Tag Archives: Garage

Help for Gardening Addicts

Gardening addicts. Never leave them alone at a garden center or nursery, where obliging, devious personnel help them take out a second mortgage to buy the last bougainvillea. This, though the tropical lovelies prefer Argentina over Indiana.

Younger junkies fall victim to buying binges after watching HGTV. However, gardening addiction does its worst damage in women of a certain age.

They should know better than to trust this mad urge to nurture. Most spent decades caring for little humans. They’ve repressed memories of endless feedings — and the waterings with which baby sprouts responded. These women dealt daily with mountains of fertilizer. Eventually wising up, they limited the number of nurturees they’d cultivate.

However, spring gardening regenerates the madness. While spouses are playing golf, the women load up with 35 flats of annuals, 37 bags of potting soil and barrels of pansies, adding just one more hanging basket here. Another there. How can they ignore wilted tomato seedlings? With their TLC, the weaklings will flourish.

Addicts.

With symptoms listed below, I hope to alert family and friends of this malady.

Signs of Gardening Addiction

Early Level

Switching from a regular cart to one the size of a brontosaurus.
Bragging to strangers about how many green beans she grew last year.
Fibbing about extra trips to garden centers.
Claiming kids/grandkids are responsible for dirt in the car.

Second Level

Bragging to strangers about how many zucchinis they forced on friends last year.
Buying seeds by the pound on the Internet.
Claiming proud ownership of 234 flowerpots stacked in the garage.
Delighting in the $1,000 tiller her husband gave her for their anniversary.

Okay, so I filled the brontosaurus-sized cart. If Hubby hadn’t been present, I might have filled five.

Third Level

Hijacking a brontosaurus cart at gunpoint.
Shoplifting bags of manure.
Buying seeds by the barrel.
Claiming proud ownership of 9,781 flowerpots stacked in the garage.
Organizing neighborhood kids for a dandelion-blowing party at a rival’s gardens.

Final Level

Buying an authentic Sweet Juliet Rose. The original plant sold for $15.8 million.

I am proud to inform readers, as well as my spouse, that today, I didn’t brag to a single stranger about green beans or zucchini. I bypassed needy tomato seedlings. I kept my regular cart and made a single purchase.

“Only one?” Hubby blinks in disbelief.

“Only one,” I assure him.

“A rosebush.”

These plants just had to go home with me. Who could resist?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a gardening addict?

Classic Post: Cleaning Confrontation

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This post first appeared on August 12, 2020.

Who wants to clean out a refrigerator and chest freezer?

Blown light bulbs conveniently have kept me in the dark about their sad state. I grabbed food, slamming doors before tentacles could yank me inside.

But the garden soon will produce, I can’t feed my veggies to whatever life forms lurk there.

Confrontation time.

I need hot water and rubber gloves. Body armor. Samurai sword. Hey, past-expiration-by-a-decade cottage cheese grows testy when evicted.

Hubby’s grandma sewed this apron that gives me courage to clean out our refrigerator and freezer.

I cover body armor with an apron. This secret weapon of all women in 1950s TV sitcoms empowered June Cleaver to do housework while wearing high heels and pearls. It will grant me added protection.

Besides, Hubby’s grandma sewed this apron. She fought a fierce, lifelong war against dirt and germs. Her spirit urges me to be strong.

Hubby’s grandma waged war against grime.

Grabbing my sword, I crack the fridge’s door.

Nothing.

I throw it open.

Ack! Lavender salad dressing. Pudding that resembles petri dishes. Mashed potatoes that give a whole new meaning to “green vegetable.”

Did something just . . . move?

Slamming it shut, I venture into the garage, where the freezer resides. I open it. No tentacles.

I summon Golden Oldies to inspire me.

“Mission Impossible”?

So much for inspiration.

My Cold War almost morphs into peaceful coexistence when the song changes to “One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying, Purple People Eater.” Will Hubby find nothing left but my eyeglasses and defrosted food?

