Leaves are gone

Got home from graduation today, ate lunch, ran a few errands, and then was prepared to sit down and relax the rest of the day.

Then I thought about the leaves in my yard. (And cue my neighbor running his lawnmower. And: I'm sorry, I know this is me being a recalcitrant Northerner, but it just sounds SO wrong to hear a lawnmower this close to Christmas...) And then I felt guilty about not getting them raked up. And I thought about how bad the yard looked. And then I thought about being gone for several weeks, and would the place look less lived-in and maybe invite thieves? (I live next door to a police officer, so that's probably less likely than it might be)

So I groaned, got dressed again (I had put on an old floppy pair of pajamas I wear around the house when I don't have to go out again), and raked them up. Well, in the front yard at least - the back yard has fewer leaves, and besides, no one but me ever sees it, so I figured I could leave those.

I used the same old technique of raking them onto a large (6' by 4') tarpaulin and rolling it up into a sort of "leaf burrito" and then carrying them back to the leaf pile at the bottom of my back yard. (Well, it's not really the "bottom" any more; it's probably 6" higher than the rest of the lawn, thanks to the buildup of humus over the years.) It took me about an hour and a half to do.

I'll probably pay for it with being sore tomorrow (and I am ever so slightly wheezy right now, it probably didn't do anything good for my asthma). I could have hired someone but, meh. This is one of the ways in which I am cheap - I tend to feel if I can do some kind of manual task myself, I should. (I draw the line at changing my own oil, though - ruining one blouse while doing it would be enough to eat up any cost savings*). Also, I think this is how my parents maybe raised me to be a little too "egalitarian" or something - I feel like it's MY mess, and I should be the one to clean it up, not hire someone else and make them do it. (Never mind that there are probably people in town who'd be happy for the work. For a couple years I hired a youth group kid and a couple of his friends to do it, and in return made a donation to help out with the cost of their marching band trips, but somehow, that felt different).

(*And yes, I'd probably forget and try to change my oil in my good clothes one day. I think it's genetic. My dad used to do all kinds of household tasks after coming home from campus, sometimes not even taking his tie off....and HIS father is famous in the family for changing the oil in his Mercury (he always drove Mercuries...) while wearing a white dress shirt.)

At any rate: the leaves are cleaned up now. So that's one more thing done that was hanging over my head.