The Uphill Battle

Three hours of my time, this weekend, was spent doing this (see photo, right).

If you had a look at my yard right now, of course, you’d have absolutely zero inkling that any form of rake had ever touch it.

As an estimate, we have 427,783 trees in our yard. Now, this might be an exaggeration, but — ow! I just tried to lift my arms off the keyboard and pulled a muscle.

I am not sure what possessed Colin and I to move from a perfectly nice little apartment in London where we had ZERO maintenance to this enormous house with this ENORMOUS yard surrounded by a forest. We were happy weren’t we? slumping down that one, single hallway back and forth from our one single bathroom (oh, yeah, that part wasn’t very good) to our one single bedroom… (oooh, not so great when our parents visited and I was ovulating. Sex on a blow up mattress is a squeaky throw-back to high school days, and not as easy to manuever when you get older.)

OH, and don’t forget the short commute from the kitchen sink to the washing machine (one mere inch), where I could handily finish washing the dishes then toss in a load of whites. What a way to save steps!

Hmmm… perhaps I can see it now. This house was a overreaction to the 650 square feet, walk-to-the-park-if-you-want-to-sit-outside life we were living.

Not that I am complaining… except isn’t that what makes it all so fun? See now, I have to walk TWELVE steps (damn stubby legs!) across our 25×20 kitchen to get from the liquor cabinet (where I keep the gin) to the fridge, where I keep the ice. This makes for a nice, martini-making workout, but is not the most efficient set-up.

So I guess we’ll perservere, not just in keeping up the yard, but in doing all the million tiny things that make the house slowly-slowly our little, mighty kingdom.

After all, that is the American Dream isn’t it? That, and the million leaves to rake.