If I was where I should be in the grand scheme of getting things done, I’d be hauling out my leaf rakes about now and checking them for autumn readiness. I’d have the gardens cut back, cleaned and mulched for winter. I’d be crossing off items on a checklist as I prepared the lawn mower, tiller and weed whip for the long dark and dreary cold season.
Then I’d saunter into the house and relax with a cup of hot chocolate and smugly wait for the leaves to start falling so I could man the rakes. Unfortunately, that’s not where I am.
The truth is, there is still a whole passel of summer tasks as yet unfinished. The brick patio next to the deck, for instance. It’s not only mostly finished, it’s been mostly finished all year. And there’s that final set of concrete blocks needed for the edge of the front garden. That project has been patiently on hold for a very long time. And for some reason I haven’t scraped and painted the house trim yet. That should have been finished by July.
I was going to repair the fence and rebuild the gate last summer. Funny, but it’s still waiting for hammer, nails and paint brush.
It’s a puzzle how I’ve fallen so far behind. I do recall there were a lot of rainy days awhile back, and I honestly think I haven’t been able to catch up since then. If memory serves, that was 1980. Or was it the year before?
It isn’t just the summer tasks that have suffered, either. I just put the snow shovel and sidewalk salt away last week. And I finally installed the weather stripping on the garage door to keep last winter’s snow from blowing in.
I’m quite sure I will have both cars winterized before hard freeze, too. But that, too, is a leftover from a previous winter.
The hard truth is that I haven’t gotten today’s work done because I’m still working on yesterday’s. I was going to mow the lawn – perhaps for the last time this season – last Wednesday, but there was a project from the weekend I had to finish first. Then it rained, of course, and now the grass is so tall it ripples in the wind like the plains of the Serengeti. I actually think I saw a lion lurking near the driveway when I left the house this morning.
Fact is, the lawn will get mowed, the fence will get repaired, the trim will get painted and the brick and concrete work will get done. I just can’t say for sure when. After all, I still have a couple of last winter’s tasks to finish first.
