Occasionally (rarely) I get email from a reader. It always makes my day, since just knowing someone took the time to type out my address and spend a few seconds telling me they liked my post or have a suggestion or agree with me makes all the time and energy I spend on this space worth it. What can I say, I’ve got an attention-seeking personality. Aaaaand everyone who new me in high school just said “DUH”.

Even better than “I like you” mail, sometimes people email me asking if I would consider writing about a specific subject. Take for example, this email I got from a lovely (and incredibly loyal) reader named Amanda:

Did you bring your giant hat and your cucumber sandwiches? Are you wearing a conservative floral print tea length dress? Are you prepared to stand around in the grass pretending not to be just a liiiiittle too drunk for 3 pm on a Monday? Welcome to the party!

Ok, so it’s not THAT kind of garden party. In the spirit of the Twitter Home Tour a few weeks ago, Little Boy Green set up a garden/window box/house plant/flower/veggie/sand/rocks tour and of course I jumped on the bandwagon. Because hellooooo have we NOT learned that I am a)incredibly nosy and b)willing to post 80 bazillionty pictures of my house on the internet just to get out of writing about bodily functions for one day?

May is still really early for most plants here in New England. Well, really early or too late, since my bulbs and flowering trees have already faded and my actual flowers are only juuuuust starting to bloom. My goal has always been to have one of those continuous color gardens you see in the magazines but who am I kidding? I can barely identify half the crap I’ve planted in the past three years, and Google isn’t very much help with questions like “greenish yellow plant with sort of spikey leaves purple fuzzy flowers blooms in august smells funny”. And also, make sure you have safe search on if you ever need to confirm what a “grape hyacinth” looks like. JUST TRUST ME.

Our very tiny front lawn

My mother once told me my grandma doesn’t believe in planting flowers in front of your house. Something about it being gaudy and tacky and the only things you should see from the curb are evergreens or bushes. Apparently the previous owners also subscribed to this school of thought, since the front of our house is kind of boring, other than the ten minutes that the rhododendron is blooming. I usually make up for it with half a dozen flower pots on the front steps and some impatiens in the stone flower boxes in the front but it’s a) too early for most annuals and b)I can’t afford flowers right now because of something called MY MINIVAN. (Sidenote: I talk out of my ass a LOT when it comes to gardening. I know just enough to be dangerous and just little enough to blow a couple hundred bucks a year on plants I have nowhere appropriate to grow. Please don’t take anything I say seriously.)

Facing the house, this is the right side. The left side has an ugly chain link fence and the tiny side yard where we keep the trash cans and dog poop. You won’t be seeing that.

The vine on that arbor is a wisteria, which makes beautiful purple flowers. Or at least it WOULD if someone could remember to prune it before it uses all it’s energy double it’s size and attempts to strangle the rest of the plants. I do this almost every year.

Despite the fist-shaking I did at the previous owners regarding the inside of the house, I can’t complain at all about their landscaping. They spent THOUSANDS of dollars putting in a ton of perennials that require no effort on my part and creating a beautiful, mostly private yard in a crowded neighborhood. To tidy it up, I just use the most efficient pieces of gardening equipment ever which can be found on archute.

View through the arbor. Also, I TOTALLY photoshopped that grass to hide the big dead spot. And spelled echinacea wrong.

There’s also a hardy hibiscus plant over by the poppies. It makes huge tropical pink flowers even though it looks dead every spring. The rest of the stuff is weeds. This side is sadly neglected.

Clockwise from top left: rhododendron, bleeding heart, wisteria, honeysuckle

Worst place to plant a rose bush ever. Despite pruning the CRAP out of the hydrangea every year it keeps getting bigger.

One of the best things about my landscaping is the large number of cutting flowers – lilies, hydrangea, irises, roses, lilacs, daffodils, tulips. I can almost always have a bouquet or two in the house without spending a dime.

More honeysuckle, lily of the valley (one of my favorites, my name means lily-of-the-valley) and irises

This bed was originally totally empty (previous owners used it for veggies) but I like flowers too much to dedicate that much space. I planted the blueberry bushes in honor of Baby Evan just a few weeks after he was born.

I planted the radishes to mark the rows for the carrots, as suggested on the package. They’re the only thing I’m attempting from seed this year – seeds and I don’t really get along.

The previous owner told me this was his “friendship garden” because the plants were all gifts from friends or cuttings from their gardens. I’ve added a few but mostly left his work alone.

View from the back steps. Please excuse the EIGHTYBAZILLION helicopters (seeds from the tree) on everything.

Damn tree. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough tree, it just shades a lot of my garden and drops helicopters everywhere.

From top left: Poppy, rose (I BEGGED it to open), columbine, herbs, sweet william

LOVE my clothesline, especially now with all my diapers to sun-bleach.

The dead grass and empty space on this side of the yard is going to be a patio. Some day. It was supposed to be this year’s project but the cost of the materials might be more than we can afford this season. Luckily I have a wonderfully handy father who will come and do all 50% off the labor for free and who knows how to build patios.

This space – the back edge of our property – gets forgotten a lot. Luckily it’s pretty self suficent.

I REALLY REALLY wish I could afford a garndener, just once or twice a season, who would come in and clear out all prickly stuff.

Sad, forgotten herb garden behind the garage. My mom and I cleaned it up a couple years ago but it gets overgrown REALLY fast. I only go back there now to hunt down chives.

