Yesterday, I spent the entire day pulling weeds from the gardens. Great big piles of them. Some of those weeds had become larger than the flowers. I could feel them laughing at me as I tugged and pulled, as I muttered at myself, berating myself for letting things get so out of hand. Oh sure…we’ve been out playing, enjoying the summer sun, making every day count.
While we’ve been doing that, the weeds were raging a battle in the garden and doing a victory dance. Well not for long. The weeds are gone and today I pay the price as I gingerly walk about the house, muscles crying out for relief. “What were you thinking?” They would like to know. “Did you have to tackle every single weed on the same day?”
Well, um…once I got started….I wasn’t thinking about my aching muscles or the pain that would been be the price to pay. I was only thinking about weeds, the way you take your eye off of them for a moment and they take over. How you then have to fight back with a vengeance.
I think weeds are a cousin to laundry. Weeds and laundry and the mail. Insidious nasty things that look soooooo innocent. You skip doing the laundry just one day. The next thing you know you are out of underwear and there is a mountain of dirty clothes in your room and you carpet has disappeared. Drop the mail on your desk for just one day without sorting it and shebang…the top of your desk will disappear without a trace. Take you eyes off of your garden and wallah the weeds will gobble up your flowers faster than you can blink.
I am pretty good about laundry most of the time. Flylady sends me these wonderful little e-mails that say “Time to reboot the laundry” and it’s just enough of a reminder to click my brain into action to go throw in a load and go put away the last one. She doesn’t remind me to toss my junk mail but I have set up a system for that and frankly most of the time I will open the mail right in front of the recycle bin, so I give myself better than 50/50 on that one.
But I am going to have to admit to a miserable grade this year so far on weeds. Someone is going to come along and take away my gardening hobby status. You would never guess that I love to garden from the look of things. Its a case of having so many hobbies and things that I enjoy that I just can’t do them ALL well. The garden is suffering. So…that area gets a little more attention for awhile.
Awhile back I wrote a post about Balancing Balloons and keeping them all up in the air at once. Even within my Hobby balloon, I can’t keep all my hobbies up at once! Sometimes I have to make choices or juggle them back and forth for awhile. Time to put the garden back on the front burner so I can enjoy its beauty and not battle the weeds.
As I was pulling the giant weeds yesterday, I was reminded yet again, how much simpler it would have been if I had just taken a few minutes each day, to pull the tiny weeds from the garden instead of ignoring it altogether and having to spend a gorgeous Sunday pulling Monster weeds and paying the price on a Monday in pain. I know this. Yet… it’s a lesson that comes back to haunt me over and over and over. With weeds, and with life.
Don’t ignore the small things. Don’t procrastinate. Be diligent and daily maintain what needs upkeep. Weeds have an amazing ability to grow and they grow really deep roots if you let them. Catch them while they are little and yank them out by the roots.
I am going to do better. I promise my aching back. I really am.
The Inspired Artist! 
That was a good reminder. Maintenance, as much as it stinks to do sometimes, is so much better than emergency cleanup. Thanks for sharing that thought.
maintence is a lot better that emergency clean up as Ryan just said.
Un fortunaly I seem to be stuck in some time loop that you never seem to get any thing done. especially if you have a medical problem.As I do. it cost me plenty.
I had to give up a career in reasestate because of it. now with the down turn of things I do not foresee me going back in the business.
Hi Wendi,
I always say that the laundry, weeds and/or mail is breeding. Unfortunately they have a very short “birthing cycle”. It would be one thing if they were only producing twins, but they seem to love those multiple births.
Know What Kind of Weeds You Are Dealing With.
Know which weeds are Annuals. Like laundry piles, cluttered refrigerator shelves with some disposable items, dishes to be washed, covered over floors with odds and ends left by little folk or pets. These will always be around. m , covered over floors with odds and ends left there by “little folk”). Now these will always be around. They are not seasonal, but a twenty-four hour turn around. There is no down time for these weeds. Houses tend to go so far with clutter that you will spend hard, concentrated time getting them back into order. The Fly Lady Maintenance of de cluttering does work!
