Raking

Monday morning is the designated leaf pick-up day for our community. That means that everyone needs to be done raking by then, and that we need to fill the sides of the street with our leaves. Then the city will come and load up dump trucks and take it all away.

Since we never seem to have time to play outside, and since we don't own the place, we don't spend that much time on the upkeep of the yard. We are required to do general maintenance like lawn mowing and snow shoveling, but beyond that is out of the kindness of our hearts.

Unlike our other neighbors, who are mostly older, retired couples who love landscaping, we hadn't raked yet this year. It kind of made me feel bad, but it's tough to do when we have an infant who can't just sit in the yard while we work. He'd eat all the leaves before we had a chance to rake!

And tomorrow, the weather might be kind of wet and windy, so today was the day. I told Chester we'd do it in 15-minute shifts. I'd go first. In 15 minutes, he'd come out and relieve me. By the end of my 15 minutes, I had finished 70 percent of it. I am the new Queen of Raking.

I enjoyed being outside, feeling the cold on my skin, smelling the dirty, earthy smell of decomposing organic material, and actually burning some calories for once. Our neighbors were outside decorating for halloween, and I felt a little sheepish out there, raking at the last minute.

By the way, I did decorate for halloween. I put a pumpkin on our front steps. Very extravagant, I know.

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