The Cure for Feeling Sorry for Myself

So. . .what snaps me out of feeling sorry for myself? Physical hard work and a great bargain! As background info, you have to know that our yard is a disgusting mess. We were required by our lease to have a "gardener" take care of the yard for the first year and a half that we lived here. We finally convinced the property manager to fire them after repeated problems. Now, we have practically no grass, our sprinkler system is destroyed, and the bushes, flowers, shrubs etc are basically dead.

Anyway--the next door neighbors are amazing gardeners. Their yard is gorgeous. They take care of the tiny sliver of grass between our two houses, but our side is getting progressively worse. We have these horrible trees with surface roots that take all the water and starve the grass. So, the lawn is really bare dirt. By our driveway there is a large patch of dead grass as well.

So, the high school near our house has been under renovation since we moved here in January of 2006. They are finally finishing, and are right now doing the landscaping. Today, they were laying sod. I saw them trimming around a tree, and I decided to stop and ask for the scraps. I figured I could at least fix the part of my lawn that you could see from the road.

The guy was happy to give the excess to me, and offered me as much as I wanted. They had a lot more scraps than just what they were cutting from around that one tree! I filled up the back part of my van, figuring that was more than enough. I saw another guy loading scraps in other places into a big white bin.

Well, when I got home, I had enough to fix by the driveway, as well as the spot between our two houses, so I went next door and borrowed the axe. My neighbor came out and helped me and we spent two hours chopping out tree roots and then laying the sod. So, we decided I should go back and ask for more sod scraps!

She watched the kids and I went up to the school. The guys were gone, but I remembered the white bins, and found them next to the curb. They were probably 5 feet square, and 4 feet deep. And there were two of them--full! I took as much as I could get in the van. When I got home, we finished the spot between our yards and a bare spot in her back yard. Then, I started chopping roots in my front yard.

When her husband got home, we borrowed the other neighbor's little pickup truck, and went back to the school. We loaded that truck bed over half full!! We completely emptied one of the white bins. We came home and finished my front yard and side yard and a BIG bare patch in my back yard. There isn't enough sod in the world to fix all the trouble in the back of my house. There are TONS of tree roots, and we hardly get ANY sun back there, but boy we made a big dent!!

I hope that the rabbits won't kill it before it can grow. AND--I hope that the tree roots will let the grass have some water! All together, my neighbor figures we had about $500 worth of sod--for FREE!!!

The only cost was that I had to order pizza for dinner, since I was too tired and filthy to cook, but--a small price to pay! The neighbors made chocolate martinis (which are wonderful--I've never had them before) and we had pizza and martinis in the driveway!

The boys thought it was such a treat--out after dark, dinner in the driveway, hanging out with the neighbors that they have adopted as grandparents. . .all together, a great evening.

So, we are missing Daddy, but at least tonight after filling up on pizza and scrubbing for 1/2 an hour in the tub, we are too tired to think much about it! (Unless he is reading this, in which case--we can hardly contain the tears and are desperately counting the hours until your return!!)