Mowers



Let me be clear, this is NOT my mower, but it sure looks like it would be fun!  As I sit here at my desk, I can hear two mowers running outside.  It is April and so perhaps a little early for mowing the yard, but as I look at my grass, it too will need to be mowed in a short period of time.  I don't mind mowing my yard, I really don't.  I still use the old push mower with the grass clippings blowing out the chute.  They tell me it's the best fertilizer you can use, so, unless the grass is exceptionally tall, I just leave it.  I don't really have much of a yard so it doesn't take long to do it and I really like to look out and know that I did it and it's all done...for now.

I also see, sitting here, that the neighbor's yard is full of those lovely little yellow flowers that children like to pick so much.  I sure hope he takes care of the dandelions so that they don't spread to my yard.  I don't mind looking at them over there and I always keep the ones little hands bring me (for a short time), but I don't really want them growing in my yard.  After all, they are weeds and I have enough of my own weeds, thank you very much!

I generally spend quite a bit of time in my yard, of course, this is a new yard.  When I moved here in the late fall, there wasn't much to do.  I mowed a couple of times and then it was cold and winter soon approached.  I love to landscape and create new areas of beauty; flowers, bushes, bird baths and feeders.  This year I will have a deck to work with too, lots of opportunities for creating new beauty here.  And I see the weeds are growing here as well.

Why is it that the weeds continue to grow when nothing else does?  It can be the driest year on record.  All the plants that you paid money for are barely surviving but the weeds are thriving.  Why is that?  What makes them so strong, stronger than the beautiful, expensive ones you've chosen? 

Isn't that the case with the 'weeds' in your life?  You work and work at correcting bad habits, but they just keep popping up!  Just when you think you've finally laid it to rest, it will pop right back up and blow all over your 'yard' again.  Someone asked me the other day why habits were so hard to break.  I've been thinking about that and I think it's because they are easy.  It takes no work to continue to do what you've always done.  You don't even have to think about it.  It's automatic.

To do something better, to do it differently, takes thought, but more than thought, it takes action.  That's several steps to make a change.  It doesn't mean that it's impossible.  It just means that you have to work at it.  Like my yard, it takes time and patience.  Kill those weeds!  A little bit every day will make a big difference.  If you think about it and then take action on it, every day, then you will gradually create a new, better habit; one that will make you feel better about yourself.  You've thought enough of yourself to give yourself this gift!  And won't your new 'yard' look nice!

Happy mowing!