After a summer away in the North woods, I am back to reality with the beginning of school. In my absence there was a lot of things that didn’t get done. Namely yard work. Sure, my husband did his part with mowing and trimming, but I neglected the garden that I insisted on planting, and the flower bed that I thought should be weed free thanks to my efforts cleaning it up before I left, is not weed free. In fact, it is quite the opposite. There are spots on my peonies and I shudder to think how much Round Up it would take to kill off all the woody nightshade that is growing around the yard’s perimeter.
All of the yard duties, however, are not the only problem. There is the matter of all the things that have yet to be done on the inside of the house. I find list after list of things I intended to do long ago, that have yet to be done. An example of this would be sorting through the boxes that were packed up as I cleaned out my mother’s house after her death. She has been gone now for more than 3 years, but the boxes remain. They’ve been moved around from time to time and occasionally I even open them, but more times than not, I shake my head sadly and put the lid back on. “Not today,” I find myself saying sometimes to myself and sometimes out loud.
At some point, I would like to feel like I am moving forward with my life, but that’s hard to do when I constantly feel dragged down by what’s been left undone. I know my mother went to meet her maker before she had everything checked off of her lists and I am sure I will too.