Talking dirty

After I finished cleaning up the backyard yesterday, it was hard to take pride in my work. My yard isn't exactly a picture you'd see in Better Homes and Gardens, not because it's small, but because it's in poor shape. The grass is dead, there are weeds, my rosebushes are in bad shape and there's a yucky pile of rocks I never liked since I moved into this place two years ago.

In other words, my yard looks terrible!

Never mind the pile of wood I've been WAITING for my husband to get rid of. Or the patio table that's broken. Or the miscellaneous stone pieces against the back fence which probably belonged to some kind of decoration.

No, the thing I didn't like was just how loud the landscaping was screaming, "HEAL ME!"

I am not one for landscaping. I often joke that I have a black thumb! (Seriously, flowers I once planted were dead the next day!) I have been living independently since I was 19, and in all those years, I have never been responsible for taking care of a yard. There was always someone else doing it. All I did was clean up after my dogs or water the grass, and that's it. I never pruned any bushes, mowed any lawns, pulled any weeds or cultivated any gardens. I just didn't know how to do that stuff! The one time I tried pulling weeds I ended up pulling out patches of grass that I thought had been weeds.

And true to "have somebody else do it" form, I tried hiring a gardener shortly after I moved into this house. I knew what I wanted in the yards, but I didn't know how to do that stuff. So I trierd to hire someone to do it. The first business I called, the guy who answered was so rude, I was too angry to call anywhere else. (He thought I was a scammer just because I was using the relay service. Too bad he didn't realize that I was using the relay service because I am DEAF! *rolls eyes* Yeah, I get that treatment a lot from businesses.) So that was out -- and so was maintaining my front and back yards. Oh sure, I watered the grass from time to time. (Emphasis on "from time to time.") But I just never really made the yard care a priority.

Until now.

Yesterday, after sulking over just how poor of a condition my yard is in, I made a decision: I am going to learn how to take care of a yard! I have no idea what method I should use to learn landscaping -- a book? online course? a course at Home Depot? -- but I'm going to ask around and find out. Part of the thing that influenced this decision is how envious I tend to feel when people boast about their beautiful yard or things they do to make their yard look nice. Why can't I know how to do that stuff, too? I'm sure I can learn. I mean, it's not exactly rocket science. (At least, I hope not.)

Also, I just don't want to keep WAITING for my husband to decide to fix up the yard himself. Believe me, I'll only end up waiting and waiting and WAITING. (I've actually been waiting 6 months for him to fix my rocking chair. Gah!!) If you want something done, you have to do it yourself! So I'm going to do it myself. I am going to learn how to take care of a yard.

And maybe my luck with greenery is starting to change. My husband recently bought me some plants and, so far, they're still alive.