Pulling Weeds

At our house, my husband does the outside chores, and I do the inside stuff. Throughout most of the year, I feel like this is a terrible deal for me, as there is ALWAYS laundry, dishes, cooking, bathrooms, floors, laundry, dishes...you get the idea. But, outside work comes and goes with the seasons. 

Since I have the summers off (seriously, being a teacher is THE BEST), Will had been asking me to weed the flower garden for a couple of weeks. I kept forgetting. Honestly. I just never remembered to do it. Then, it was the day before his parents came into town to visit, and he REALLY needed me to weed the garden (and clean the house top to bottom, including all the bedding, and grocery shop...). No big deal, I had all day.

I started with the inside of the house, and made that presentable. Then, I headed out to start pulling weeds. I wasn't really dreading it because I figured it was a nice way to work on my tan, and I was quite certain my kids would leave me alone so that they didn't get roped into helping. And, Will had insisted that it should only take 45 minutes. Perfect.

And then...I started pulling weeds. The temperature was approximately 86 degrees. It. Was. Hot. One and a half hours in, I wasn't even close to being done. Some of the weeds were so huge and scary that I wasn't sure I could pull them out without getting seriously injured! I REALLY wished that I had worked on weeding the garden a little bit at a time. If I had, it wouldn't have gotten so out of control, and the effort it took to make it look great would have been so much less.

This is when I realized that pulling weeds is just like living a healthy, active life. If we work on it a little bit each day, it doesn't seem so overwhelming. But, if we let it go for too long, it can get to the point where it seems like we will never be able to recover. The end goal seems out of reach. 

I also thought that this lesson fit perfectly for maintaining friendships. They take work too. Sometimes if we let them go too long, it seems like it's too late to get it back to how it was. But, if we put in a little bit of effort along the way, we can keep those longtime friends. 

One full afternoon of pulling weeds taught me a few things, all in one. Basically, it can be summed up by saying, anything that you want to make work in your life needs to be worked on on a regular basis. Whether it's a healthy life, lasting friendships, or a beautiful garden, you need to put in effort. Don't try to do it all at once. It doesn't work that way.

Sparkle.Pounce.Put In The Effort. 

-Kendra