what's up weekly. (Check out my beautiful new garden bed!)

Hi, hi, hi, folks!  I am happy to tell you that the Great Coffee Spill of Last Week was not as fatal as I had worried it would be. The laptop keyboard and the old charger are done for, but I have an external keyboard plugged in and a replacement charger, so we're all good.

Two weeks ago, my sister and brother-in-law came to visit and to build me a garden bed out of the kindness of their hearts and the skilledness of their hands.  Austin brought all the wood with them, and then he let the kids help him build it.  It was so, so sweet.

It is four feet by twelve feet, and I have crammed it as full of plants as I think I can get away with.  We shall see if anything grows.  I've kind of gone all in on different kinds of peppers and chilis - I've planted wax peppers, cayenne, jalapenos, and a tabasco plant - hoping to get some pepper relish and homemade hot sauce out of my efforts.  But I honestly have never had any luck with pepper plants, so this could be a huge bust.  We'll see.

We also dug out a bunch of dandelions and put down grass seed in the front, since our yard was basically 70% weeds.  So I'm hoping the grass takes off.

Since then, I've spent a lot of time outside, watering the grass, working in the garden, and trying to clear our front flower beds of landscape rock.  I've planted some hydrangeas and boxwoods in one part, and would like to continue the look through the rest of the front beds, but that dang rock is just everywhere. I think I will be raking rocks until the day I die, which will likely come as a result of a heart attack from raking rocks.  Rocks are my life now.  My whole existence can be summed up and written on my tombstone as, "Paige Van Voorst: Maker of Babies, Raker of Rocks."  That's pretty much it.

Maybe I should add, "Educator of the Masses" to that too, now that I think of it.  Other than outside work, we've been tackling our schoolwork (though tackling much of it outside as well).  One more week, you guys.  One more week until SUMMAHHHHHHH.

Our neighbor gave us this patio set, so our schoolwork has been especially scenic lately.

I need this.  I am really really ready for it.  In the last two years, I have been pregnant with Ophelia, then I got a truly terrible case of Covid/pneumonia at like 36 weeks pregnant, then I had Ophelia, then I took a while to recover from Covid and having had a baby.  Then we decided to move, then we spent our summer driving back and forth to house hunt, then we moved and sprinted to unpack, then we started school, and we have finished 36 weeks of work in 28 weeks, with very few breaks.  It has been a crazy, crazy stretch of life.  I am very proud of what we've accomplished, and also I have so much grey hair now and I'm very ready for a Very Exceptionally Summer Break.

And one other item of note before signing off: yesterday was Ascension, so we celebrated with a cheeseboard, and even had some friends join us!

The cheeseboard at the kids' table.

The cheesebaord at the grownups' (plus Juni) table.  This is by far the largest layout I've ever done - this board was made for me for Christmas by my brother-in-law and sister, who cut it from a tree in their yard.  It is beautiful and special and huge and perfect for having guests.

We ended the night with a chess tournament.  You can see I sat this one out.  I know when I'm out of my league, and playing chess against the Van Voorsts (and our friend Jeremy) is one of those scenarios.

Okay, I think that covers most of it!  Wish us luck as we head into our last week of school!