"I am a brave, strong woman." This is what I kept repeating to myself the other day as I was weeding what we call "the garden." The garden is actually a spot in our backyard that Clint put wood around so that I could attempt to grow some veggies. He built it for me over a year and a half ago and so far it has been a dump pile and garden of weeds. The weeds were so healthy they were over the fence so I knew it was time to take action.
For motivation and inspiration I took at class at Tomball College on Fall Gardening. It did it for me and the next Saturday I attacked that spot with a vengeance. I was shoveling and ripping those weeds out and sweating like crazy, but I was going to do it. The problem with it was there were a ton of spiders nested down in the weeds. I kept coming across holes full of spiders. Did I already mention I'm scared to death of spiders. As a child I wouldn't kill one, I would just stand on my bed and scream for someone else to come kill it. I was so proud of myself for staying out there and picking weeds and spiders.
And then the other things appeared. A toad jumped right out at me and I screamed. "Oh, just a toad, calm down Jana." Then came the slugs. Big oohey, slimey slugs. I calmly chopped them in half with the shovel. I was super crawly already when a mouse sent me screaming through the yard. The neighbor came out and yelled at her dog, and I determined I wasn't going to stop now, after all, I was a brave, strong woman. 2 mice later, I was almost done. I only had one little patch left. I was feeling very strong, but I was also shaking from my encounters with all these awful things we have in Houston.
And then, I went to pick up a brick ( I told you it was also our dump pile) and a lizard was on it and it hissed at me. That was it- I was done. I threw down my things and went inside and had a very long shower to try to wash the memory away. The lizard defeated me, but how much can a brave, strong woman take?
