Garden Time

I had decided this year I was not going to do my front gardens.

It's too time consuming. It's too hot. I have to water every night because of this God-awful Memphis heat. It's too expensive buying mulch and flowers. I have too much else to do. I hate the weeding part of it all.

But each day as I drove into my driveway and walked up the steps to the house it just looked awful. The gardens were overgrown with weeds. There was grass growing between the sidewalk.

It looked pitiful.

So about 11pm last night I decided today was the day and I was going to make a garden again this year.

I started about 9am when it was only about 85 degrees outside. I took my first break at 11:30 when it hit 95. I kept working outside all day between distractions and other obligations.

I was hot. I was dirty. I was bug bitten. I had a headache from forgetting to eat.

But about 6:30pm I was finally finished.  And I was happy.

There are so many projects inside the house that need completed (big ones like needing to drywall the ceiling from the heater leak this winter) that depress me when I look at them, that I wanted to at least smile when I first came home after a long day at work.

Even the kids said the front looks so much nicer now.

Next up, make the back yard look nice again.

And fix the hole in the ceiling from the heater leak :(

Southern Yard Art: Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

"Mom, we're gonna look Southern!"

Kid 5's warning stopped me only briefly in Lowes today.

"No, these aren't Southern" I told him.  "They are hippie yoga chakra wheels!"

"Yeah, that's so much better."

Southern yard art is a real thing; colorful glass bottles made into trees, little gnome tree houses, even pie tins hanging from the tree branches.

But not my yoga chakra wheels that spin when the wind blows! The colors of each one correspond perfectly to the chakras so they must be intended as more than just yard art.

Now true Southern yard art is the five-foot tall multi-colored gaudy metal rooster sold at the garden center up the street.

Every time I see it I wonder who would want this monstrosity sitting in their front yard. If it were mine I would decorate it for each of the seasons. A Santa hat on the rooster's head at Christmas and an Easter basket in the Spring.

It is a truly hideous piece of yard art.

It's so hideous it's fabulous and I want it. The only thing stopping me is the $300 price tag and some remaining common sense and dignity.

But every time we drive by I look at it and think someday that horrible metal creature will be mine.

This is either a sign of an impending mental breakdown or Kid 5 is right and I have been down here in the South way too long.