2010 (c) T Webber SoulCollage (r) card
It’s been awhile since I’ve done this, even though I always light a candle for all the other wish-casters every week. Let’s see if I remember how to do it, shall we?
My wish this week is simple: I wish I had less drama and stress in my life.
Strange as it seems, it is always outside influences that wreak the most havoc. As in, yes, I worry about my new job. Yes, I worry about my 9yo’s inherent laziness towards her education. Yes, I worry about my 7yo, all the time. Yes, I worry about being prepared for my very first craft show in November. Yes, I worry about any number of things. But these are not really the things I need less of…not really.
What I wish is for people to stop trying to interfere, to improve things, to point things out, to involve me, to involve my family, to help, to hinder, to all sorts of other things.
One step back…this is a visual demonstrations. I forgive, but I never forget. I hold grudges. The old guy next door disrespected me once before, a long long time ago and I have never really forgotten it. I take a savage pleasure in affecting his sense of … rightness…when it comes to our yard. Our yard. Not his yard. I would never do anything to his yard, ever.
We planted azaleas this week-end. Three little azalea bushes, bought to start the landscaping process at the rental house while I was living there. Well, since someone else moved in, we decided to let them landscape any way they wanted. We kept the azaleas here. Yes, they stayed in their store containers in the front yard all these months, until this week-end.
The guy next door is very precise. The type that mows his lawn every other day. Seriously. His grass reaches 2 inches high and he’s out there at the crack of dawn with his mower (No, he is good. He does wait until a decent hour.), mowing it down to its approved of one inch or shorter.
We figured out where we wanted the azalea bushes. We sprayed painted a circle on the ground. E dug the holes, or she started the holes. R finished them out with the posthole digger. We planted the azaleas. I put horse hay (the rabbits never did like it, so it’s all for gardening now) around the base of the plants.
I wasn’t watching for the neighbor on purpose; I just happen to catch the look on his face as he walked past our little azaleas. It was a look of utter disgust. I don’t know whether he likes azaleas or not, but the hay thing bothers him. It’s not like I piled hay all up in a big mound, or threw it all over the place. It’s just an inch of hay, close to the base of the plant, to help maintain moisture and give the plant something to feed on as the hay breaks down. It’s the bushes, planted out in the middle of the grass, with no bed laid, no real planning. That is what bothers him.
He never said a word to us. So far, he hasn’t done anything to the bushes either. He does trim everything on that side of our house. We have a forsythia bush there that has been his private domain for years.
This is the less stress thing of which I speak. Those azaleas may bother the ever-loving bejesus out of the man, but he wrinkled his nose up, kept his own counsel and walked on. And when he saw me later, he waved and smiled, which for us is conversation. He actually spoke to me once and I nearly fell over. He’s the strong silent type.
I want less stress from other people’s issues…All that just to say that one little thing. I may not be drama-free myself, but I don’t go inserting myself into other people’s lives simply because I can. I keep my own counsel, until asked.
That’s it. Thanks.