Now to the Perennial weed. You will never get to the root of a perennial weed. It is not possible! So, I advise, keep pulling them, when they show. Eventually you will find less of them. Reminders to yourself and loved ones, to keep up the once a year chores. . . such as, fertilizing, leaf raking, bloub planting, storm window placement, keeping the snow blower nearby, once a year car maintenance, and those “once a year payments” like taxes due. These “weeds” will never go away. Well, unless you move to a distant jungle and, in time there will be a new form of Perennial weeds there too!
Weeding With Good equipment and Clothing.
When weeding, wear a good pair of gloves (attitude) and carry good tools.(energy).
Be proactive and try to “garden” with some semblance of a smile and good attitude. It will fire up your “helpers”. Read about these “weeding” games after hearing of them from a neighbor with small ones at home. I love these ideas.
Puppet Dusters: Make sock puppets for dusting and start a contest to see whose puppet gets the dirtiest. Trash Dash: Designate a laundry basket for each child. Start a timer for 30 seconds and see which child can put the most in his/her basket before the timer goes off.
There will be times of great procrastination on your part and others. A “not gonna look, so the weed is simply non-existent”. That kind of non-action. Course, while you are goofing off, the weed keeps seeding and replenishing itself into stale food, old outdated clothes in a closet, mismatched socks and forever misplaced items,
over-burdened drawers of needless “junk”. You get the picture.
So, we might as well learn what we can about weeds and weeding. Been this way since that day when some ancient tribes-woman took down that first cobweb from the cave wall.
Ms. O
@Wendi
There is hope! Last year, I raged a summer-long war between my lawn and the Bastard-Plants (Plantain).
I have a pretty big lawn, I thought I was screwed. But I tackled it bit by bit.
I’m happy to report it’s been a victory. I’m nw relatively plantain-free. It CAN be done.
(Besides, weeding is much more fun than laundry!) 🙂
This weekend I was thinking how much I’d like my very own garden. Now I’m not so sure! No, I really would like to have one and I’d probably be the same way. Hey, we can only do so many things a day!
Melissa.
I LOVE my garden…when it isn’t a weed garden. But most of the time it is very worth it, both the flowers and the veggies, especially the tomatoes. Everything worthwhile has to be maintained. Or it grows weeds and has to be pulled.
Friar, thank for the hope…I remember that post come to think of it!
Olivia, What a great comment!!! WE should have you do a guest post here! You took the points so much further, thanks! That was great!
Barbara, LOL, yeah, too bad they aren’t like Elephants and have to stay PG for a year or something!
MJ, EX Realtor here, yep the market is bad out there. I feel your pain. Come on into the writing world, I am meeting a lot of ex-Realtors here. I left while it was still good. but it crashed shortly after. Its a shame.
Ryan..I need to tape it to my wall. Over and over and over….. Thanks!
I like weeds. If I had a garden, I’d leave in the weeds. Then all the plants would die. I can’t keep plants alive. I’m horrible at it. No matter what I do they die. But weeds? I could raise a weed garden!! Which is probably why I’m procrastinating right now instead of working. Latent Love Of Weed Disorder? 😉
Wendi, what a beautiful reminder and incredible analogy. Weeds in the garden of life can sometimes hide behind the beauty of blossoming plants. We ignore the tiny shoots as we gaze upon what is good and in order. Yet, left untended they choke out what is good and demand our attention. However, when we have tended to them, there is room in the garden for the beautiful things to blossom and grow.
“Don’t ignore the small things. Don’t procrastinate. Be diligent and daily maintain what needs upkeep. Weeds have an amazing ability to grow and they grow really deep roots if you let them.”
This is something everyone hopes and wants to do, but ends up not doing it anyway. Humans are notoriously lazy and unmotivated.
Amy, want to come and play in my weed garden? I still have some left. I could call it the Amy Patch. Then I would have a good reason to leave it there and not go out there and tackle it to the ground. Latent Love of Weed Disorder indeed. Actually that might be a symptom of Latent Rebel Disorder, ( LRD) Known by an inability to conform to the love of normalcy. I think I suffer from it too. HAHAHAHA.
Karen, I think you summed up the analogy better than I did! I am taking offers for anyone who wants to write guest posts in August! Want to?
Leafless, ah yes my friend….but if it were so easy…we wouldn’t need to stay inspired and motivated would we? That’s why we need to stick together and cheer each other on. We all do better together! What’s that the Bible says? The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I’ll say, No Kidding!!!