I Don't Do Yard Work

Spring fever has descended upon our house with a vengeance. The WGH is outside even as I write this, doing who knows what with the two ginormous bags of grass seed and three azalea bushes he just brought home from Lowe's before he heads off to pipes and drums practice. At some point in the next couple of hours he may appear at my study window (which is open - hello? It's something like 70 degrees outside and gorgeous) and say, "Can you come here a minute?"

He wants me to look at what he's doing and give my stamp of approval.

I'm up for that. I will put on my flip-flops (as soon as I pry them out from under the cat who happens to be sleeping on them) and go outside. He will say, "What do you think? Is this spot okay to put these?" and I will look and say, "Yes, honey, that looks great."

This is the extent of my participation in the yard work. I function best in a purely supervisory capacity. About now my parents are laughing their heads off, because they know this to be a true statement. I hate yard work with a passion. Now, don't get me wrong … I love the outdoors. A fine spring day like this usually prompts me to go out and play with the dog even more so than I usually do, or take a book and a glass of ice water out on the deck and sit and read for a while. Any excuse to be out in the fresh air and sunshine.

Except for yard work.

If you've spent any time at all in the Lunch Room, you know me by now … I'm much more content being holed up in my little 10 by 12 study with the CD player going and the computer working nonstop. I'm a writer, not a gardener!! Are you kidding me? I can't keep a PLASTIC plant alive, much less anything that actually GROWS. And pulling weeds? Forget it. Dirt under my fingernails? Blecchh. I shudder just thinking about it.

The BF is a gardener. She thrives on making things grow just as much as the things she's making grow. She has a spectacular garden, and I love to see the pictures she sends me. She went above and beyond the call of duty at our house right after we moved in - on her annual visit that year, we went to Wal-Mart or the Home Depot (I can't remember which), and she bought me, as a housewarming gift, several little plants and flowers, which she promptly arranged in a nice pot for display on the deck. It was beautiful, and lasted as long as I remembered to water it. Which, surprisingly, was longer than you might think, given my heretofore acknowledged brown thumb. I loved that pot, as much for its beauty as for its being a mark of our 30-plus-year friendship that she would trust me enough to keep it alive for longer than two months.

The WGH and I attended a workshop/seminar at our church for new members (which we are, as we're now at a new church), and the focus of the workshop was to identify our spiritual gifts, the vocational skills and experiences God has blessed us with to be able to put those gifts to good use, and the things we particularly have a passion for. Does it surprise you at all to learn that my most pronounced spiritual gift is Administration? My vocational skills and experiences, of course, have everything to do with writing and a bit of playing around on the computer (okay, more than a bit, but I don't like to confess to too much), and my passion is, of course, um, writing. So put those together and, well … duh … you have me, JB, the writer. Notice there's not one mention of gardening in that mix.

Now that you know way more about me than you ever wanted to, I will get to the point - and yes, there actually is one. Everyone has something that they're good at, that they love to do, that perhaps in some (or maybe a lot of) cases may be something different from what it is they actually get paid to do. For the WGH, it's music. (You thought I was going to say yard work, didn't you? Tsk-tsk, you haven't been paying attention.*) For the BF, it's gardening. As a good number of you who read my daily musings are writers yourselves, you know that for us it's putting words on paper for the sole purpose of entertaining and/or informing our readers.

There are those fortunate few of you out there (like my lovely Wonder Twin, for example), who are doing what they love to do (and are good at) and actually ARE getting paid to do it. To you I say, I think that's fantastic, and I wish we could all be right there with you. For those of us who are not there yet, however, I say keep at it. If you have a dream, a goal, don't let go of it, not until you achieve that goal or make that dream a reality. Because it can be done. Even though the day job and my recent health issues threatened to put the kibosh on my dream, I'm still writing. One of my long-overdue reviews went up today at Reviewing the Evidence (thanks, Shaz), which marks my official return to the land of the living.

That's right, friends. Buckle your seat belts, because JB is back in the driver's seat. And I'm stepping on the gas.

Read a book. It's good for you!

=) JB

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."
-- William Wordsworth (1770-1850) English poet

*P.S. -- I'm back to confess that the WGH has made a liar out of me. Yes, he called me to come outside. But it wasn't to look at what he was doing; it was to say, "I give up. We're calling a landscaper."

Apparently, he's not that big on yard work, either.