My Official Excuse

I am bad at keeping up with my yard. I won't say 'garden' because there are no flowers this year, not since the tulips died (and I love the tulips, how I planted them three years ago and how they keep popping up in the spring, more and more of them each time.)

See, when I weed and trim the hedges in the spring I think "There! I've done it!" and I cross it off my list. Because it takes me three weeks to get it all done, and I have other things to DO with my LIFE for goodness sakes! I can't, just CAN NOT go out there every three days and yank the same stupid weeds from the same stupid beds. I can't keep clipping the hedge back! Not when I find myself running after the baby every two minutes to keep him from running into the street, and all while I'm carrying these huge pointy sharp clippers!

So needless to say, while I'm basking in a task well done and stuffing myself with bonbons and gin and tonics by our pool, the weeds grow. And one day I pull into the driveway and wonder when the jungle plants took over the front of our house.

Yesterday I finally went out to weed and clip, huge clippers in hand. I started out well. I was on a roll. I yanked out clumps of the grass that rooted itself there last year. I took down something that had grown taller me. And then I started clipping.

And then I noticed that there were a lot of bees flying around me suddenly.

And then I saw this six inches from my hand.



It was scary. I screamed and yelled at the kids to "Get Inside! NOW NATHAN!" While more and more of the buzzy beasts poured out of the nest. And twenty minutes later I went out, picked up my clippers, and put them away. No more yardwork for now.

But really, it IS a good excuse, is it not?