More Fall Fun

Ah, there's nothing quite like the joy of raking leaves on a sunny Fall day. As my friend Sheila said, "It always sounds like a great idea at first. All that good exercise and fresh air. But after awhile it's not really all that enjoyable". My sentiments exactly.

We finally had a sunny weekend day. So today was the day to tackle raking the entire yard. We started out this morning with Dan and I taking turns. Dan raked for a couple of hours while I sat inside with the girls. I watched him through the window, just itching for my turn with the rake. When he came inside, exhausted and sore, I headed out for my turn. I took a deep breath of the cool, crisp air, and started attacking the daunting task. After about a half hour I stopped and evaluated my progress. I realized that I had:

-Many, many small piles of leaves, scattered all over the yard

-No game plan for getting rid of these small piles of leaves

-Very, very wet and cold feet

-Sore neck, back and arms,

-Some extremely large blisters forming on both of my hands

I also noticed that more leaves were falling from the trees, faster than I could rake them up.

I felt very defeated. I finished raking the few piles onto the tarp and carried them to the woods. Then I headed inside to get ready for my nephew's first birthday party.

After the party, we decided to head out for some more yard work. This time, we approached it differently. We put Erin into bed for a nap, and brought the monitor outside. Beth and Amy came out too, and we gave them their kid-sized rakes so that they could "help". We all worked together, and the girls laughed and jumped in the piles. They had contests to see who could put the most leaves onto the blue tarp, and Dan gave them "tarp rides" on each trip back from the woods. Their laughter rang out through the yard, and somehow it didn't seem like so much drudgery. We finished the majority of the yard, and although I am developing some pretty large blisters, and require lots of advil to take care of these sore muscles, we did have a lot of fun this afternoon.

Yes, it was fun. But since there's still a bit more raking to do, I'm really, really glad that it's going to rain tomorrow.