All day yesterday I kept thinking I'd come home and spend the evening on the porch trying to start the shawl over. Again. I know, I'm kind of obsessed. Part of me really wanted to work on it again (I'm telling you, I was really enjoying it ... umm, except for the mistakes). But part of me was just very, very afraid ... I didn't know if I could take the disappointment of getting to Row 38 and having it all buggered up again.
But circumstances arranged themselves to protect me from the disappointment. I came home, and the weather was beautiful - sunny, high 70s, just gorgeous. And I was looking at my messy, disheveled lawn, and at all the neighbors out mowing their messy, disheveled lawns, and the yard work bug - which has been conspicuously absent during these days of early beautiful weather - finally bit.
My dad handled most of my yard work for most of the years I lived here. Not because he had to or I made him - because he wanted to. He always loved yard work, and once he was retired, just keeping his own lawn manicured didn't keep him busy enough. So he'd come over here all the time while I was at work and putter around in mine. (Well, that, and he just really liked helping me out). I really appreciated it, because living alone and working full time made it hard for me to adjust to the rigors of caring for the outside of a house, when I was a new homeowner. So very much more to do than in an apartment.
A few years ago he became too unwell to keep up with it anymore, and then I was too busy caring for him to really pay it much mind. This is the first year that I've had the time, energy (well, in theory), and nothing else distracting me, to finally take over my own yard work. But I'm behind already.
My dad always told me the most important things I could do for the life of my lawnmower was to change the oil every spring, and keep the clogged grass cleaned out from around the blades. While the lawn did get mowed last year, neither of those maintenance tasks were kept up on. So my first order of business this year was to change the oil in the mower and clean it up.
I had to go find the manual because I didn't even know what to get for lawnmower oil - if you had to get a special kind, or any lawnmower oil would work. Found that, then drove over to K-Mart and got the oil, and a few other tidbits.
Came home, changed the oil (man was that old oil cruddy - I'm sure if I hadn't taken care of it this spring, my lawnmower would have been letting me know in a few months), cleaned up the mower, and then mowed both the front and back yards.
Wow. I was tired. I'm so out of shape for this stuff.
Once I started, there were so many other things I wanted to do ... clean up the rest of the leaves from fall that are accumulated around the back yard fence ... fertilize a couple of shrubs that look to be dying ... dig up and divide that hosta by the pond ... load up all the garbage alongside the driveway into my truck so I can take it to the dumpster at work ... weed-n-feed the lawn ... and 40 or 50 other things.
But I just didn't have any more energy. Besides, I think that's a pretty good evening's work, and I think I deserved to call it a night after that. There's plenty of time for everything else. Or, well, even if there isn't, I can only do so much on one weeknight evening.
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