Thankfully, the Star Wars theme erupts. Retying my mighty apron, I plunge into the freezer’s alternative universe. Amorphous packages, their age detectable only by carbon dating, evoke questions:

Why did I shred four dozen bags of zucchini? Hubby hates zucchini bread, and I probably shouldn’t eat 50 pounds.

Did this tuna casserole preexist with God in the beginning?

Do holiday turkeys grow exponential sets of giblets?

Moving to “You’re No Good,” I toss out piles of mystery food. I use endless elbow “Grease,” then graduate to “Splish Splash,” reveling in unfamiliar spotlessness.

I saved giblets for a game of H-O-R-S-E, shooting them into trash cans in the driveway.

Oops. I hit a garbage guy.

My apology had better be good. I really want him to haul my melting mess away.

Fortunately, he only wants to flee. Cans are dumped in haste. The truck roars off to “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye. …”

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you make housework fun?

Spring Break R&R?

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You’ve just returned from spring break. True respite, right?

For some college students, the answer’s a resounding “Yes!” Unlimited sleep where no drum fests are held at 2 a.m. Mom’s cooking. Free laundry.

Pure bliss.

For one day.

Until Dad gets possessive about car keys. Until Mom wants help cleaning the garage. Until both demand, “Where were you last night?”

However, most students who escape to Daytona remember zero. They return with seasick stomachs and third-degree sunburns to face 23 books they should have read during spring break.

Spring break doesn’t live up to some employees’ expectations, either. If a worker forgets to schedule days off, he’d better be prepared to skip lunch several days. All the other employees remembered.

No mother believes spring break will act like spring break, with sunny days in which kids power-wash the house. Instead, she accurately anticipates weather-induced cabin fever, with nonstop video games and violent sibling behavior that surpasses them all.

Image by Clkr-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

If parents head for Florida, they, like college kids, will remember spring break in a blur — but for different reasons. A 16-hour car trip resembles a rolling animal cage, especially if Mom and Dad have condemned teens to family togetherness, a fate worse than death.

Hotel rooms resemble animal cages sans wheels. Children don’t sleep, except with Mom and Dad, their sharp, little knees implanted in parental backs. Spring break trips comprise the most expensive birth control method known to humankind.

Also, if we read resort ads’ tiny print, we discover disclaimers about prices. About “luxury suites” with roaches the size of snapping turtles.

Staying with Aunt Maudie and Uncle Snerd may reduce costs, but added therapy fees may continue for years (for hosts, as well). Do spring breaks not only break the bank, but break us all?

Rumors persist, though, that some spring breaks meet expectations, with endless sunshine, three-person lines at Disney World, and hang gliding without encountering a single power line. Tanned bodies resemble those of the Kardashian clan.

Because we’ve seen it on TV. And on the Internet …

Give me a break.*

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your plan for spring break?

*This blog was written by a grouch who has stuck it out in Indiana all winter. If snow shows up in April, she will ditch cynicism and go on spring break anyway.

Home Ownership: The American Dream?

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For Hubby, me and our newborn daughter, our rental house proved a sanctuary.

Apartments worked for Hubby and me — until a percussion major moved upstairs. Then, upon expecting our first child, we learned our complex was a drug trafficking center.

We rented a house.

The only upstairs residents were squirrels. They pattered across the roof, but none sold drugs or played xylophones.

We possessed three whole bedrooms and a garage. No more scraping ice off car windows. Hubby and I began to succumb to the American Dream. …

However, the driveway didn’t shovel itself. Our house boasted a real yard — whose grass never stopped growing. Flowers I planted attracted real weeds. We purchased a shovel, mower and garden tools. Lawn chairs. And …

The infinite to-buy list should have warned us about home ownership.

But tired of paying rent, I longed to choose the colors of walls and carpet. Bang nails to hang pictures without asking permission.

