Mow and a Haircut- TWO BITS.

I am having a rough couple of days. There are things happening in my life that I just can't talk about on here. I know, I bare my soul regularly, but this? It is too raw, too new, too hard to think about, to process and I need a little more time before you will all get to hear about it. After a decent crying spell this morning, I decided it was time to pull myself together. We bought an electric mulching lawnmower on Craig's list yesterday and I thought that would be the perfect task.I put a pair of trainers on, which was excruciatingly painful since I broke my left pinky toe yesterday morning. I hobbled outside and unwound the extension cord only to discover it was way to short to do even a portion of the yard. I grabbed another extension cord out of the garage. Then I set to work. This was a huge task. I knew the girls were happy and playing upstairs, so I settled in making slow, even lines from south to north through the jungle of our grass. I trimmed it at 3 1/2 inches, because we haven't mowed it even. Mowing the grass is therapeutic, like hanging laundry on the clothes line. The roar of the motor, not loud enough to drown out the world, was loud enough to make me concentrate on that, and nothing else. I used to get so stuffed up and my eyes would water when anyone mowed a lawn. Maybe it was that my eyes and nose were already swollen and drippy from crying, maybe I have outgrown that allergy. All I know is that it was pleasant to mow the lawn.

I finished the last row and looked back and noticed that it hadn't trimmed the edges very well. In fact the Bermuda grass that crept over the paving was still there. The girls were standing at the back door watching and I motioned that they could come out. I unplugged the mower and pulled in back onto the patio. Then started to go inside for a plastic bag and scissors.

Gwennie was standing by the door, and it was at this moment that I noticed her newly shorn bangs. I paused, confused for a moment. My girls have never taken scissors to their own hair. But I asked Rhayn, and sure enough she had thought Gwennie would be more cute with short bangs. I suppose she is. Rhayn didn't do too bad of a job, either. She had set Gwennie in a small chair and trimmed her hair carefully in my bathroom, just like I would have done to her.

I walked in the house, snickering about the bangs, grabbed my scissors and bag and asked Rhayn for her help. On hands and knees we went around the entire perimeter of the grass and trimmed the Bermuda grass. I trimmed, Rhayn cleaned up. She asked me if she could cut some of it. I almost said yes, but thought this was the perfect punishment for her trimming Gwennie's hair. I told her "You already used scissors today, without asking. You may not trim the lawn."

Now it is ten and I feel so drained. We have swim lessons in an hour, and Chas Roberts is coming out sometime this afternoon (yet another long story, but with a slightly better ending than the last few times we have dealt with ole' Chas.)