8 July 2002

When Matt and I moved into our house three years ago, the ditch behind the house was empty. Not even grass grew in it - just dirt, and a couple of weeds.

So now. Three years later. Not even a whole three years - we're more than six weeks from our move-in anniversary - and we have a frigging jungle growing in the backyard.

See? I wasn't exaggerating. The picture in the inset was pulled back enough to see the tops of most of our wildlife - nearly twice as tall as I am. That makes the growth in our ditch almost eleven feet high. In three years.

More than that, really, because the drop-off for the ditch is kind of steep, so most of those plants are not starting where my feet are; they're starting a couple of feet below that.

Of course, what you can't see in the picture is that the ditch-jungle only runs the length of our yard, so it looks a little goofy. But I don't care. It's not unattractive even if it is all weeds, and Matt's mowing pretty much keeps it confined to the ditch. (There's one particularly persistent tree that keeps trying to lean over into the yard, but Matt prunes it back every few months.)

Matt's off to DC again this week. He got up at four this morning in order to get on the road so they could be there in time for the first meeting at 8:00. And because the training he's up there for runs right up to 5:00 on Friday (and we all know there's no point in even thinking about driving anywhere at 5:00 on Friday in Washington) then he probably won't get home until 9:30 or 10 Friday night.

I'll miss him, but at least it's only the week. And I can take advantage of his absence to do some things I probably wouldn't do when he was home - like go girly-shopping. (I want a new purse. I know exactly what I want. So far as I can tell, what I want does not exist. But I'm going to go looking anyway. Also, if I get to feeling really masochistic, I need new bras.)

I've got about four stories that are all waiting for me to get to them. Not, I might add, very patiently. And I've got about three pictures I still want to doctor up.

I've got a map to be working on, and some countries to invent. I've got some reoganization to do on my other site. Heck, I've got some work to do on this site. There's a couple of scenes in my head that I'd like to try to push out into my sketchbook, which has gotten awfully dusty lately.

I've got CDs I want to burn, and yardwork to do... I've got a couple of household projects I keep meaning to get to, like packing up my loose comics so they can be donated to the local adult literacy foundation.

I have more than more than enough to keep me busy! So would someone please tell the evil undead dragon that I played yesterday as a favor to Jeff that she needs to stop whispering in my ear about the revenge she's going to take when she comes back???

--Liz