What Do Ya Think About That

Today has been spent outside working on the yard.

Since my father died almost 4 years ago, we've been helping to take care of 3 houses and 3 yards.  The task has been split mostly between my sister "M" and her family and us, and let's just say that when you are taking care of that much land, things tend to get neglected somewhere.  Last summer my sister did all of the mowing at the other properties, including the farm which has 20 acres, and she is the most weary of all of us when it comes to doing weekly lawn maintenance.

This summer, we've been way behind on getting flowers planted and our front porch and back patio ready to go for the season.  We've had bigger fish to fry with getting my parent's house on the market and trying to tackle the grape vine that had taken over one section of our yard.

Grapevine is some very nasty stuff my friends, and we really needed to tackle removing it because it was killing everything in its path, including the trees!  So we yanked and pulled and ripped it from the poor little trees that were barely hanging on with their branches reaching straight up in an effort to escape the clasp of the vines.  You could almost hear them breath a sigh of relief as we removed the suffocating vines from their branches.  Once the vines were gone we could set about over seeding that part of the yard...just in time for the drought, our timing is always impeccable when it comes to this sort of thing!

This weekend we should be at the farm mowing and also tending to the yard up at my parent's house, but the big tractor is broke 'd broke, so that meant we could focus on our yard and our house for the entire weekend!  The mower part will arrive on Monday from a dealership about 2 hours north of us.  We were going to drive up to pick it up, but with the price of gas, the $12 shipping fee sounded just fine to us, so we'll have to wait until Monday to get the mower deck fixed.

This morning, Mr. Tide and I lingered in bed for about a half hour, and then reality set in and we got going on everything that needed to be done around here.

When we go about doing yard work, I have my priorities and he has his, and most of the time they mesh up pretty well.  Today's chores included weeding, watering, potting, digging, and beautifying the porch and patio.  By now, we usually have all of my favorite garden items out and about, but this year they have been tucked in the dark recesses of the garage waiting patiently.

While we were out weeding, a few of our neighbors came walking down the road.  We live on a private lane with only 5 houses, so these neighbors live just up the road a bit, though we really all consider ourselves part of the same neighborhood...without the actual "hood" part!

As they were coming down the road Mr. Tide decided he needed something from the garage aka the he%# hole!  I looked at him and said, "really?!, did you HAVE to open the door right then?!"  He knows the rules...the door stays closed, because what people can't see, can't hurt them! ;-)

Our garage is our dirty little secret, the kind that only your closest friends can know about.  When we moved here, we left behind a 5 bedroom home with an oversized 2 car garage that had attic space over the entire garage.  We even installed a door in our bedroom for easy access to our attic, so our garage was always neat and clean (relatively speaking) and we parked both our cars in there.

Ahh, those were the days my friends, when scorching heat, rain, sleet, and snow didn't phase us, because we rested comfortably in the knowledge that our cars were safe and comfy in their little garage.

This house on the other hand has NO attic and 3 bedrooms, are you getting the picture?  Sure we got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved, but not quite enough, so our garage has become the black hole where everything that doesn't fit inside ends up being smashed, jammed, and dumped into it!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not OCD and need my paint cans to all face the same way or anything like that, and our recent cleaning spree did put a bit of a dent into the mess that is the garage, but we are talking major undertaking, so a dent "ain't" gonna cut it if you know what I mean!

So why worry about a few neighbors seeing our "dirty" laundry so to speak?!  Well these weren't just any neighbors.  Oh they are really nice people, and I'm guessing they could really care less, but they just happen to be the people in the neighborhood that have gorgeous homes and immaculate yards...and I'm betting garage floors that you can eat off of...yikes!  One of them even owns a local nursery, so maybe their lawn implements are all neatly lined up and color coded...I don't know, but I do know that that garage door of ours came down in a mighty big hurry...get my drift?!

Mr. Tide found all of this quite amusing, except for the dirty look I threw his way when he opened the door at a most inopportune time, according to moi!  He looked at me and said, "this is real life," and then asked, "are you not ready for real life?"...and I had to stop a moment and take that comment in to my heat seared brain.

I wondered if the Osprey and Eagles get freaked out when a neighbor bird flies over and sees that their nest is a complete mess?!  Or how about the spiders, do they talk about another spider's web if it's not perfectly symmetrical?  The truth is, we are all imperfect, whether it be a garage or whatever, but that's what makes us perfect!

Oh, and I love this quote!  "No one is perfect, that's why pencils have erasers!"

Below is my new anthem...and I'm betting this is how some of my neighbors would think about us if they could only see inside our garage!! ;-)

My Cup Runneth Over

Sometimes when I think I should just quit blogging and move on to other things, I do a post and you all remind me of all the reasons why I'm still here.

You leave comments or email me about something I have written, and I know that on some level we have connected...if only for a moment.

It's those connections that make us human, which help us to grow, and what makes each of us special and able to bring something unique to this world, thereby making it a better place.

There is so much beauty in the world, found in people, places, and even things.

Yet sometimes that beauty is diminished, lost behind the pain and ugliness that exists in our world.

The good in the world is never buried very deep though, and sometimes all we have to do is to open our eyes, and our hearts, in order to bring it back to the surface.

Prejudice is the veil that some of us wear in order to color our own perceptions of what is beautiful.  And I've always thought that it's much easier to judge others than to look deep inside ourselves to find out what is truly making us dislike what we see around us and in others.

My hope is, and always has been, that my children, and their children, will one day live in a world where people learn to judge someone for who they truly are.  And the only way we can do that is to get to know the other person.   To reach out a hand to your fellow man, even if they aren't the same size as you, practice the same religion you do, love the same gender you do, or live in the same type of house you do.

I also hope that if I have ever just lost everything I own, including those I love, to a tornado, an earthquake, a flood, a hurricane, or any other natural disaster, that no one will judge me based on how I look.  I hope that my first thought when I see people suffering is not what they look like, but what I can do to help them in their time of need.  Because if someone can focus on a person's appearance above all else, and not on how they can help them, then I think that says way more about the person doing the judging then it ever could about those being judged.  

In the blog world we like to share what is pretty and perfect, but like some of you who have been so sweet to email me have said...sometimes it's nice to go a little deeper, and that's what I tried to do in my last 2 posts.

Now it's time to move on, but before this topic is laid to rest, I have to thank each of you for sharing a little bit of yourselves with me each and every day.  Through you I learn so much, and in the end that makes me a better person...someone whose cup runneth over, and someone who sees the world as a place where the glass is half full and not half empty.