My favorite day of
the year is the day that I am finally finished (or mostly finished) with my
front yard and porch spring spruce ups.
I took a small break from painting and other indoor chores last
weekend and worked outside. It was glorious and warm, and I thought it was
going to be cooler on Saturday, but it really wasn’t, and I kind of overworked
myself to the point that I was on the couch in my pjs by 4:30 in the afternoon
feeling like an old, out of shape wimpy loser. One of the things I hate the
most about getting older is that I can’t work outside the way I want to. I used
to spend days and days planting flowers, pulling weeds, spreading mulch--doing
whatever needed to be done and finishing it in a few days. I just cannot do
that anymore, and I hate it! It takes me several weeks of weekends to
accomplish what used to take me 2 or 3 days. And I don’t even plant the amount
of flowers that I used to. Now, if I spend a couple of hours out in the heat
doing all those spring/summer chores, I have to come inside for lots of
cool-off breaks, and even then, I end up feeling like I am going to pass out
and die of heat exhaustion right in my front yard. Good thing I live on a busy
street; there’s a pretty good chance if I do keel over, someone will notice.
And things take me sooo much longer since I have to come inside and cool off
every so often. Ugh. Getting older is better than the alternative, but it sure
does suck sometimes.
Even though I can’t work outside the way I used to, I still
so enjoyed whipping my front porch into shape for the summer, even if it is almost
July and I just finished it. I love my front porch; it is my most favorite
thing about our house. The covered porch is one of the main reasons we chose
this model of home to build. When we first moved in, I sat in a fold up lawn
chair from Target on my new front porch in the evenings after the boys went to
sleep, gazed out over the scraggly new sprouts of grass that poked up through a
layer of straw and fell so in love with my house. That fall, I decorated the
porch for the first time with mums and corn husks. At Christmas time, we bought
wreaths, tied big red bows onto them, and hung them on each of the front
windows. We draped garland with more red bows along the front porch railing and
wound white lights through it all.
When spring came I filled the yard with flowers—pots on the
porch overflowed with red geraniums, and mounds of vibrant petunias surrounded
scrawny trees and filled in empty spaces amongst our newly-planted bushes in
front of the porch railing. A few years after we moved in, Tony surprised me
with a porch swing on Mother’s Day. I practically lived on that swing, watching
the kids play kickball and whiffle ball with their friends or visiting with
friends over a glass of wine. In those days, my porch seemed to be a magnet for
neighbors and others who were passing by, and I loved it. Back then, Tony worked nights, and there were
very few of my evenings that were not spent on my cozy porch.
It quickly became the heart of my home in the warmer months,
and I now spend time there as long into the fall as possible, wrapping myself
in blankets when necessary. At the first sign of spring, the chairs are dragged
from the shed, and I start dreaming of flowers and ferns and late evenings
reading on the porch, even though it is still months away from when I can
actually start planting. While I miss the days of hanging out with friends and
neighbors while oodles of kids ran through sprinklers or covered the driveway
with their chalky art, the best parts of my day are still those spent rocking the
time away sipping coffee or wine or iced tea while reading or chatting with a
friend on the phone. A few weeks ago, I got together with an old friend I
haven’t seen for a while, and of course, we ended up on the porch with a bottle
of wine. It was about 200 degrees and mosquitos were out in full force, but we
didn’t care. We scattered citronella candles around our feet, wiped sweat from
our faces, and after a few minutes, she propped her feet up on the railing and
said, “You’re going to think I’m sappy and stupid, but I miss this. I miss
hanging out on your porch.” She went on to tell me that times spent on my porch
watching our kids when they were little were some of her very favorite
memories.
Mine too.
22 years ago, I had such grand dreams of a happy home,
filled with family and friends. That moment with an old friend made me remember
the days when I relaxed on my porch while thinking, “Life just cannot get any better
than this!”
I have been feeling rather sappy and stupid right along with
my friend. (A few weeks ago, I wrote that all of our remodeling projects have
brought up a lot of memories that I have been compelled to write about, and
this is one of those times!) I have been longing for the days when I so very
aware of how blessed I was with this beautiful home, because in the past few
years, I have tended to treat it with more criticism than love. Whenever I am
frustrated or discouraged with how things are going right now, I give my best
effort to putting the brakes on my pity party and remind myself that I am still lucky to have this house, even if
some of the shine has worn off. The inside may be a dirty disaster, but
outside, I still have this oasis to escape to:
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