I’m totally into my yard right now. It’s all pretty exciting and new to me. See, I’ve never been much of an outdoorsy girl. My parents love to share the tale of a wee-Jenny standing right outside the front door steps screaming and crying. I refused to walk up to the front door. It wasn’t so much that I refused to do it; I was physically incapable of doing it. I was terrified, petrified and glued with absolute fear to the ground. There was a slug on the third step, and I just could not summon the courage to walk by it (lest it turn into a Super Sicko Slug – launching itself in a rage of slugly glory and slime and having its sinister ways with me). Yeah, I’m still not a bug girl, though I can say that I now handle the sight of a creepy crawly better than my three-year-old son. (He screams and cries and carries on like a…girl).

It’s been beautiful every day this week. I’ve worked for hours outside every afternoon – planting flowers and pulling weeds, pruning bushes and watering. I still don’t know what’s what. I find myself occasionally pulling what I think is a weed only to realize – yeah, I planted that last year – and I have watered weeds a-plenty. My latest obsession is my flower pots. I painted them navy blue, and they turned out so well. I’ve got three pots now – the big one (my major garage sale purchase from a few weeks back) is up on the stump in the back, and then I got two little ones for the corners of the deck. Buying flowers to put in my pretty pots was fun – though I still have no idea what they are. Mom asked me about them. My answer was, “Well, I got a tall pokey one, some big pretty ones, little pretty ones, and some crawling growies too.”

Yes, while I’m now enjoying yard work, I still have no idea what I’m doing. While I may be clueless, I’m proud of myself for at least doing it. I’m the girl, who, once pretended to be praying the rosary to get out of doing yard work. (Shhh, don’t tell my parents; I probably still need to go to confession for that one).

I want to get our yard pretty so that we can enjoy its beauty from the house, and most specifically from the deck. Until earlier this week, we couldn’t even enjoy the deck though. We didn’t have any patio furniture. I’ve dedicated myself the last couple of weeks to stalking Craigslist like any professional online bargain shopper. Finally – success! I not only found the patio furniture set of my dreams BUT it was cheap(ish), in great shape, and located five minutes from our house! Mike went on Tuesday night to pick it up, while I busily cleaned the deck preparing for the moment of arrival.

Matthew, as in so many aspects of life, shares my excitement. He watched with interest as I cleaned off the deck (despite it being way past bedtime). He could feel the energy in the air and was not about to miss the unveiling of our new deck furniture. Jammies and all, he was the first to try out the (dirty) new chairs. I promised him that the next day, he could help me clean them up so that we could start eating outside. (The kid loves a picnic).

We’ve had a couple of nice dinners out there already. I love that on the deck, Zach can dump food to his heart’s content and scream like a banshee should he choose to. And instead of being stuck inside listening to it, we can share it with the entire neighborhood.

This morning, I wanted to fulfill my dream of breakfasting on the deck. I have vivid fantasies of sitting out there with my coffee and this – my laptop – and writing away. So, in several trips, I brought out cereal, coffee, books, kids, etc. (I was going to bring out the laptop once I was done eating). We sat out there for maybe two minutes when Mike pointed out that, despite the sunshine, it was “frickin’ freezing” and we were practically turning blue with cold. Yeah, I’m dedicated to my dream, but I guess it’ll have to wait ‘til the weather heats up.