Sorry I have not written in a while! Our modem got fried last week one night. We had a random power surge in the middle of the night. We still don't know why, but it killed the modem. We finally got it fixed over the weekend, so now we can go back to paying bills, blogging, and keep children occupied.
We had absolutely nothing happening this past weekend, which is rare for us. After a long season of Upward basketball, we were ready for a rest. However, our yard needed some attention. A winter of busyness and illness had caused things to be grown up. Stewart loves yard work, and driving up the driveway every day to ugly flower beds was making him crazy! So we had decided during the week that yard beautification would be our weekend job.
After picking up children from school on Friday, we got started with pulling weeds and cutting down roses. Now usually, I don't participate in yard work. Usually it's too hot or there are too many bugs. Sometimes it's because Evan is inside, so I stay with him. But this time, the weather was perfect, and I just felt like being outside. We put Evan in his wagon, and Zach was even put to work picking up pine cones. I donned my seldom-used gardening gloves and dug in.
Stewart had made a deal with Zach that if he picked up all the pine cones this weekend, he could have his Kindle back. Now the Kindle had been put away several weeks ago because of continued behavior issues at school. Nothing major, but Zach knows what we expect. And he had fallen short of those expectations. Zach finished the front yard with no discussion. But then came our back yard. Our back yard is large for a subdivision house and has several pine trees. After a winter of no one picking up the pine cones, you can imagine there was a good crop of them.
As so often happens with a 7-year-old, the whining began. "I can't do this!" "I don't want to do this!" "I need help!" "This is too hard!" (If you have ever had a 7-year-old, you can imagine what all was shouted at us in the front yard, mind you.) Finally, I said, "I don't particularly want to do this either. Yard work is not my thing. But I am doing this because I love Daddy and I want to help him." That pretty much stopped the tirade, and he went on to finish the job.
The point of the story is this: sometimes we have to do things we may not enjoy because we love someone. That's how we show them that we really love them. We have to put our own selfishness aside and put the other person's needs first. That may look like many different things: taking a meal to someone who has lost a loved one even if you don't like to cook. Taking care of a parent who is ill even if medical stuff is not in our wheelhouse. Writing a card to a neighbor even if you don't think you have the right words. Doing yard work even if you don't like it. What is the result of this? The other person is blessed. Their love for you grows. And if that person is down, maybe you have lifted their spirits. That is what love is. So get started on your own "spring cleaning!"
We had absolutely nothing happening this past weekend, which is rare for us. After a long season of Upward basketball, we were ready for a rest. However, our yard needed some attention. A winter of busyness and illness had caused things to be grown up. Stewart loves yard work, and driving up the driveway every day to ugly flower beds was making him crazy! So we had decided during the week that yard beautification would be our weekend job.
After picking up children from school on Friday, we got started with pulling weeds and cutting down roses. Now usually, I don't participate in yard work. Usually it's too hot or there are too many bugs. Sometimes it's because Evan is inside, so I stay with him. But this time, the weather was perfect, and I just felt like being outside. We put Evan in his wagon, and Zach was even put to work picking up pine cones. I donned my seldom-used gardening gloves and dug in.
Stewart had made a deal with Zach that if he picked up all the pine cones this weekend, he could have his Kindle back. Now the Kindle had been put away several weeks ago because of continued behavior issues at school. Nothing major, but Zach knows what we expect. And he had fallen short of those expectations. Zach finished the front yard with no discussion. But then came our back yard. Our back yard is large for a subdivision house and has several pine trees. After a winter of no one picking up the pine cones, you can imagine there was a good crop of them.
As so often happens with a 7-year-old, the whining began. "I can't do this!" "I don't want to do this!" "I need help!" "This is too hard!" (If you have ever had a 7-year-old, you can imagine what all was shouted at us in the front yard, mind you.) Finally, I said, "I don't particularly want to do this either. Yard work is not my thing. But I am doing this because I love Daddy and I want to help him." That pretty much stopped the tirade, and he went on to finish the job.
The point of the story is this: sometimes we have to do things we may not enjoy because we love someone. That's how we show them that we really love them. We have to put our own selfishness aside and put the other person's needs first. That may look like many different things: taking a meal to someone who has lost a loved one even if you don't like to cook. Taking care of a parent who is ill even if medical stuff is not in our wheelhouse. Writing a card to a neighbor even if you don't think you have the right words. Doing yard work even if you don't like it. What is the result of this? The other person is blessed. Their love for you grows. And if that person is down, maybe you have lifted their spirits. That is what love is. So get started on your own "spring cleaning!"
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| My gardening helper having a snack while I work! |
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