Why can’t every weekend be a three-day weekend? With my husband at home three days we can waste a whole day napping and being lazy and still accomplish a large amount. I knit some and spun some (more on that later in the week). I even managed to write half of our thank you cards from the wedding (life has really gotten away from us and we need to get them out as soon as possible before we come up on our one year anniversary.) I also settled on a plan for our anniversary tattoos (sorry Mom, I’m not done yet.) You’ll all be relieved to known that sad plans do not involve getting each other’s names emblazoned on our buttchecks (or anywhere else for that matter!)

In addition, my husband ran two big loads of dishes in the dishwasher and we hauled out an old, giant coffee table loading it in the wonder-car (because it holds far more than one would expect) and taking it off to Goodwill. We also made two trips to Home Depot during which we procured a variety of items including a “deck brush” and a sidewalk scraper. Let me tell you, that sidewalk scraper is worth its weight in gold. Why, you ask? Because it eliminates a lot of painful scrubbing and saves much time in the eradication of moss.

Moss is one of the downsides of living in the Pacific Northwest. Because whomever designed our apartment building was not thinking, our balcony extends approximately one foot beyond the roof edge. We have the misfortune of living right next to a downspout. Because the rain here frequently comes down in sheets, the gutters quickly back up overflowing gallons of water onto the balcony. This, in combination with the overhanging tree that drops organic matter at an alarming rate make our balcony a prime spot for moss to grow. And grow it does. This weekend we’ve taken step one in regaining that space, scraping the moss off and sweeping up as much dirt and debris as possible. From there we swabbed a mixture of bleach, water and an eense of dish soap onto the worst of the growth and left it to stand. With luck things will dry out and I can get back out there to sweep again before vacuuming and a final mopping. Ideally soon, as we’re hosting a party here next weekend that includes using that space to grill.

To wrap up our weekend, we also spent some time doing our least favorite of chores. The can return. As we have no returned cans or bottles in over a year, there were a lot out there. We took a car load, totaling just over 800 bottles ($40.40 at 5¢ a can), leaving us with filthy, sticky hands. The remaining? Well, we’ve decided to forgo collecting the deposit and are leaving them in the recycling, in hopes that someone homeless will pull them out and have a good meal. It goes against my nature to “throw away money I’ve already paid” but I just don’t have the patience for feeding another car load of bottles into the reverse vending machines next weekend.