Our younger daughter welcomed her new brother to the little ranch we built. Thank goodness the water and sewer system had been connected!

So, we built a little ranch in a new addition … where roads hadn’t been completed. Also, water and sewage hadn’t yet been connected to the town’s system. During that inflationary era, the special 12 percent mortgage seemed cheap, compared to an earlier 21.5 percent prime rate.

We brought two newborns to that ranch. Mysterious stains marred my carefully chosen colors. I spent years watering grass and breastfeeding babies. Neither was ever satisfied. I also discovered I wasn’t handy. If I banged a nail into one wall, a gaping hole appeared in the opposite one.

The American Dream?

Before we knew it, the toddler had a prom date.

One other house we owned ate water heaters and softeners. Another featured a pillow-soft porch roof, as well as a toilet that randomly ran over and soaked anyone playing Ping-Pong in the basement.

We occasionally considered living in a grass hut in Bongo Bongo.

Still, Hubby and I have called all three houses “home.”

Home, where our babies took first, shaky steps. Where they learned to watch for traffic as they walked to school. Home, where we took prom and graduation pictures. Home, where they and their children now come for holidays.

Home is the only place where Hubby and I can put feet on the furniture. Where we can blow up and make up. Bake brownies, eating them all without anyone judging.

Our American Dream is no HGTV superstar, but at this address, we can be us.

At home.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What home-owning adventures have you experienced?

Grandbirds!

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During the COVID shutdown, Hubby and I discovered weird vandals had swathed our garage light with dead tiger lily leaves.

“You never know how quarantine boredom will affect some people,” he said.

Eventually, we discovered Courtney, a robin, wasn’t bored. She was constructing a nest.

She and Jason, her mate, must have flunked Nestbuilding 101. Their shapeless leaf pile dangled halfway to the ground.

No eggs or nestlings fell. Still, we felt sorry for the hardworking couple. Hopefully, they’d consult a new architect before trying that blueprint again.

“Looks like we hung shrunken heads on the garage,” I observed.

Eventually, the robins’ mess toppled.

Instead, Courtney and Jason built another amorphous mound of lily leaves, topped by a tipsy nest.

We held our breath as Courtney settled in. Don’t lean to the right! Or left! No heavy lifting. Raise your feet so they won’t swell!

Mama robin broods her eggs in the tipsy nest.

Courtney took on a new-mama look: frazzled and frumpy, with missing feathers she’d worked into her nest. She probably couldn’t stand Jason, debonair in his neat, black-and-red suit. You did this to me!

Still, Jace babysat eggs and brought food to his grouchy spouse.

We grandparents-to-be grudgingly admitted the garage-light choice made sense. Under an overhang, the birds escaped bad weather. A perfect distance from the ground and roof, their abode protected them from interested neighborhood cats.

Those kids were smarter than we thought.

For Courtney, 14 days on the nest probably seemed like 14 years.

Then, it happened.

Hubby yelled, “Jason’s pecking at the nest!”

Our worry changed to celebration. Three tiny, wide-open beaks clamored for Daddy Jason’s tasty victual.

“Ya-ay-ay! Triplets!”

We did the Grandma-and-Grandpa Dance.

Unsure of their gender, we named the babies Ellie, Nellie and Belly — the last, the pushiest at dinnertime.

Success! Despite the messy precarious nest, the robins raised three babies.

Their parents, making 100 trips a day to find food, didn’t care about their children’s preferences: “What, you think this is McDonald’s? Eat!”

They did. A lot.

Soon, they crowded the nest as if in the back seat of a VW Beetle. Before long, the triplets left home.

Impossible! A little sad. But even nasty viruses couldn’t banish our smiles as we witnessed that shiny, brand-new life. How glad we were that Courtney and Jason moved into our neighborhood!

Though, about that nest blueprint, kids. Maybe you should check out different ones the next time?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have birds squatted on your property?