Overgrown

I got a D+ in BYU’s Physical Science the first time I took it and flunked it the second time. I learned two things from this experience: First, all right-brained students at BYU should pay the gas money and take their science classes at the Salt Lake Extension Center. There is nothing like getting credit from a class like “Appreciation of Nature”. Our assignments revolved around spending one half hour out in nature each week, where we were then invited to record and share our thoughts. My kind of class.

The second thing I learned from Physical Science is some law about all things being in a state of decomposition. When we got home from our six week vacation, I remembered this stupid law.

My yard plan for the summer revolved around leaving my house and pretending the weeds wouldn’t take over in my absence. Upon our return home I’ve realized that we have become “those” neighbors. You know the ones. Brown lawn, thistle growing along the path to the front door, dandelions the flower of choice. We’ve been spreading the love this summer by reseeding the neighborhood with the fluffy white down from our yard.

The worst part about it is our brown grass. Apparently, despite forking a nice sum over to a lawn fertilizer company and having sprinklers that work, our grass is the only brown grass on the entire street. Our lawn company is trying to tell us that our lawn is in “shock”. That’s funny. We seem to have the only surprised lawn in town. Perhaps the company’s name should be something more along the lines of, Beautiful Green Lawns But Sometimes Brown If We Burn Them.

And so on Monday I went out and tackled the foliage. I didn’t plan to weed. In my attempt to be occupied that morning I had baked and delivered bread to our neighbors who took care of the house for us (it is necessary when baking bread to immediately confiscate it so I am not tempted to deter from my salami safe-haven).

After three or four passes in front of my house with said goods, I couldn’t resist reaching down and tugging out a weed on my way inside. One weed led to another, and before I knew it, I’d been out there an hour and had done a thorough weeding of the entire front area, despite the many critter holes which FREAK ME OUT. I kept sending telepathic messages to the snakes/rodents who live in them to just stay put.

And I gotta admit, it felt good. Kind of like repentance. It’s so much better to dig in and confront those sins. Passing in front of them every day only brings anxiety. Clean feels so good.


Comments

  1. Nice analogy! I’m the same way with weeds. It’s hard to pull some and walk away when there are still some left. That should be a good thing. I wish I was like that with exercise. Do a little jogging or work out and find it difficult to stop.

  2. i am so glad to hear that i am not the only one who struggled her way through byu’s physical science. i took that stinkin’ class 3 times- i think it would have helped if i had gone to the lectures.

    good luck with the shocked lawn. hopefully you can calm it.

  3. So is the lawn just shocked that you came back? Maybe instead of a fertilizer company you need a lawn phsychologist, or a lawn whisperer. Maybe you brought back a lawn virus from WA, all lawns look like that here.

  4. Good analogy!

  5. Our lawn is currently in shock, too. I would go out and weed it, but then ALL the green would be gone. At least the weeds give the dead grass a little personality. Because we live in a desert, we have to wait to re-sod until next month. Until then, we are looking for an old, beat up truck to park on the lawn to complete the look.

  6. Nice post! I’m a total stranger, and I happened to come across your blog through MMB. Go ahead — hunt me down! I would love it if more random blog stalkers actually took the time to put in their two cents — or is it sense?

    Anyway, welcome to the club of people who failed BYU’s physical science more than once. Something is wrong with that class. Don’t you think it’s saying something when so many people don’t pass?

    And congratulations on the weeding frenzy — it took us over two years to resuscitate our lawn after we bought our house, and now, we’ve only got one stubborn little patch in front that refuses to grown anything. So we’re raising a bed of dirt. Someday, we’ll dig in and plant rhodies or something!

  7. SevenVillageIdiarts says:

    I have a few blog readers/friends that have started stalking you. They talk to me about you, since they think we know each other (I make comments on your blog, you comment on mine) and you’re sort of like a character from “Friends” that everyone likes to discuss . . . almost like you’re a real character in our lives.

    Wait, you ARE a real character. . .and I think you’re the most like Phoebe. . . no, make that Rachel . . . no, make that the cooking girl, what the heck was her name?

    OK, what was my point? OH, yeah. . .someone just said to me at the ward campout, “Do you think the Salami diet is real? Can you ask Annie if that’s a joke?” She even knew what size pants you wear now. I didn’t remember you divulging that information!

    So, Annie (that my whole Oregon ward stalks). . . please stop teasing us with a diet that sounds too good to be true. . .unless it’s real.

    OH, and we built a new house 2 years ago and still have no landscaping. We have 2 acres of weeds. Embarrassing. So don’t beat yourself up, there are worse yards out there. MINE.

  8. by AnnieValentine says:

    soyandrue, I would love to hunt you down and comment but it won’t let me.

    For those of you in Oregon, I shall prepare a very honest post about my salami-diet to put all your inquiries to rest.

  9. Annie, you’ll have to admit, one GOOD thing (if it really can be considered good) is that 9 out of 10 people do not care about their yard. In Utah Lincoln HAD to have the greenest most weedfree yard on our street, he was constantly out studying it. Here we have crappy lawn, if you can consider it lawn . . . no one waters . . . no one weeds . . . they just mow it all occasionally and when it goes brown, it just matches everyone elses. We all feel so content to be so like one another . . .

    And I’m sooooo proud to know you personally, you are becoming quite a celebrity it seems!

  10. Ooops one things I should have said above is that I was talking about one GOOD thing about living in Waldorf was . . . . .

  11. Alison Wonderland says:

    Love the shocked lawn. I. Do. Not. Weed. Not the yard anyway. You’ll see when you come over.

    Oh, and how on earth could you not pass physical science? Easiest class ever.
    Love you!