Lawn Lady

Today I mowed the yard and weed whacked it all by myself.  (Full disclosure: the neighbor had to help me start the whacker.)  This accomplishment sounds trivial since I am a full grown grown-up and have obviously mowed a lawn before.  But it was a timely accomplishment.

Something about marriage has made me rather lazy.  Cutter is so great at computers and electronics I have ceased all efforts at making them work or deciphering their intricacies.  Why bother? He is the pro.
Same thing with the lawn and car.  In the break down of household responsibilities, those have been deemed Husband Domain.  And as such, responsibilities in those areas fall to him.

Yet today, the yard was calling my name.  For whatever reason, I wanted to do it.  He was golfing and I had a napping baby and two boys outside with pals.  Maybe it was how stellarly I had accomplished all of my Wife Domain activities for the day?  Ha. Nah, that is a lie.  More likely I was just sick of folding laundry.

  OR MAYBE, I wanted to see if I COULD still do it.

(It has been a couple years folks.)

So out I went, in my church dress and I knocked that bad boy out like it was my Domain all along.  And it felt good.  I was sweaty and sore (that whacker is flipping heavy!) and I actually had accomplished something that would stay "done" for at least three to five days.  A far cry from the feeling one gets when the dishwasher gets emptied, only to be slightly full again two minutes later.

Ultimately though, it was a win.  A confidence boost.
  

One that was desperately needed.  Earlier that morning the kids and I went to church.  We were late getting out of the house, jumped into a van with an empty tank, parked in the wrong spot and asked to move spots (Really?), only to discover that one pair of shoes was missing.  Gone, with no clue as to where.  Really??????  Really.  So we turned around and drove right. back. home.  There may or may not have been some tears of embarrassing discouragement.
Condemnation filled my head:

WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT RIGHT?  AND YOU THINK YOU CAN HOME SCHOOL?!  GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! YOU SUCK AT MOMMYNESS! 

...maybe you have been bombarded with something similar?  Maybe your inner bully has their own tricks.  I'm not sure. I may just be nuts.  But I have a Bully who is convinced she can bruise me into perfection and she was all over me for this one.

However, after some Honeycutt home church, blessing counting and snacks, the nagging Bully quieted down.  And God gave me a gift.  The gift of a lawn in need of mowing.  Who knew weeds could do so much for the soul and one's wounded confidence?  If I can mow the law AND manage the weed whacker then certainly I can conquer the world! Okay, not really, I am hugely exaggerating, but it did do two things for me:

#1: I was reminded of just how blessed I am to have a someone in charge of Husband Domain.  So many momma's out there don't have the liberty of choosing to do the lawn.  They do it even when they don't want to because there is no one else.  To all the single momma's out there with stellar landscaping... I salute you.

and...

#2:  I will always have "off" days.  Days when things do not go my way and I look and feel like a hot mess.  But if I spend all my time looking at all the ways things were "off" I would totally miss the weeds that I could (and did) successfully mow down.  And I am pretty sure that I will always be able to find some weeds to whack.

Well, there is a #3...
My happy husband rubbed my feet and got me ice cream.
That would technically make it a 3 win day.