And just in case you needed proof my garden is just as messy as my house, here’s the back steps, “vintage” wagon, dirty grill and sad empty hanging baskets.

So there you go! My garden. And I always refer to it as “the garden”, just because I feel like “yard” is sort of a lie and, truthfully, “garden” just sounds nicer. Have you seen the cat? Oh she’s in the garden. Honey, I’ll be out in the garden reading. No Baby Evan, stop ripping up the garden! Besides what you saw, there’s also a grape arbor over the ugly trash can side yard (although it didn’t make any grapes last year) and two kinds of clematis on the ugly chain link fence. Plus probably a bunch of other flowers I forgot about/don’t recognize/can’t remember.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to visit the rest of the Garden Party participants!

Baby Evan’s face is a pretty clear reflection of the mood I’ve been in this week. I’m annoyed at everything. I’m pissed no one ever responds to me on twitter. I’m sick of all the Top Best Most Important Coolest Prettiest Mommy Blogs Lists that require 4o bazillionteen votes and if you DON’T play along you end up in the loneliest most unread corner of the internet covered in mold. I’m tired of trying to write every day only to end up posting boring crap that even I don’t want to read. I feel like until I know this fetus is healthy and growing and alive I can’t focus on anything else, which is making me a lousy mom and a neglectful wife.

My first pre-natal appointment is tomorrow at 10:30 am. Hopefully I can be funny again by noon.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU to everyone who donated! Your generosity will help mamas and babies have healthy, full term pregnancies. Although the walk is over (and thus your chance to make me suffer personally is past), donations and volunteers are always welcome.

Our weather on Saturday was picture-perfect – low humidity, hours and hours of sunshine, warm enough for shorts, which is unusual in Connecticut in April. Unfortunately, the walk was Sunday. Not such good weather – rain, rain, and more rain, but it didn’t stop tons of people from showing up. I briefly considered leaving Baby Evan home (with E of course, not tied to a chair or something) but decided marching with my baby would be more fun. And it was, except for the fact that my stroller doesn’t have a rain shield so I hauled his chubby butt 3 miles in a backpack carrier. It was…a really good workout. And I definitely think I deserve extra credit for doing it pregnant.

Here are the pictures I took and some of my live-tweeting. I was super excited when @marchofdimes actually tweeted back!

Skeptical baby is skeptical about getting out of the car in the rain

Once I got the baby in his bubble he was warm and dry. Don't worry, it has air holes.

See? Festive!

Sarah with Baby C. She's one of my crazy hippie friends. You can tell by the baby tied to her chest.

Baby A in her Stroller Strides t-shirt. She's not in a cage, just under a bug/rain cover.

Most of our team, ready to get going! Waiting for the "official" start at 10 am was actually the most unpleasant part of the day.

"Low tide" is the nice way to say it. Although one little girl caught a whiff and accused her brother of pooping.

He says he doesn't hate babies, he's just too smart to go wander around in the rain.

Here we go! The backpack worked really well (and was the only one there) but DUDE, my kid is a CHUNK.

True story. And I tripped like 14 times.

Our fantastic Stroller Strides team!

The view from the end of Bluff Point. Nice today, FANTASTIC in good weather.

Bonus backpack feature: it has a stand so I can put him down for a few minutes. THANK GOD.

In the home stretch on the way back! I don't think walking backwards up a hill to take this picture was a wise choice, but it all worked out.

I've never been so happy to see a stupid balloon arch in my life.

And then we all went for Mexican food and lived happily ever after. Except I’m not sure I’ll be able to pick the baby up at all tomorrow. I think I’ll spend the evening researching what kind of heavy duty muscle relaxers are safe to take during pregnancy. There’s got to be some, right?

I have to say, it was a really great experience and such a good cause. I will definitely participate again next year, although I will being praying extra hard for better weather!

So yesterday I baked an apple pie and E, Baby Evan and I headed over to my friend Cheri’s house to help her build a barn. OK, not really a barn. She just needed help demoing her flood-damaged basement and hauling a literal ton of wet sheetrock, carpet and trash out to the dumpster. The pie part was real though.

Telling your husband he has to spend his Sunday on someone else’s construction project instead of relaxing and watching hockey (NOT THAT IT MATTERED ANYWAYS STUPID REDWINGS) is a pretty hard sell. But a friend was in need. Plus I promised there would be beer and sausage.

I showed up ready to work too, but there were plenty of guys to do the heavy lifting so us women-folk minded the young’uns, handled the cooking and worked on our knitting. If someone had suddenly handed out sun bonnets and prarie dresses I don’t think I would have been the least bit surprised.

Although my feminist, equality minded side wanted to yell about how I could do manual labor too and why didn’t the men chop up these carrots, the whole day was lovely. Plus I didn’t get dirty or ruin my manicure! (Kidding. I don’t have a manicure. And I’m always dirty.) There’s a reason people used to hold barn-raisings and it’s not just because barns are really heavy. Having friends and neighbors to share your work and lend a hand not only makes everything easier, it also builds a sense of community and support. With so many of us living hundreds or thousands of miles away from our family, we need those kinds of friendships. I need someone to call in case I become trapped under something heavy. I need other moms to talk about sleep schedules and poop and nipple pain with. I need somewhere to go that involves adult conversation even while I’ve got a boob hanging out of my shirt. And as lovely as the internet is, I cannot rely on a series of tubes to watch my baby while I paint my kitchen. So these friends, this wagon train, these barn-raisers, are the best thing that’s happened to me since Baby Evan.