A busy, potentially productive weekend

The weather was beautiful this weekend - perfect for getting the garden going and handling a few other chores. Let's see how that worked out.


Saturday started out with the traditional walk of Idiot Dog Teddy out at Bayfront Park. Several times a year there is some sort of peculiar jogging/bike riding/costume wearing contest held there. The two blue fuzzy things are Thing One and Thing Two. You can also see a nun to the right. This thing is odd, even by California standards.

Once we got back, Mrs Notthat and I were able to spend a couple of hours pulling weeds and working in the garden. And that ended the productive part of the weekend.

WHM and a friend went to a concert that required her to stay in some posh country club up in Napa on Saturday night. This meant we were volunteered to watch the grandkids during those periods when the dad was at work. When WHM dropped off the kids, the first order of business was to open the box for them that came from my parents.


Darci got a stuffed puppy that wimpers and wags its tail and does other cute things. Riley got a truck that hauls cars (three included!).


We then headed outside to paint the odd little plaster things I made with a bit of leftover sheetrock plaster. While this picture makes it look like Mrs Notthat was putting on Darci's helmet in anticipation of the painting getting completely out of control, she was actually taking it off. (Sadly, shortly after this Darci sufferred a severe head injury in a freak paintbrush incident. Kidding!)


Darci wanted to make more leftover plaster to make more odd little plaster things. Riley is not so keen on getting his hands dirty (although he couldn't resist tasting it).


Darci also likes putting on all her pads and pretending to ride a skateboard.


Meanwhile Riley had fun creating all this automotive carnage.

Since we were having friends over for dinner, we ended up spending the time after the grandkids left cleaning the house and cooking. The Boy showed up after work with this pizza.


This picture does not do this pizza box justice - it was huge and actually had to rest on the shifter for the drive home in the race car. It contained about a quarter of a pizza left over from work and ended up having nothing to do with dinner (sorry The Boy).

Look at this stunning tree.


I have been nursing this thing along for three years now. I have had no idea what it is and Mrs Notthat has been threatening to do it in for a long time. One of our dinner guests is a trained plant person of some sort (allegedly), and in her opinion, it was a weed and a danger to our other plants. I think she was bought off by Mrs Notthat.

Here is a closeup of the leaves.


Hopefully one of you will identify it and I will be able to make Mrs Notthat regret that she gleefully sent that majestic tree to the great compost heap in the sky.

The grandkids showed back up this morning and we spent most of the day out in the backyard.


Our backyard tree drop its leaves in the spring, after it has grown its new leaves. So we (sort of) raked leaves. And Riley played in the plant cage I made a few years ago to protect a plant from IDT. (Ironically, I killed the plant when I tried to remove the cage from around it last year.)


Darci and Mrs Notthat finished painting these odd plaster things. And then this afternoon the grandkids were picked up and the productiveness of the weekend could officially get going again.

You can probably guess how that went.

That's it - move along...