A Lawn Story

Yard work has never really been my forte.

When I was younger my dad told me to mow the lawn on the rider mower. I tried to tell him that this was a bad idea but he insisted that I was being over dramatic so I had to do it anyway.

It was terrifying but I did it and I even managed to make all of these pretty zigzag patterns in the grass.

(Driving one of those things in a straight line is HARD, y'all.)

Dad was not pleased and that was the last time that I was asked to use the rider mower.

(Not that I'm complaining. Being 15 and having one less chore is pretty much awesome.)

Now I have my own lawn to mow. And today was the first day this season that I did it.

Because of all of the rainy weather we've had over the past month our lawn was in desperate need of a shave.

The last thing Mike told me before he left for work was to not mow over the hose.

So I was a good yard worker and I went to move the hose before I forgot. But the hose was all covered in leaves and I was CONVINCED that there was a snake living in there. I got this vision of me reaching down for the hose and accidentally grabbing a snake and it freaked me out... so there's a patch around the hose of really long grass...

And then I ran over a ladybug. It was like slow motion where I was moving the lawn mower and I saw the ladybug RIGHT as I gave a big push and I was like "NOOOOOoooooooo" and I moved the mower and couldn't find the poor thing... I want to say that it flew away or burrowed into the ground, but I'm pretty sure that I'm actually a murderer and I just have to live with that.

Later I saw another ladybug flying and I was like "OH SHIT... what if that's the dead (murdered) ladybug's significant other... or a relative... or what if they were best friends who had a pact that if neither one of them had mated by the time they were 2 weeks old they'd give it a go together..."

So then I just felt depressed.

I'm pretty sure that's the only creature I killed, though.

I think...



The lawn looks nice now, and that's what's really important.

Except for that's kind of a lie because it doesn't actually look that good. For being such an organized person I have a very sporadic approach to mowing grass. I guess I'm just a fan of fun patterns because I have all of these swirly lines across my lawn and even though it looks pretty it's not exactly what I imagined.

I would mow a little for awhile and then turn around to see that I had missed a scalene triangle of grass without me actually noticing. So I had to go back and then I'd notice that some of the grass was still wet so it just went flat and wasn't actually cut... so it'll be interesting to see how that looks once it dries.

At one point I realized that I had given my lawn a mohawk (completely on accident). It was super punk rock but, let's face it, a mohawk is a tad cliche now, plus I don't think the landlord would appreciate it.

So now it sort of looks like Homer Simpson's head... mostly bald except for a few spots with about 3 stray hairs...

Awesome.

AND... the hoses were not run over.

Mission? Accomplished.

(PS: If you need a great read for the summer, Jen Lancaster's new book came out yesterday! Pretty In Plaid is sure to be full of laughs and pure awesomeness... AND it's about the 80s (aka The Decade Ally B Began to Exist and Therefore the Most Magical of All Decades... plus there was great music...) So go get it.)