Grownups

I feel like an adult. It’s so weird.

Yesterday Scott took his pharmacy board exam in Springfield. I know he did great but we won’t have the results until Monday at the earliest. While he was gone I diligently typed away at my book. Today, though, was the day when I felt like I was really taking a forward and deliberate step into adulthood.

Yard work.

When I was younger my mom found a very effective form of punishment—manual outside labor-- more specifically, pulling weeds. We hated it! There was little I wouldn’t do to try and avoid pulling weeds. But my mother had beautiful flower beds surrounding our house. These were no small time beds either. She had gardening down to art and they always looked so beautiful. (I say this in past tense since I’m thinking of specific memories from the past, but her gardens are still very pretty.) But gardens get weeds and weeds need to be pulled and with a house full of mischievous children, there was never a shortage of reasons to make us pull them.

Since Scott and I’ve been married we’ve moved from one small apartment to the next. Obviously, we didn’t have gardens to weed and plant or yards groom and mow. I tried my hand our first year at a potted flower but it died. I felt no further need to punish perfectly good plants by taking them into my “care” and having them wither away.

But then we moved into our house with a lovely front and back yard. Now that we feel good about having the inside mostly set up we ventured out to work on our outdoor projects. Scott took the back yard and I took the front. His goal was to put steps into our terrace so that we could have easy access to the yard. I don’t know what the people before us did but it needed to be done.



My reaction to the rocks



I worked in the front trying to put in a flower bed around the base of one of our trees. I’ve watched my mother do this a million times over. I felt secure in my knowledge and set forth to conquer the bed. I knew I was in big trouble though when I put the tip of my trowel in the ground and it stopped short with a loud clink. Moving over several inches I tried again. Clink. And again… clink. The yard is built over solid rock. I don’t even know how our grass grows! Everywhere new I tried I was met with large rocks. This was not part of my game plan.

So, I spent a 90% of my time digging up rocks out of our shallow soil with hopes I would find good earth below it and be able to plant. After clearing the area I wanted to use of the majority of rocks I found the earth to be hard, dry, and still very rocky. If I remember correctly, these are not ideal planting conditions. There had been a shallow growing ground cover planted in that area before and now I realize it was because that was the only thing that could possibly have grown.

So, new game plan.

1.       Use the rocks I excavated to form a boarder around the “garden”

2.      Use more of the rocks to build a small terrace around the tree and put potted flowers on it

3.      Fill in the rest of the worthless dirt with mulch and put more potted plants on top of it.  

But there’s something about working outside in the yard that will always remind me of my mother. I remember her coming into the kitchen to scrub the dirt out from under her nails, covered in sweat and soil, and being very happy. At the time I figured only grownups could be happy doing that kind of work and now, though I’ve had few setbacks, I find myself walking into my kitchen to wash the dirt out from under my nails and feeling very satisfied with what I have accomplished.

Thankfully, Scott’s project turned out much better than mine. The steps look great! We both worked hard and now it’s time for a little pink lemonade and chili queso before I start dinner. Life feels good today and maybe in this moment being a grownup is better than being a kid.

We love you all,

S/A