Can You Believe It???

....I'm FINALLY posting something! It's been a juggling act over the past few weeks. Lots of shuttling my children to this or that obligation, yard work, house work, projects and whatever else that has demanded my immediate attention. It's not been all bad, just busy. I guess that's just the season of life I'm in right now and add in the fact I often overload myself thinking I'm Super Woman or something...Well I hate to break the news to you (or even myself) that I'm not. But I am pretty good at admitting that I need help..In steps FLYLADY

For those who haven't heard of FLYLADY, it is a wonderful system of routines that help to keep your home running smoothly. It's worked for me extremely well(when I don't fall off the wagon) and I have managed to keep CHAOS to a minimum mostly. Now that takes care of the inside of the house, check. What about the outside? help!!

I thought I was the only one who struggled with keeping up with the yard work and house work at the same time. Well, I'm not alone. It seems there are a lot of undocumented struggles out there. It was through some casual conversations during the busy season of May when I heard about the dilemma. Hmmm I thought, there has to be a better way!

About two weeks ago I was at my wits end on keeping up with everything and I couldn't spend 6-8 hours outside anymore because it's just WAY too hot here now. Plus the fact I can't physically do it. Working such a day would have me knocked out for 3-4 days afterwards with a sunburn, dehydration and a sore aching body for sure. It was then I decided to use something I had learned about through FLYLADY and that was ZONES! "Perfect", I thought. By dividing my yard into zones, I would be able to work my way through the entire yard over the course of a week in only 2-3 hours per day. So that's what I've done and here it is:

Zone 1: Foundation landscaping in front of house
Zone 2: Foundation landscaping in back of house on east side plus several beds in that area.
Zone 3: Foundation landscaping in back of house on west side plus several beds that include our blueberries and blackberries
Zone 4: Landscaping along the inside back and west side of our privacy fence
Zone 5: Raised beds along the outside of the privacy fence.
Zone 6: The huge vegetable garden.

Something here you have to keep track of is WATERING. It seems like when the rain stops in the spring it heats up and dries everything to a crisp if you are not careful. That was something I had to learn to do when I moved to Texas. Without an automatic watering system, I have to do all of it by hand. A good watering guideline is 1 inch of water per week. So this was a way I could ensure I was making my way around the entire yard with enough water.

My schedule has also been adjusted now to farmer's hours! Up at 5, outside from 6-9, then I'm done. I work in Zone 6 each day for an hour since the veggie garden needs it. I use up the remaining time in a different Zone each day. This gives me time to do some thorough weeding, pruning, mulching etc. I have been a weed pulling crazy woman every morning over the past few weeks..It's a good thing I have an ipod. :) I'm making it though and I would recommend others try this too if they don't have a system to work through their yard. I know 3 hours seems a lot for most, but we have a lot more than most to take care of here. I bet it would be MUCH easier for normal sized yards.

So there you have it..I should be back to blog posting now that I've gotten things under control.

Oh, and here is my Spider Lily that is now blooming: