Dirt and stress

What a day! I spent the morning working for the Aurora Theater, and then snuck out at 2pm. I washed and vacuumed my car for the first time in over a month (ick!) and then I set to work on my "garden". I did not take a "before" picture because I hadn't initially set out to accomplish quite as much as I did.
It began with the lavendar bush. The shrub had taken over half the sidewalk so I initially set out to reduce it. I started cutting and found that the branches were all full of leaves and weeds. I ripped out dead sweet peas and an errant blackberry sprig. I raked out dead lavendar and grass. Then I began clearing away the grasses along the base of the bush, which lead to ripping out clumps of grass from what once was a flower bed. Then I decided that the rose bush right next to the lavendar had become too unrully. I trimmed it away from the hose spigot and then I trimmed the branches that had taken to growing along the ground.

Meanwhile the ants began to swarm and spiders tried escaping up the front wall of my house, I almost felt a bit squeamish thinking about them all retreating to the inside of my house. I treated the wall with some Chinese "death chalk" and continued.

I trimmed back the mint that had grown to weed status where it all bears thick stems and rough unuseable leaves. I continued to clear almost all the way to the place where you can see in the picture what looks like a hot mess of weeds. Then I planted the sweet basil plant that had been gifted to me over three weeks ago. It should be much happier in its big oak barrell than it was sitting in a small pot in the midst of our weeds.
The physical labor that did not resemble theater work and the final product that came from it actually improved my mood threefold. Which is a good thing because despite the fact that this was my "day off" even CalShakes insisted on sending me emails that had to be answered "immediatley"... eye twitching here... back spasiming just a bit... I think I have to go back outside and spend some time staring at the front of my house again. When I get a little more time off I'm going to plant something new in there and finish the job.