Today was a full-on gardening day. Previously, I'd been following my own advice and spending 20 minutes a day working on the yards. I had managed to clear out the side yard in three days, but today was going to be full day of working on the gardens.

Imagine having 10 cubic yards of organic compost dumped into your driveway. Better yet, here's a picture of what it looks like. We purchased and moved 12 cubic yards of compost into the back yard garden this two years ago, to great success in the garden. 12' sunflowers with 18" heads, more food than we could eat, a billion tomatoes, yeah. If you're in the Bay Area, and need organic compost, I highly recommend Wheeler Farm. The prices are great (about 1/3 the cost of compost from any gardening or home improvement store), and the owners fantastic.

So, moving this compost. The goal was to move it from the front driveway, to the back garden area. Full preparation of the garden involved tilling the garden, moving the compost to the garden, spreading the compost, then, if needed, tilling again.

Which is what I did.

Alone.

Kris was sick, so I ended up moving all the compost myself for today. He managed to keep the girls from bark-bark-barking at me all day, which was good. But it was a lot of work.

Even with all the compost moving, I barely made a dent in my 5 cubic yards of the 10 cubic yards in the driveway.

Took me about 4 hours to move as much as I did. It took me a while to get started because of the cascading issues for the tools.

To move the compost, I needed the wheelbarrow.

To use the wheelbarrow, I needed to dump the current compost (from my compostor) out of it.

To move that compost out, I needed to have a place to move it to.

To create a space to move the compost to, I had to cut down, clear, and move plants next to the house where they don't belong.

To cut, clear and move, I had to, well, it keeps going. I spent the first 40+ minutes cleaning up the various parts of the yard just so that I could just get going. Urf.

I still have the compost for the side yard to place. And the front yard.

Me:  "You know, I know our houses are exactly the same size.

From the garage:

Kris: How many?

Huh?

Me:  What did you think I said?

Kris: I didn't hear what you said.

Me:  Then why did you ask, how many?

laughing:

Kris: It sounds better than," (in his best granny voice) "What?!? Wha? What?!"

Sometimes you take a picture that is so bad you just can't delete it.

I've taken many of me, that's for sure. I average one good picture out of seven of me, with 2 really bad ones in that 7. The others are just eh.

But this one. This one! Oh, this one is one of the funniest I've seen in a long time. It's just too bad to delete!

So, I had to share.

Normally, Bella takes good photos.

No, really.

I have a friend who is currently suffering with a severe case of depression. His issues are family-related, but the effects of his depression are no less severe for knowing the cause. I've asked him to let me know if there's anything I can do to help. He hasn't asked. I don't know what else I can do for him at this point. I hope he reaches out.

I, too, have been feeling blue for the last week, but not as bad as my friend. The easiest analogy is I feel as if I've been standing on the end of a deep, dark abyss, looking down. The wind is blowing my hair all around; the sky is a stormy grey. Every once in a while, I notice the ground is unstable, and gives way a bit. I turn back away from the abyss, clawing my way back up, stopping my downward descent into the abyss.

When depressed, the best thing to do is exercise. Other than drugs, it's often the only positive action to take. It's also very hard to do. Not because exercise is hard to do, per se, but because when blue, any action is freaking hard to do.

Fortunately, I'm incredibly lucky with my circle of friends.

Kris is my rock. He's the stable part of my chaotic life.

Working with Mike keeps me constantly focused on what needs to be done. He keeps me on track and moving forward.

We've recently employed Chris Doyle, who is working on ultimateteam.org features for me while he learns PHP. Since he started working with us daily, at the end of the day, we've headed out to throw. We've been doing 100 throws a day, plus a few. A year ago, throwing nearly daily with Ariel Garza seriously helped my throwing skills and, more importantly, my confidence in my throws. With Chris' enthusiasm ("Wanna throw? Wanna throw?"), my throws will be rocking!

I finally went back to ASA to workout. Exercise: the great blues buster! My plan was only an upper body workout, which is a good thing, because I spent two and a half hours there. The great thing is that I finally caught up again with Geno, who Kris and I haven't seen in nearly two months. Ugh. Too long!

The workout was great! Feels so good to be moving again.

Time to climb away from that abyss.