This weekend....

Brought a lot of much needed sunshine!

Friday night was the Asperger's kids game night. Brandon was reticent to go, but when he got there he had a blast. A lot of kids with practically no rules. It was awesome. The mother of my best friend from high school was there. She is raising her grandson (an unfortunate series of events) and it was her first meeting. It was interesting to watch and to listen to the parents. They all deal with the same school personnel, they all have the same issues, and yet this group is the first time they have all met.

Saturday I had to drag my son out of bed at 9am so that we could get sandwiches and things together for our hike. We met with two other people from Meetin.org and did a 3 mile hike. The weather was awesome. My son stepped right over a water snake sunning itself on the path. I picked it up so we could all get a closer look at it. Being scared, it defecated, on me. Then it reeked. I washed my hands constantly the rest of the day to get the stench off my hands. One person brought two puppies along...and that was their walk for the week. I may have a picture of the snake in a day or two, waiting for the person with the camera to email them to me.

We also went to go see Iron Man Saturday night. Lots of action, a little too much on the sex side, but it was good and really funny.

Sunday was work day. 10-5 was non-stop raking and mowing, trying to get the backyard into shape. I hadn't raked leaves back there all winter. I paid for that. The patio is cleaned up, sticks are ready to burn, leaves are out front, and the lawn got completely trimmed. I got a fire bowl at Lowes expressly for the purpose of burning the sticks, but I have to remove a branch from a tree before I can really use it. I have to put down some grass seed in a few places. We got some bird feeders, a weed eater/edger (which I desperately needed), and a new patio table. I seriously need to trim some hedges and some branches. I probably need to remove at least one more bush entirely too. Doing so may produce a spot for a nice herb garden. Not that I know the first thing about such a beast, but I know I like fresh basil and mint.

I need to figure out the best way to drive off mosquitoes.

What didn't get done Sunday was making Sangria. I saved some recipes from the local paper. Virginia apparently just repealed a law that forbade the mixing of wine and stronger alcohols. So with some nice non-tannin red wine, some brandy or other spirit, and some fruit, I can now legally concoct a Sangria. I have a shopping list. :-) On my list of things to do is to find a good rum cake recipe too. Now the only thing my son did all day to my complete satisfaction was clear all the papers off the table and get them into the recycle bin...which means I now need to fish out my Sangria recipes.

I need a week off from work and parenting...I really need more than that, but I'll start with a week. :-)

Have a great week!