So, to begin week 2 (I can't believe it's only week 2) of The Chore Swap, I made my third round mowing and edging the lawn. This time, I decided to set a goal for myself. I wanted to get it all done in 1 hour. It took me 1 hour and 28 minutes. My first mistake was waiting until 11:30 in the morning to attempt this feat. It was already 95 degrees and 80% humidity in lovely South Florida. This is not the ideal weather to be doing yard work at all, let alone setting speed goals. I went out there aiming to run while I mowed. For exercise and other important reasons. Stop laughing. The running lasted one minute. I decided to walk through it and to only take two water breaks.
The hardest part about yard work so far is the little unexpected things. I still have not figured out how to load and unload the battery on the mower. It ways a ton and I am reminded that this non-gas guzzling mower was my big environmentally responsible idea. It's a heavier mower than a standard mower and has less power. Oh, well. It is what it is. Emptying the basket of grass is very fun. The first time I did it, I lift out the basket and half the grass flies out and all over me. Turning the mower, that is so much work. Who knew? And lastly, edging. Edging I am getting much better at but am not a fan of the grass and twigs whipping my ankles and calves. I now know why the professionals wear full pants and long sleeve shirts. The edger also runs on batteries and I can never make it around the entire yard, front and back, without recharging it. This is one of the reasons that I set the 1 hour goal. So, I am now going to just time my edging, note when the edger pitters out, and then try to reduce that time so I can finish the whole yard without recharging. I might figure it out by the end of the experiment.
I will have to do an extensive weeding session this week as I did something crazy the last few days. I enjoyed it. I didn't monitor the weeds because I took my girls school clothes shopping, school supply shopping, took them on little adventures, went exploring, and they had a volleyball tournament on Sunday. So, the weeds took full advantage of this time and decided to grow...like weeds. Little buggers. Weeding, cleaning the patio, and hedging will be on the list for the rest of the week.
All in all, I am quite proud of my work and I am not afraid to let everyone know. When we leave the driveway on a day that I have just mowed the lawn, I tell the girls to look and I say, "Doesn't it look beautiful?" And doesn't it? Just humor me. And don't forget to tell the person who does your lawn how beautiful it looks, even if that person is you.
How is Mike doing?
I ask him if he wants to swap back and he just smiles. He doesn't say yes or no, just smiles. I told him how many days we have left, 19, and he thought I was joking, "Really? that long?" He sent me a text last night on his way home from a 3 hour drive, "I am going to clean the house tonight." And by "cleaning the house", he meant... mopping the floor downstairs. So, you can kind of guess how it's going. To tell you the truth, he is doing better than I expected with the amount of time he spends away from the house. He didn't stand back to admire the floors and he didn't ask anyone to notice but I told him how awesome they looked, how great it felt to have clean floors beneath my feet and later he took the time to notice as well, "It does feel great." Yes, it does. Tonight, he came home from work and continued to work on the rest of his chores, cleaning bathrooms and cleaning the upstairs floors and the stairs. We are going on week 2 and he still hasn't washed the bedding and I will let it go until the end of the week and then that's it. I will have to do it if he waits too much longer...because...the crazy hairy Holly-dog likes to take turns sleeping with all of us. I know he doesn't want me to do it. I can tell he really wants to be able to do all of it. So, I am going to let it go...let it go...the hair never bothered me anyway? or at least it won't bother me for a few more days.
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