November 23 – “Always something more”

Chris was gone today, so I wanted to do something around the house that she would notice and appreciate.  That sometimes happens to me when she leaves.  I become a hopeless romantic.  I got together my "To Do" list for the week first, and took care of the crucial, "must be done on Monday" stuff – like paying bills and sending birthday and anniversary cards.  I figured I could work on the teaching tomorrow and be well on my way before Josh and Christi and their boys get here late Tuesday night.  I'll just have to focus – in between frying turkeys, which is already scheduled for tomorrow.    I decided that the most obvious thing of all would be to catch up on some yard work.  We're only about fourteen months behind, and those two new sycamore trees are going to think we are evil step-parents if they don't see some work soon.  That led to my first decision.  Do I go to Kel's and borrow the lawn mower, or do I just use our weedeater?  I really didn't want to go get the lawn mower.  I don't know if I was just feeling lazy or what, but I came up with some great reasons not to go.  They probably wouldn't be there.  If they were there, I'd have to stay and play awhile.  Then I'd have to lift it into the truck.  Hey, there was my clincher.  There was no way I could lift it by myself.  Now maybe that was the voice of my conscience / wife going off in my head, or maybe, like I said, I was being lazy.  I used the weedeater.   The front yard wasn't too hard.  We only have grass on half of it anyway.  It's trying to spread over that mud that we got from our neighbor, but it has a long way to go.  And speaking of that mud, when it gets wet it is the slipperiest stuff I have been on since playing broomball back in the 80's and watching our friend Rob hit the ice hard.  There was a lot of dew when I began, so I had to be careful trekking across the mud.  I about had the grass trimmed when I noticed the palm tree in the front yard.  It was looking pretty sick, so I got that long saw on a pole thing and cut the dead branches.  There's a pretty nice pile now.    I moved to the other side of the driveway and started on the part of our neighbor's yard that touches ours.  Our neighbor.  I guess that would be "super-corporate mortgage company backed by government bailout money" now.  I got enough of that yard done that I could put the trash out, then remembered that I still had to do the back yard at our house.  That would be the one not backed by government bailout money.  I packed up the weedeater and headed into the fray.  The back yard is a puzzlement to me.  There is a lot of grass back there now.  More than we have had in years.  But there is also a lot of weeds.  And some of them were my personal deadly nemesis – stickerburs.  I cannot abide stickerburs.  So I started pulling them up by the roots – by hand.  Took longer, but it's the only way to get rid of them effectively.  I continued cutting, but as I neared one section, I remembered Chris saying, "If you mow, be careful, because some plant is growing back there."  Actually, she said the plant's name and all, but I don't remember it.  So when I reached that point I pulled up the grass and weeds by hand so I would be sure to miss the special growth.   Then  I realized that I would have to move the lawn furniture around to get under them, and then I would have to rearrange it all in case someone wants to sit outside on Thursday.  And then I saw that I needed to make the little slide accessible, just in case.  And then the patio needed to be swept.  And then I remembered that I hadn't swept the front sidewalk yet.  And then I looked over at the abandoned house and realized I had never finished cutting it.  There was always something more.  I finally had to quit.  I'm going to be seriously sore.  I guess it'll be a good test for this weird arthritis.  It most definitely hurt while I was working.  Now we see how bad it still hurts tomorrow.  Always something more.   Philippians 1:6 says, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."   Father, I know for sure that I'm not complete.  I find out every day that there is always something more I need to work on.  Thanks for your promise to stick with me.  Amen.