Cross one off the bucket list

Just kidding! Believe me "this" is NOT something I would consider bucket-worthy. It is however something I never thought I'd find myself saying that I had accomplished.

Today I mowed the lawn.

Ok, you can pick yourself up off the ground now and please stop the maniacal laughter, it's most unbecoming. Yes, I did mow the lawn and I have the photos to prove it.


As many of you know, and others of you can gather, I am NOT a yard work kind of person. This fact was previously discussed way back in the spring when I posted this blog and this blog about working in my yard and creating some sort of outside oasis. Not only did that not happen but all the hard work was for naught when a few weeks later all that "greenery" I had gotten rid of had the never to come back into my yard!

It's really a shame that while I love the look of a neatly manicured lawn and dream of having flower beds, bird feeders, and babbling fountains, I have no desire to actually make it all happen. I've been known to say I don't attempt to create a magazine worthy yard because I don't have the money to do it up right. Sadly the truth is I don't have the energy or desire to do the work. Let's face it, when it comes to yard duty I'm a lazy butt and I justify my lack of activity by exploiting the stereotype adage that a woman's work is in the home and the outside is the man's domain.

Growing up I fondly remember the amusing sight of our next door neighbor rushing home in the afternoon to mow, sporting a tie and dress shoes. (He was a minister and everyone knows that men of the cloth are always on call and personal things like yard work have to be sandwiched in between calls from the flock. Thank goodness he at least took his suitcoat off). Otherwise our neighborhood was a typical Leave it to Beaver hood. (Yes, I was a child of the 60's. Yes, I'm old as dirt) On any given Saturday morning you could look up and down the street and see all the men, and sometimes sons, out cutting grass and trimming hedges. Ah, Americana in full bloom.

My home was no different. I grew up in a household where my father mowed the lawn. My brother might have helped but I really can't say since he was out of the house by the time I was old enough to be cognizant of what was going on around me. I do remember Daddy mowing, even in the latter years when he wasn't in the best of health ... he did it because that's what husbands and fathers do.


Daddy wasn't all work and no play though. Look at him out there on his dirt bike. Go Big Daddy, go!

After Daddy died things changed. There was no longer a man in the house so Mama had to take over those duties. She actually went out and bought herself a fancy little electric lawn mower. Yes, electric. It came with a 550 foot cord that she plugged into the outlet next to the backdoor. I had actually forgotten all about that mower until just now. It's amazing to me that she never cut the cord as she was mowing and, as I look back now, it was even more amazing that she, a widow at 47, was thrust into a whole new life of being a single head-of-household homeowner, and she managed to survive.

It has not been until recently in life that I've been able to fully comprehend and admire the gumption it took to survive through the years. Kudos Mom!

me and Mama being wild single chicks back in the early '80s ... you can tell from the perm, right?

Just how pathetic is it that all through my college years and early adulthood it never dawned on me that I could be stepping up to do things like mow the lawn? I was too busy out conquering the world and proving myself as a career woman. I wasn't totally useless because I had the inside stuff down pat .... cooking and cleaning, easy-peasy. But, that other stuff - yard work - NOT.MY.THING.

 This photograph has absolutely nothing to do with mowing the lawn - it just is proof that once upon a time I was skinny, actually had a tan, and was totally into being a career woman .... when I wasn't lounging on a beach somewhere knocking back a cold one. Yes, that is Coke in the can, thanks for wondering.

It should come as no surprise that once I met my knight in shining armor it was only natural for me to expect him to take care of outside stuff. I mean really isn't that what the BIG Guy was talking about when he told Adam:  ^18-19

 The very ground is cursed because of you; 

      getting food from the ground    

Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;       

you'll be working in pain all your life long.    

The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,       

you'll get your food the hard way,    

Planting and tilling and harvesting,      

sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,    

Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;       

you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

I mean it's right there in black and white "sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk." Doesn't that scream yard work to you?

So there you have it - God said man was supposed to do yard work. And if you want to argue this point go find someone else, my mind is set.

But, the question needs to be asked - what happens when the MAN of the house gets sick and is unable to perform these husbandly duties? Especially when it drags on week after week? Does one ignore the fact that the grass is so tall that the cat is now lost in the backyard? Or, does one lazy-butt wife step up to the plate like her annoying older sister (who by the way, is officially off the Christmas list now) suggests



and cut the grass? Being the ever loving and doting wife that I am, I chose to do the right thing. I will freely admit though, if it weren't for the fact that we've had a week of cool temperatures, there's no way in hades I would have attempted this task. Have I mentioned before how much I hate being hot and sweaty?

Before starting, the Husband and I bickered a few minutes because he was insisting he was going to mow. I finally pulled the mother card -as in "your mother and my mother BOTH will have your hide if you mow the grass. Just let me do this!" Rather gleefully he agreed and rushed outside with the camera. Whoa there buddy, no cameras allowed.

"But honey," he said "you need photographs so you can put this on your blog." (he knows me too well)
Me: "no way you're taking any pictures of this, no, no, no!" (he should know better than to suggest it)
Him: "fine, be a bad sport, I don't care!"

I should have known he gave in too quickly.

He started the mower for me. Yes, I'm terrified of starting it up myself - it probably goes back to the time my eight month pregnant sister-in-law was helping my brother work on his mower. He told her to "hold this" while I try to start it. He shocked the fool out of her and they ended up with a kid who defined the word hyper-active. So, me - I'm having nothing to do with starting up a lawn mower - not because I'm pregnant and fear giving birth to an ADHD kid, 'cause that would be a miracle in and of itself  - but because I have no desire to temp fate and risk being shocked and ending up with a 1982 curly perm.

ANYWAY ... off I trotted to mow. Sneaky little husband promptly pulled out the camera and proceeded to document this most momentous occasion.

He quickly discovered that it really doesn't work to take photographs through screens.
  
so he ventured a little further from the porch and caught me in action

.

He's still trying to not get caught because he knows if I catch him in this treachery he'll be in big trouble. Finally he see's a window of opportunity when I am in full mowing mode and he quickly snaps this shot.

 . 

Despite the fact that I am horrified I'm sporting major bedhead, crooked socks, and major body fat, I'm glad he took these photos. Otherwise who would believe that I actually got out there and cut the grass?! 

So how awesome is that?  Sherri mowed the lawn. 

and you do all realize don't you???

that ....

you'll never hear the end of this!