we landscaped about 1/8 of our front yard today. it was absolutely exhausting. the heat was exhausting, the stress of picking plants (me: this is pretty! look at the pink flowers and how bright it is! him: did you read the card? does it require sunlight? shade? how big does it get?), as well as actually "tilling soil" and "pulling roots" and fertilizing things. who knew it was that much work? plus, it doesn't even look like much once they're in the ground!
suddenly i'm such an adult, thinking about how best to edge our flower beds, and what type of ground cover we would like- purply flowering things, blue flowering things, or those little yellow ones? i want it to look so great and unique, something out of southern homes magazine or something, but i'm not sure we're there, yet. we did get this really great hydrangea tree that i can't wait to see grow- it looks so cute and little now, but when they are a little bigger they are just gorgeous.
oh, i should start over. i came home from work on friday to three boys, lots of bud light, half of our trees/shrubs uprooted and on the treelawn, and one boy says "hi emily. we had a slight issue with your ax"
1 broken ax, 1 broken shovel, and 1 case of beer later, my entire front yard was on the treelawn. my concern with landscaping it ourselves was that i didn't want husband and drunk friends to rip out everything and then it would be just barren for weeks. i know how we are- we get started with a project, it looks great, then we get a little burned out and before you know it it's 8 months later and that hallway still isn't painted. so, saturday we were at a wedding (and i spent the morning at the dmv with my mom getting a new -pink- license), and that meant sunday was planting day. our poor neighbors... we now have a little corner sort-of planted, and the rest of it is creating this interesting hedge-like contraption of brances, discarded evergreens, and dying hostas on our treelawn. But, it does look much better than it did- hostas are ugly, people. i have never seen a hosta i didn't think was ugly, and i don't think i ever will. hydrangeas are almost always pretty, so i am excited for our pretty new flowers to start to grow and bloom.
husband told me today that my blog is negative. he's not crazy about me writing this blog- he thinks i should really just get on with it and write a novel already, but i think he's starting to understand that this may be a good step forward for me towards that goal... who knows. he asked yesterday why i don't share it with him, so i started reading it out loud to him this morning. i think he loves being a character in the blog (jk). i need to figure out a way to disguise him when i write him in for my book.
it's so much easier to write what you know- a general rule of life, of course. all writing is extremely personal, i think, but most writers still stay within their comfort zone while exposing a personal side of themselves... an interesting oxymoron of the writer's dilemma, i suppose. i hope i can reach the point to where i can create characters, situations, challenges and obstacles on my own, away from what i may know to be true (or true to me). can we ever really separate ourselves, though? can you draw the line between art and reality? between that narrator in your head and the narrator in your story?
"The writer is odd from day one and in the course of pursuing this maddening profession becomes distinctly odder... It is not unusual for a successful writer - your favorite, the one you think of as full of sunshine, wisdom and laughter - to spend great portions of his or her life in a state of fury, hideously disappointed, or even raving mad... for a writer it is almost essential to pursue a solitary passion in the open air. " - Paul Theroux
that's it for now-- like i said, i am totally exhausted from spending the day outside, and i don't even have a tan to show for it!
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