Yes, that’s me, good or bad, I’m an incurable optimist, especially when it comes to some of my ideas. I’d have to say occasionally I border on unrealistic about my optimism. It’s taken me on some amazing adventures, but has also gotten me into situations that have to be undone and/or redone and cost time and money. To my own surprise I never regret any of it though, it’s as life is Mr. Miyagi and I am Danielson; and with each choice good or bad I become a better me. Oh wow, I just realized I’m optimistic about that too. Ha.
Do you remember the flower garden from last summer, the one with the little rock path?

I thought those rocks would be awesome, the little flowers would grow 10 times their size by the end of the season and weeds wouldn’t be a problem. Silly girl! Just because you believe it, doesn’t mean it’s true! Mitch was beyond over those rocks, we had moved them from place to place, and he had said that if we did that path, he wasn’t touching them again. I swore it would be awesome and we wouldn’t need to, and if there were any weeds that did grow, I would just pull them. Wow! None of that happened, by the end of the summer there were more weeds than flowers (yes we all pulled weeds once in a while), the rock path sunk into the dirt and our little flowers stayed just that, little.

A couple days ago I took out all the rock, what a pain, literally, my back was killing me after 4 hours of that! Back to using weed barrier!

I didn’t want to use weed barrier because at our big house, we have it under river rock and the weeds still come through. I am over any kind of rock to hold down the barrier because they are a pain to move, they fall into the dirt when you are trying to plant, not to mention trying to rake leaves in the fall with decorative rock. I didn’t know what else to use, that’s why I thought I could just pull the weeds. I tried bark once and got so many splinters I knew I didn’t want that…what else was there to use? After doing more research we made a plan. Pull up all the weeds, sprinkle Preen (it stops seedling from growing but not established plants) lay down weed barrier, (I wanted to also use newspaper but it was beyond windy the day we did it) and then mulch. We’ll see what comes of our hard work this time around. Let’s hope!

Little bits of everyday life lessons….
LESSON 1:
Take preventive measures; it’s so much better than to live with the loss
We have tulips; beautiful, vibrant tulips. We also have deer; graceful, peaceful deer. Those darn deer ate all our tulips in the back before they even had a chance to bloom. I plan to take much better measures in the future, but the deer got their delicacy this year!

Lesson 2:
Look before you leap, every time!
Costco’s brand, Kirkland makes my favorite kind of pepper, it is big and flavorful.
The shaker part of the lid on the other hand, is awful! It never stays on, sometimes it gets stuck in the cap

and sometimes it falls off while you are shaking the pepper out. I usually tape it down after we purchase it or put the pepper in another shaker.

It happened when we were in the middle of our flower project and I was super hungry. I decided to have my yummy leftover pasta and bbq chicken with some cherry tomatoes. In my haste to pepper I didn’t check the lid and BAM! The second it happened I literally laughed out loud, poured off what pepper I could and ate it anyway, and my tummy paid for it later!

Lesson 3:
Don’t resist doing it the right way
I love to ride my bike around Medical Lake, ahhh the feeling of serenity I experience after a ride, just getting home and saying hi to pops, as if all is right with the world. Then instead of walking my bike two more feet to rest the kickstand on concrete; I try to make it stand on the grass.

I put down the kick stand and stare at the bike as if I can will it to stay up, don’t ask me why, I have no real reason. I turn around to open the shed so I can put up my bike, and I inevitably hear the rattling crash as my pretty red ride falls to the ground.

Then the handlebar end and my seat get muddy and I have to wipe it off.

All because I wanted to believe so badly, that if I believe so badly, it would be so!

It’s funny that most of us do these kinds of things in life, even after we know better. I wonder what that’s all about? Is it just when we are in a hurry we end up make more work for ourselves than if we were to take the time to do it right to begin with? Maybe it’s life’s way of keeping us humble, reminding us that the human experience is wrapped up in everyday lessons and to remember that everything, big or small we do or don’t do has consequences.