Thursday, November 20, 2008

I Lost My Husband in the Backyard


Has your husband ever gotten so completely wrapped up (read: obsessed) with something that you were jealous of it?

I am jealous of my own backyard.

This past spring, The Toddster and I decided it was time to get the backyard finished. I wanted grass. Grass would lessen my guilt over sending Bryce out back to play. It would also mean less DIRT tracked into the house which would = less cleaning for me to do. So, even if I say I want grass for the benefit of our children, it's really all about me. As usual.

So it's late November now and do we have grass?

Absolutely NO.

And here's WHY NOT.

The grader dude graded our yard in a manner that took about 6 feet off the depth of the yard. It's a long story about how and why, so I'll skip those details and just say that I wanted as much of those 6 feet back as we could get. I need the space for my bad minton set. I do, honestly. I'm obsessed with bad minton.

So, our next door neighbor kindly offered to let Todd borrow his roto-tiller so Todd could take down the annoying, yard-stealing hill that sloped up to our back wall. After a month, YES A MONTH of tilling, Todd was satisfied that he could handle the remainder of the task BY HAND.

He shoveled, he leveled, he graded, he envisioned, he shoveled more, leveled more, re-envisioned, shoveled, decided to take the hill down a little more BY HAND with a PICKAXE.

Todd has been picking, shoveling, digging, raking...DAILY for

7 months.

He gets home around 7:30 pm from work and heads straight out to the backyard. I peer out the window at him, missing my husband. He looks up and grins sheepishly. I smirk. He comes inside and takes me by the hand.

"Just come look at this!" He exclaims, truly excited by his accomplishment.

I reluctantly and skeptically go outside and look. I don't see anything different.

"I raised this whole area to match the other end." He says, a bit dejected but still hopeful.

I roll my eyes and head back inside, arms crossed.

Todd rakes on.

I solemnly promise that if we do not have grass by SPRING, I will construct a home-made pipe bomb and blow up the entire back yard. Yes, we will have no backyard, but at least I will have my husband back.

~~
GelaSkins Inc.

2 holla'd back:

Lisa said...

You should definitely write short stories!

Crazymamaof6 said...

AHHHHHHHH! so cute though. way to go todd. you get an A for effort.
and Sandi you'd probably be excited with a half assed effort and throw down some seed.
i'll tell you my little sister waits until her husband goes out of town , and then does it herself. half assed or whatever, it's done. and she's satisfied.

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