When I was four years old my mother sent me outside on a post-rainy day and made me play in the mud. When everyone else's mothers were chiding them about staying clean, mine was forcing me to get a little dirty.
She claims mud builds character.
It goes without saying that despite her best efforts, I've never become friends with dirt. I happen to think it is everything we say it is: dirty, nasty, grimy, filthy, disgusting, and mighty gross to have stuck underneath fingernails.
And up until this weekend I've managed to spend the eighteen years since I was four avoiding it.
You see, it all began a few weeks ago when I got the brilliant idea to expand our bird retreat, or sanctuary...I haven't decided on what to call it yet, into a rectangular backyard masterpiece.
Why yes, I have been watching a little too much HGTV lately.
But that's besides the point. The real story here is that I decided upon this retreat officially on Thursday night. By Friday morning I was spray painting the area to mark for digging. SPRAY PAINTING. There is like no turning back at that point.
Roughly an hour into digging the sod out of the ground I realized it might have been easier to own a garden tiller. Another half hour and one google search later and I figured out that was $200 I probably wasn't going to talk anyone into spending.
At some point in the day I ended up at a nursery and Meijers with my Mom spending that same $200 I couldn't talk anyone into for a garden tiller on various perennials, shrubs, trees, bird feeders and soil.
And by that night I was on my hands and knees in the mud digging up this rectangle in our yard.
The same mud I've spent most of my life despising.
I've never been so dirty in all of my 22 years. Nobody else has ever witnessed me so dirty. The neighbor kids were in awe. My father couldn't believe his eyes. And my mother?
My Mom was proud.
22 years of trying and her daughter finally got into the mud, willingly.
22 years and I'm thinking I need my head checked.
(The "project" is still not finished. I'll have more of my "Backyard Makeover" tomorrow. Maybe. If I can still move in the morning.)
(For the record: I still hate mud.)
2 comments:
dirt and bugs and all that jazz really grosses me out too...but there's something to be said for getting good and dirty while you're doing something constructive like that. at the end of the day it's pretty satisfying to step back and see what you've done! and then go take a 20 minute shower, of course...lol
i hope you put some pictures up!
I will, when it's all done I plan on a before and after post.
I have gone to bed (after those long showers) every night this weekend feeling very accomplished. And to think that just a little digging made me feel that way! Well, I should have caught on sooner. Would have saved me all of that hard work in high school.
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