Good mowing, Good MOWing...

If you don't know which song from which musical inspired that title, this is not the blog for you.

Let me preface what will seem like a "my-new-house-is-a-pain-in-the-ass-woe-is-me" post by saying that I love my house. Every time I walk into it, I get all light and happy, like a teenager in love. We own that house. The history of our family from here forward will be written there. It will always be the colors I want it to be. There will always be dog toys in the living room and a random pair of flip flops hiding in a corner just in case.

I have sworn - in private, in public, on Facebook, on this blog - that I would be doing no lawn maintenance or gardening. My work is indoors. The men in my life (my husband and in his absence, my father) are responsible for maintaining the outdoors. I did watch the day Corey assembled the lawnmower my dad got us as a housewarming gift. I remember him saying "this lever has to be held down to start or push the mower. If you let it go, the mower stops. That's a safety measure so if you fall, the lawnmower won't keep going and run over you."

That's all he said.

On Monday morning, I opened the door to let Murphy into the backyard to a cool 65-degrees. Murphy did not want to do in the backyard, because the grass was too tall. With the weather being so lovely, and me being so drunk with the joy of homeownership, I decided that if the weather was nice that evening, I would mow when I got home from work. 

At 6 PM, I put on my lawnmowin' clothes - cropped yoga pants, a sleeveless shirt and my hot pink Crocs - ooched the mower out of the shed and into the backyard, held down the lever and pulled the cord.

Nothing.

I did it again.

Nothing.

I had checked the oil. I had made sure there was plenty of gasoline. 

I looked around to make sure none of my new neighbors were witnessing the ineptitude of a very smart lady.

Pissed, I marched in the house, picked up my laptop and Googled "how to start a lawnmower."

I can only assume, because Corey mowed the lawn while he was home on leave, that he knew very well that BEFORE you hold down the lever and BEFORE you pull the cord, you have to push the red rubber button three times to "prime" the f*cker AND THEN you do that other stuff.

I pushed. And I pulled. And the mower started and I had the most indescribable sense of triumph when I finished my little yard without breaking a sweat. 

I did not get the front yard done, because a bunch of my neighbors were in a driveway across the street and called me over to meet them. By the time we dispersed, it was 9 PM.

I have cool ass neighbors, but more on that later.

A week later, I mowed the front yard. Now the back yard needs it again. It's turning cool, so hopefully the shit will stop growing. I just don't have the attention to detail required to make every blade of grass the same height and remove every leaf from the front walk. Murphy will let me know when to mow again by refusing to go make poo in the grass.

I'm an indoor girl. He knew that when he married me. Actually, he knew that when he MET me in high school.