Last night, this little family had a breakthrough. (And no, it wasn’t “stop adopting cats”. We have made that pledge, but I’ll be honest here and say it will take one sick, starving cat to lay waste to the promise.) Instead, sitting on the back porch, margaritas in hand and enjoying a few quiet moments before dinner, we had a telling conversation. While I have been feeling for some time that we are slowly gaining control over our life, I wasn’t so sure how my hubby felt. Particularly in summer when we have a very large yard to take care of and two huge gardens. Our busiest season, honestly, is summer.
Darryl’s take? We are finally under control.
Man, that meant the world to me. Not that he said it, but that he felt it. While I could always see the progress, I wasn’t sure he could as well and for a variety of reasons. First, he’s working full-time so it’s harder to see progress when there are so many demands on your time. Also, our projects – vs. routine maintenance – tend to rely more on him. So, his mental calculus of what efforts remains is different than mine. And third – and possibly most important to me – he’s very naturally cautious. Whereas he would call me glib, I would call him overly cautious. For him to see daylight? That’s huge.
But it does honestly reflect where we are.
At least five years of incredibly hard work got us here. And money. If I’m honest, a LOT of money. Whew. I’m glad that’s over. But, the list of projects to do is shrinking, the excess demand on our weekend time is slowing and as we head into August, it feels like it took us a full year from last year’s Ironman to this year to get us into this spot.
Let’s just talk about where we are. The garden is doing well and we should have a bumper crop of tomatoes. That makes us happy. Admittedly, the potatoes and onions have had their struggles but they too should come in with enough yield to keep us fed for nearly a year. Beans are now doing well. We should definitely dry some basil and I need to pickle some beets while Darryl plants the fall crop. But, the garden is doing well. The big test here? If we can keep up with the squeeze-and-freeze tomato demand. I’m betting yes – we have less plants and I have more time – but that will be the proof Darryl needs to see.
The yard is also under control. Filling in the tractor-swallowing ditches out front means that mowing and trimming are infinitely easier. Plus, we’ve split the chore in a better mix that plays to each of our strengths and desires. I take care of the first 65%, which is the front yard and all of the trimming around the house. Darryl takes care of the one remaining drainage ditch and the “way back” of our yard, which includes one of our gardens. (He doesn’t trust me to blow grass clippings at the tomato plants.) That combo works well. I can keep all of our outdoor living spaces super neat and trimmed, as I prefer, and the way back, which does not grow as fast, has some tricky mowing areas that Darryl is better suited to do. Between the two of us, we have been able to keep the yard just about perfect (for us) this year.
Inside, it took awhile but we are now caught up. The biggest improvement here was the re-emergence of Iris, the robot. She’s back to vacuuming the first floor, which means I can rely on her for the deep cleaning where she gets under everything (and I mean everything). That means I can devote my cleaning time to the upstairs, bathrooms, kitchen, laundry and a quick vacuum when needed. Genuinely, it makes life infinitely easier – and cleaner – as well. This week, we also have our first litter robot on its way. The goal is to reduce our seven litter boxes down to three: two robots and one traditional box for our older girl. The robots, if successful, will ensure the boys have a clean box each time and – because they’re covered – eliminate some of the wild litter kicking that happens around here. It will also reduce scooping time, which wouldn’t go amiss. Along with smart feeders, the litter robot will also make it easier for our kitty sitters when we go away.
As I pause on this Sunday morning, I know there is still a lot of stuff I want to get done today. All three bathrooms need cleaned and I would like to do a load of kitchen and bathroom towels to get on the line. The upstairs and stairs need swept and our bed could use some fresh linens. But… well, life isn’t that crazy. There IS actually a little excess capacity. My goal over the next weeks and months while we continue to wind our way through summer and early fall will be to continue to get rid of the black holes that exist both on our property and in our house. I’ve got a few junk drawers to manage, a hidden “stash it and forget it” spot in the yard that is home to old flower pots, shovel handles and other accoutrement, and collectively we have made our basement uninhabitable. But, I have a plan for all of that.
And just like we worked to slowly pull our life back from “out of control” to “busy, but in control”, my plan is to work our way down to just “moderately busy” and finally to “normal.” It will take some time, but give us two years. (I was thinking only one year, but Darryl announced last night that he wants to do our French drain/backfill and back decks next year. It’s a good goal, honestly. Those both need to be done. And finally, we have a main bathroom to do. While I would prefer to hire a contractor for that, I’ll leave it up to Darryl when the time comes. I would at least like to hire a plumber to do all of the plumbing work. Then, we can likely do the rest.)
In the meantime, it’s also time for us to grab some of that summer promise we have so sorely missed. Darryl has the flexibility to work 9-hour days Monday through Thursday and then take a half-day on Friday. He is going to try and consistently do that now through August, when possible, to give himself an extra half-day of the weekend. That should allow him 4-6 hours of time to get caught up on yardwork while still allowing us some light weekend adventures. This weekend? We went mountain biking in the Allegheny National Forest. Next weekend? Mountain biking and lunch at Allegany State Park. After that? Well, we shall see. But the goal is to start acting like humans vs. robots. Today, we also plan to re-install the ghetto gate for Biscuits to be able to stay safe in my office but to gradually meet his brothers and sister. (The ghetto gate is a mesh and plexiglass gate we have self-crafted to allow the new adoptee a safe transition into our family.)
Mostly, we need to start believing that we can – indeed – keep our life under control. And that will take time. Time to demonstrate to both of us that we can do it. Time to keep slowly cleaning up one area so that it can never become a mess again. Time to finish a small project and scratch it off the list. We got this. We finally got this.
The Yuppie Homesteader 