The summer of the lawnmower-moving out of the Liberty Park house

(shameless, i know since this story is not an original post and has already been posted in the Giles Files, but with Amy rereading this last night and actually laughing out loud at my writing ...i thought...gotta mark this moment in history for when the teenage girl hormones kick in. heaven help us all; and then some. Don't get me wrong, my girls are gifts from God, but I remember what I was like as a teenager, so...i'm just way planning ahead.)

July 2008.

Thoughts on getting the rental house ready to be shown.

The overall goal was being able to let my landlords list the house and have new renters in by august 1st, so that I could get any rent from July back for when I didn't occupy the house. I knew they would only hold my apartment until the 18th of July, so it was time to get to work. Work basically equaled making the house as clean and as cleared out as I had ever had it. It's like getting dressed up in really nice clothes just to break up with somebody.

So, the last weekend in June brought the time to do the lawn...finally. Friday night I rented a huge Silverado truck from Enterprise---mostly because I needed to be able to pick up a lawn mower I had rented so I could clear out the lawn. Funny…how things you plan on …don't really work out like that…

The lawn mower turned out to be a gas mower…not electric…main difference being..the yank dealie to start the darn thing. AND…just earlier that day, I found out from my landlords that they would be out of town until the 7th of July ---so they couldn't show the house before then…I had been planning on the first of july---so this was what initially inspired the lawn mower rental (my very first) and it was…a difficult experience….


I picked up the truck..(which the girls loved, and practically named and adopted into the family; they are still talking about trading our corrolla in for a truck, at which point, I remind them that this family is not a democracy.) and then the first thing Saturday morning…I picked up the lawn mower…

The GAS lawn mower. (while it ended up only costing about 17$, but…cost wasn't the issue of the day…)

I figured it would be electric like Grandpa Curts…but..that would have been too easy.

So---after I got it home and realized it was a gas mower…and that I was a weakling….and couldn't start the stupid thing…I took a seat on my front steps to take stock of my life so far.


It was pretty quiet on Park street that morning. people were out of town for the fourth of july weekend (including Dan and my landlords) In the house across the street, there was a team of men that were replacing the roof on one of the houses, but I felt like I couldn't ask them to stop their work just to come over and see if they could start my lawn mower.

And so I just kept thinking for a minute--waiting for a solution to present itself, I suppose.

The girls were just thrilled to have the truck still, and were begging me to drive them around in the bed of the truck...I figured that doing a little work would take the thrill of the adventure right out of them, so I sent them around the side of the house to load up the garbage and recycling with debris that I had moved to the side. Surprisingly, they did very well.

But…I was still ticked off that I didn't have the arm strength to pull the stupid mower to get it started.

Then I thought about how I had made the choice to isolate myself, and how I didn't have one male at the ready that I could call and get them to help me. BUT…I did have a neighbor two houses down that happened to be out--working on his yard. It's not that I don't think people would help me if I asked…I just save the asking for really urgent, emergency type situations. This wasn't an emergency, it was just an unfortunate twist in the plans. Overall, I was not prepared for a gas lawn mower.

It's difficult to explain the entire thought process, mostly because I don't really like yardwork to begin with. Sufficient to know, that I was stuck in thought on the front steps about what to do next.

Truck.

Lawn mower.

Gotta mow the grass.

Can't start the mower by myself.

I'm such a girl

Dang. Soooo close

And then, before I had time to talk myself out of it, I really must have surprised even myself, when I got up, walked down the sidewalk, and started talking to the neighbor that was out mowing his lawn with his electric mower. (a neighbor that I had never met, with a lawn mower that I didn't know he had) and said "hey--do you think you could…"

He came down to help, made me feel a little better cause it took him three tries, but he started it. Horray! it's working!! victory is mine! success! Look at me--mowing some grass....

And then…after I mowed about six inches..it died.

My neighbor was still standing there; it was only six inches, after all. He had pity on me and offered the use of his electric mower after he was done with his lawn.

I said "thank you "

He turned and walked back to finish up his yard.

I turned back to my gas monster mower, and tried to get it working again. I had nothing better to do while I waited.

I was actually able to figure out how to get it going, and it mostly, sort of, worked. While it did take some finesse (either because I had such thick grass, or because it was an older mower) …I managed..after about an hour to come to a shorter front lawn. And then all that remained, was the back lawn.

I found a cheap college student willing to do the work for a decent hourly wage; and hoped the grass wouldn't grow at a very fast rate, so I wouldn't have to cut it again before I moved.


10/20/08 update:

Since this...really hot morning in July I've made the move to a two bedroom apartment with the girls that is much better for our needs. and...no yardwork, no dragging the garbage cans out to the curb on a weekly basis, no worrying about icky spiders and bugs that are in the basement. Life is good--and I am so very blessed.

but i sill wish i had more arm strength. maybe by 2009.  ¶ 12:02 PM