Day 4

I am not cut out for lawn work/shoveling/cleaning the exterior of my house.

I think I've been saying that since I was old enough to mow the lawn at my parents house. When it comes to anything that involves maintaining the exterior elements of a house, I will do anything to weasel my way out of it. What do I hate most though? Any form of lawn work.

The problem with my hating lawn work is now that I'm the sole adult resident of my house for the next 6 months, I am required by German law (and our lease) to maintain the sidewalk, lawn, driveway and trees in our yard. So not only did I spend the last 6 months shoveling snow on a regular basis (and yes, I did grow up in Minnesota but I had FABULOUS parents who shoveled/snowblowed the driveway), now I have to sweep up the never ending sand/salt/rocks that remain after our crazy winter. When I say never ending, I mean its a constant battle to keep the rocks and sand in check so they don't clog the one drain on our block. If I don't, we get fined-and I've heard its a lot.

So after procrastinating for the last 2 weeks about sweeping again, I started to feel guilty when I watched my neighbors spend an hour scrubbing the fireworks off the street from New Years Eve and sweep their sidewalk everyday for a week. Since it was a gorgeous day and the last place I wanted to be was inside, I started sweeping and raking the front yard.

You would not believe the pile of sticks, sand and rocks I ended up with after cleaning up my small 10 feet of lawn. We have a HUGE biodegradable bin and I filled that sucker up. And that was just the front yard!

As I headed for the backyard to begin my poop patrol (lucky Jon gets to miss out on that this summer), I decided it was probably time to rake up the leaves and miscellaneous branches from the cherry tree that was torn apart by the freak wind storm we had about a month ago. After I got done with that, I looked at Jon's garden and decided to fix it up so I could maybe plant a few things this year. I should have stopped while I was ahead.

The garden was covered in weeds, at least we're pretty sure the majority are weeds. I pulled on my trusty gloves and went to work. Only I forgot about the crappy, thorny, itchy weed thing that implants itself in your skin. And in my fever to clean up the yard, started yanking it out of the ground without thinking. Of course my gloves are not "thorn proof" and I ended up pricking myself-on the palm of my hand.

This particular weed leaves behind a "stinger" and it itches! I've done everything I can think of to get it out to no avail. Its too small to pull out with a tweezers. So I just have to wait until it works itself out I guess (which I'm hoping is in the next few hours). Its really isn't as itchy as it initially was, but every time I wash my hands I can feel it sting like a paper cut. Despite the sting, I decided to finish what I started and weeded most of the garden. I really do want to plant some tomatoes and cucumbers this year. Plus I always love having fresh herbs just outside my door.

Regardless of my frustration when it comes to lawn work, I had to follow though. But when I was done and I looked at my yard, I couldn't help but feel a little proud at how much nicer it looked. I'm not worried that Lucy is going to step in Kelly's little treats every 5 steps or that my neighbors will think of our house as "the lazy Americans house." I don't want everyone to get to excited though...I am still maintaining my girly status of "not cut out for yard work". But I'll sure do my best to keep it looking nice during this deployment (and get manicures regularly to keep my hands from looking dirty!)