One Step at a Time

You are apt to read a lot about my garden in the coming months. I learn a lot about myself and about life from my garden.

The past few days I have 'worked between the raindrops' to pull weeds. Obviously, my choice is to have a beautiful, bright sunny day to inspire me to get out in the garden and work. Life in the Pacific Northwest rarely provides such an opportunity.

When it's cold, damp and looks like it could rain at any second... it is so easy to say, "I'll do it some other time!" Yet, with our weather in this region, if I waited for the perfect day it could be months before I'm willing to get out and do the work that needs to be done.

I'm practicing the art of 'making hay while the sunshines' and 'striking while the iron is hot.' Today for example, I started my hour of weeding and the raindrops started to fall. I instantly felt both frustrated and relieved. Frustrated because I was 'resigned' to 'doing my time' and relieved to think I was being 'let off the hook' for today. I started to head for my garage, but then decided to just give it a few minutes and see if the rain continued and got worse, or if it just passed. WIthin just a few minutes the sprinkles stopped. The sun even came out!

I ended up putting in an hour and a half! A bonus half hour! I made great progress on my project even though the skies were mostly gray, and I did get 'spit' on a bit.

I could have used the few sprinkles that fell as an excuse to give up for the day. If I had, I'd be an hour and a half further from my goal.

I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I finished my 1.5 hours of weeding today. As I surveyed the progress I made, I was grateful for my willingness to stick with it, even though conditions weren't ideal.

Again, this is very true of life itself. We are often required to step into things at less than perfect moments. We don't always get to wait until we feel inspired (by weather or anything else) to take action. Sometimes we have to decide to take action, and squeeze it in around everything else.

When we can do that we will achieve far more than we believed possible. My garden gets weeded one hour at a time. I squeeze those hours into busy days. I wedge those hourse in between rain showers, dentist appointments, stock trades, writing and providing counseling services. That is how life happens. If we wait for unrestricted time, perfect weather and optimal conditions... we will spend our lives spining our wheels going no where.

I vote that we MOVE... even if only one hour, or one weed at a time!! :)