Sunburn

I keep thinking I am going to get more done on the weekends. Then the weekend gets here and our gigantic extended family wants to swim cook out, exchange kids, and generally act like families on the weekend. In the meantime, my garden has gotten totally out of control. What did get put in got put in late and what is in and growing well is covered up in weeds. I have such high hopes for my garden every year, but there never seems to be enough time to make it pretty.

This weekend was no different. Friday I think, I will get up early tomorrow and work in the garden until it gets hot. Then I will come back inside eat a great lunch and take a two hour nap. After I wake from my nap, I will wait until it cools off in the evening and go back outside and work again until it is too dark to see. Sunday, I will do the same thing. Then I get this nagging feeling that I am forgetting something. The something is a recruitment meeting for our master gardener group. Crap. I spend Saturday morning talking to a few people who are interested in becoming master gardeners. I really enjoyed this, but I didn't get anything done in my own garden.

When I arrived home a cousin was here visiting. The next thing I know one of my boys is going with him. I still have to plant some hibiscus in another person's garden. Okay, nothing gets done in my garden.

Sunday morning, I get up before dawn and type an agenda. I went back to bed because it was too dark to work outside. At 10:00 the phone wakes me. It is a cousin, "We are on our way over to go swimming. Do you want us to bring the watermelon?" Here we go, pack up everybody and head to the pool. Still thinking, I can get a lot done this evening. At least something done this evening. We come home in the early afternoon. It is too hot to work outside so I will wait until 6:00 or 7:00. Over the next hour, I develop the sunburn of the decade. Nothing takes the energy and motivation out of me like a sunburn.

I will go outside here in a few minutes, but I don't expect to get much done. I hurt and I am tired. I am going to try to get out of my garden what I need out of it. Peace, quiet, calm, nurture, the smell of dirt and herbs. The goal is not to get something done. The goal is just to be there.

Do you know what is really relaxing? Watching a teenage boy mow the lawn for you.