half way

Last weekend I spent the entire 1.5 hours of my baby's afternoon nap raking leaves and pulling out old dead marigolds from the front yard.

I worked so hard and so fast with that rake that I got a huge blister on the inside of my left thumb...a true gardener's injury.

Just as all the leaves were all piled up into two huge piles, one in the middle of the sidewalk in front of our house and the other in the gutter, two things happened:

First, I realized that I didn't have any fancy paper yard-waste bags. The idea of putting perfectly compostable yard waste into PLASTIC BAGS to then send to a landfill shook this Pacific Northwest native, birkenstock wearing girl to her very core. I was frozen with indecision over what to do with my yardwaste. No bags, no wheel barrow, no truck....gah!


Second, Sam started screaming from inside the house.


Result? The leaves sit there in their piles...one in the middle of the sidewalk...a week and a half later...



Every time I walk into my house now I have to step over the pile and cringe at my own ineptitude of homeownership.


To make matters worse, the other morning I hid in my house behind my IKEA shears and watched as a mother had to teach her little kindergartener daughter how to jump over the rotting pile. The little girl didn't to step in the pile (full disclosure...there was also a very old, mushy, stinky pumpkin in the mass), so mom had to do a 1-2-3 jump to clear the mess.

Why can't I just FINISH something?