Lawn mowing

It's that time of year again. We decided we'd better get out and mow the lawn before it grew out of control. Mike mows the back "lawn" (weeds) with an old gas mower someone gave us, and I mow the front lawn with the push mower.



I love this mower. I got it out this morning and was WD-40ing it in the driveway when I overheard Mike talking to our neighbor across the street.

Neighbor: Why don't you just use the gas mower for the whole lawn?
Mike: She thinks it's better to use this mower. She says it's better for the grass.
(Silence, while I could feel them both staring at me.)
Neighbor: Well, anyway... (Neighbor tactfully changed the subject away from Mike's crazy wife.)

But despite the incredulous neighbors, I stick to my choice. My mower has huge advantages:

1. It's quiet.
2. Less pollution.
3. Cheaper to buy and run.
4. Free exercise!
5. I've read that it is, indeed, better for the grass because of the way it cuts. But even if this isn't true, the other four advantages are still worth it.

You also really get to know your grass by using a push mower. It's just like biking through your neighborhood. You find out which streets really are slightly uphill and downhill, which you would never notice if you just drive around in a car. Mowing the lawn with a push mower, you find out where the grass grows thickest and fastest. I don't know if this is really an advantage (maybe it is if you're developing a scientific watering plan?) but I thought it was interesting.

The weather has been so nice this week that we've spent a lot of time outside. M. got her flower garden planted:



(Notice the nicely mowed lawn. I still haven't trimmed by the fence, though.)

We also got our garden boxes dug up, added some soil builder, and planted our spring vegetables.



A. and T. are standing behind the mound of dirt that's been there since we put grass in the front yard. It's not very high and the picture doesn't show it too well, but it's a long, curved hill with weeds growing on the top now. The original plan was to move this dirt to areas of the back yard where the ground could use some leveling. But we didn't get around to it that year, and didn't do it last year either. Today we finally decided to forget about it. The kids love it! It creates a little separated space that can be a fort, or a secret kingdom, or a house, or a cave, or Mordor. So we're just going to keep it there permanently. The funny thing is this: Now we feel like we made progress on our project list, even though all we did is cancel a project. Brains are funny!

Mmmmmmm

I love days when we're not too busy and can spend most of the day at home. Here's one reason:



15 minutes later:



And 5 minutes after that:



If only I could bake more than four loaves at once!

Fresh, warm bread with butter has to be on the top ten list of best-tasting foods in the universe.

Behavioral conditioning

Our new oven works great. I, on the other hand, have some reprogramming to do. Over the past 10 years I've figured out how to adjust for the quirks of the old oven, and I'd never realized how conditioned I'd become. We baked brownies in the new oven yesterday, and I automatically subtracted 25 degrees from the temperature. The brownies turned out good, but a little gooey, and then it dawned on me what I had done. Tonight I'm baking rolls, and I'm having to force myself to stick to what the recipe actually says about time and temperature. The first batch has turned out well. But my mind is shouting, "Don't bake them at 375 degrees! They'll burn!" It's like that spooky book I read in elementary school, House of Stairs, where the kids in the experiment become so trained that they can't stop going through their ritual dance for food even when the experiment is over. I used to have nightmares about that book. Hopefully it won't be quite as traumatic to retrain myself to bake properly.

Stove shopping

So our oven died last week. It was a slow and quiet death, and I didn't realize what was happening until I tried to bake four loaves of bread and they burned on top and were still dough on the bottom. (And if you've made bread from scratch without a breadmaker or mixer, then you can imagine my reaction when I realized all that work was wasted. The children came in to see why I was yelling at the oven.) Then I remembered the potatoes a week before that had taken forever to cook, and the biscuits that had been surprisingly pale on the bottom, and several other things that hadn't turned out quite as I expected. Just to test it one more time, I turned the oven up to 450 degrees, waited about 20 minutes, then held my hand in there at different spots. Sure enough, down near the bottom element it was hardly warm at all, and near the top one it was hotter, but not 450 degrees.

Mike and I are reasonably frugal, and we're often willing to get things fixed rather than just replacing them, but this stove had lived out its lifetime. (Almost 11 years since we've been in this house, and it wasn't new when we moved in.) The top burners had been quirky for years. So off we went tonight to look at stoves.

