between the bike riding and the raking isn't much, but still...I'm counting that as a shred or two as well.

Oh yeah -- I also bought a couple of new trikes for daycare. Can't wait to see their faces....soon, we'll be doing another fundraiser to raise money to buy a new climbing set for them! YAHOO~ I may even set up a paypal donation thing on here -- wonder if strangers will donate??