Do you have a list of home projects to tackle, but keep avoiding?  My list of home improvement projects keep piling up.  As I’ve been redesigning how to balance work, family, health, and home, one of my goals has been to incorporate them into one as often as possible.   This week, with the wonderful promise of spring and warm weather, the kids, Grams and I ventured out to the yard to clean up, start a new shade garden, and roller skate/blade (well, the kids anyway).

What did we do for this workout?

1.  The night before I involved the children in picking a shade garden plan that would fit the space and we dug out their roller skates and roller blades.  I love Better Homes and Garden’s online plans.  When it comes to putting plants together and knowing which ones work in what conditions, I’m pretty hopeless.

2.  In the morning, we went to Home Depot and picked out everything we could find:  lawn seed, plant fertilizer, compost, mulch and plants that were part of the plan (we could only find 1).  Grabbing and lifting the bags are  a great functional training exercise, too!

3.  The Garden Preparation.  Here’s where the bulk of the workout resides.  The kids helped rack and bag up leaves.  My focus was on breaking the ground and mixing the fertilizer/compost.  After twenty minutes of solid garden preparation, I was working  up a great sweat.  The kids, in the meantime, were skating up and down our sidewalks (I love all the sidewalks in our back yard).

4.  The First Planting.  We planted our 3 little plants, washed down the side walk, watered, and ordered the rest of our plants online.  In a couple of weeks, we’ll get to complete this little corner with our arrivals, add a few outdoor pieces of furniture and be ready to enjoy the colors of spring!

Next week,  the plan is to tackle the garage which will be quite the project.

 What home improvement projects have you been putting off that can also serve as a great workout?