Whenever we have to buy an appliance that I've never bought before, it's a little strange. It just seems weird to walk into a store and buy a stove. Stoves are just there, right? It's like when I went to college and all of a sudden I was opening a checking account, paying rent, and doing my own grocery shopping, and I would think, "Wait, this is what grownups do." Well, I guess grownups also have to buy washers and refrigerators and furnaces, and now stoves. Someday we will have bought every major appliance at least once, and maybe then I won't feel like I'm just pretending to be a grownup. (But I will not tempt fate by listing the few things that we still haven't had to replace!)

We found a stove without much trouble. It's one of those flat-topped ones that still look futuristic to me, and I'm looking forward to never, ever having to clean under the burners again.

T. went shopping with us. He took his job as helper very seriously, opening every oven door to look inside and deciding which stove he liked best. We didn't get that one, but he took it well. Actually, all the kids took the news well. A couple of years ago we had to replace our refrigerator, and our middle child cried and said she would miss the old broken one too much, so could we please keep it in the basement for her? (No.) This time, nobody asked to keep the old stove. Maybe that's partly because it really, really needed a good cleaning. But hey! One more thing to take off my to-do list!

When procrastination has gone too far

I cleaned out my cupboards and food storage area today. I put together a new shelf for cans, organized what we have, and figured out what needs to be bought next. I found out what was lurking in the back of the freezer. (Meat and vegetables I'd forgotten we had, but mostly still usable.) But here's the sad thing.

In my cupboard was old baking chocolate with an expiration date from years ago.

You know you're too much of a procrastinator when it leads to wasting chocolate.

Daily necessities

I was reading a blog I like, Here in the Bonny Glen, and the author linked back to a post from 2006 about her "Rule of Six" -- that is, six things she tries to include in her family's lives each day:

-meaningful work
-imaginative play
-good books
-beauty (art, music, nature)
-ideas to ponder and discuss
-prayer

Then in the comments, someone mentioned this quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

I'm a list-loving person. I make plenty of to-do lists, goal lists, and priority lists, and my lists tend to be long and always getting longer. But a very short list, distilled down to the most important, most indispensable things that could enrich each day, would be interesting to think about and create. (Not to mention more memorable than a long list, and more doable on busy days!)

Poetry 6

I saw the last stanza of this poem on a TV show, of all places, and jotted it down. Years later I searched online and found out there was more to it. I like the calm feeling of the poem, especially toward the end.


Prayer for This House
by Louis Untermeyer

May nothing evil cross this door,
And may ill fortune never pry
About these windows; may the roar
          And rain go by.

Strengthened by faith, these rafters will
Withstand the batt'ring of the storm;
This hearth, though all the world grow chill,
          Will keep us warm.

Peace shall walk softly through these rooms,
Touching our lips with holy wine,
Till ev'ry casual corner blooms
          Into a shrine.

Laughter shall drown the raucous shout;
And, though these shelt'ring walls are thin,
May they be strong to keep hate out
          And hold love in.

Music and chores

I play the piano almost every day, usually just for fun. But a couple of weeks ago I bought an arrangement of Die Moldau by Smetana, a Czech composer. It's a long, beautiful piece that I love listening to, and I'm determined to learn to play it. My left hand isn't smooth yet on the fast runs of notes. There are awkward places where I need to work out the fingering. There are two or three pages I can't play at all yet. But it's slowly getting better, and even though it's work, it's fun.

I also recently started cello lessons again. My new teacher has assigned me some pretty hard stuff to help me overcome some technique errors I've fallen into. I'm practicing scales, bowing, and fingering, and trying to toughen up the skin on my fingers again. But I enjoy it despite the hard work.

So I was thinking the other day: Why is it so much more appealing to practice music than to clean the house or balance the checkbook? The repetitive motions of fingers and arms aren't fun in themselves. The fun comes from hearing the music -- sometimes beautiful, sometimes just the beginnings of what will someday be beautiful. All those bowstrokes and scales produce a result that makes the work worth it.

I've been trying to look at housework the same way. Dishes, laundry, and cleaning the toilet aren't my favorite things to do, but maybe they're like bowing exercises or piano scales. Maybe the repetitive household tasks will be less of a chore if I focus more on the result -- the harmony of a clean and organized home.


(Wow, that was deep. Maybe I should just sing more as I work:

If you chance to meet a germ, do not let it stay,
Quickly open up the bleach and scrub that germ away.
No one likes a messy place, here is what to do,
Send the children up in space and no more mess for you.

...Yes, yes, horrible mom thoughts. It's late.)