Keep Me Where The Light Is
Back from vacation. A week-plus away from work and from most things cyber. I honestly never thought I could take a vacation from technology without getting the shakes but it was rather refreshing.
No blogs, no sites, no pop-up ads,
Not a single RSS feed
Like Robinson Crusoe
As primitive as can be
[Sung to "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island"]
I'm guessing I was on my laptop maybe a combined time of an hour total either to check the weather, update my running log, or post a quick blog entry.
So what's a geek to do when technology is not on the agenda?
You make time for all of those other things that have been getting neglected; one of which has been our home's landscaping.
Unfortunately since I started working again, after the great layoff of 2001 - you might have heard of it, I've just been focused on a million other things.
But maybe I should go back to the beginning for this tale. One of Nancy's and mine shared interests is gardening. As we began building our lives together, we decided having a fully landscaped yard complete with 360 degree property wrapping flowerbeds was desirable. And through a progression of adding new flowerbeds over the next couple of years, we were eventually able to reach our goal.
Initially, staying on top of the garden maintenance was no problem; however, we eventually reached a point where we had too many flowerbeds and we gradually fell behind.
Because of the time commitment involved, as well as the dollars, some of the flowerbeds fell into disrepair. Now this normally wouldn't be a problem if you're talking one or two flowerbeds but we're talking over a thousand plus square footage of beds. What I would refer to as the 'super-size' version of neighborhood flower gardens.
What were once lovely manicured gardens eventually turned into weed and grass filled expanses. Nancy and I both felt overwhelmed, so much so, that we did what we could so as to not become an eyesore to the neighborhood, while also realizing that we could never catch up just tending to things during the weekends.
I also noticed this summer that we spent considerably less time out of doors, at least in our own backyard. After all, who wants to sit among the patches of weeds and dirt to enjoy an evening cocktail by the fire. It was with this realization that we set about on Operation Restore Garden Splendor.
The task wasn't an easy one and as of this writing it's still not complete but it's a helluva lot closer than it has been for a longtime. With close to sixty-two man-hours into the operation we are well on our way to restoring our Eden.
If the weather will only holdout, perhaps even getting a couple of 'Indian summer' weekends in October, maybe just maybe, Nancy and I'll be able to have that afternoon cocktail while sitting amongst our newly created paradise.
~namaste~