Sunday, September 07, 2008

fairy tales in the garden

Now and then, we all revert to characters we knew when we were children.


I am not certain who originally offered that little piece of advice. Jung. Mahler. Michael Jackson?


Whoever it was, the point is well taken. This last week, I started feeling like the Little Engine Who Could -- use Therapy. I knew I needed to be on track with getting the house on the market, but I had done nothing.


My realtor came to the rescue today. She volunteered to help round up contractors for the major repair work. That will be a great help to me. I was beginning to think I would need to retire just to have enough time to get the house ready for market.


Because it was a fantastic summer day, I started working on the yard. I have a nice rock garden that has fallen into some disrepair. Actually, that is a very nice description of what has happened. The rock wall originally had a few sprigs of cotoneaster -- an aggressive ground cover. Over the past few years, it has taken over the rocks and climbed the fence with all of the subtlety of a kudzu invasion.


I decided to cut it back to expose the rocks. Remember Peter O'Toole at the end of the revenge killing of the Turks in Lawrence of Arabia? Well, that is the same look I had in my eyes. I had managed to cleanse a good portion of the wall of the invader. Now, the garden has all the aesthetic appeal of the Kalahari -- without any of the charm.


But I am working my way through my torpor. And if I just follow the very good example that Nancy and Paul set when they started working on their adventure, I will be just fine.


For now, the little engine needs to keep a full head of steam. I will let you know when I start reenacting the three little pigs.

2 comments:

Nancy said...

Steve, Thanks! I will say that because I wasn't working - er, I guess I should say In An Office...I was able to make good headway with our projects. It would have been so much harder if I had been gone all day.

Maybe do some brainstorming - see if you could work from home half days so you had that time to schedule people to come over? Or take off one day per week?

If at least you kept appointments off your work schedule on one half of the day if the need arose you would be able to be at home without rescheduling work appointments.

Just an idea.

Steve Cotton said...

Nancy -- Very good idea. Our company has started a very aggressive telecommuting program (sounds like electronic highway road rage, eh?). I mentioned the idea of doing more work from home. We tentatively discussed redesigning my job to allow exactly that type of flexiblity.