Linear Hodge Podge

We had a beautiful weekend.  Saturday I spent most of the day outside, playing in my flower beds.  I watched Brent chop down a dead tree with his axe.

Because his chainsaw was too much effort to drag out. 

I didn't mind.  It was an enjoyable show.

I cleaned that dad gum Bermuda grass that is determined to creep it's way into every blessed flower bed I have.  I figured removing it while it's dormant is the easier way to go...

Then, I decided to clean the dead foliage from my annuals in the raised beds Brent made me a few years ago.  As I stepped from one bed to the ground, I was momentarily confounded as to why I couldn't move forward...Then I was suddenly rushing toward the ground, and barely got the shovel thrown to the side before I slammed my face into it.

Last year Brent put chicken wire around the raised beds in an attempt to keep Chesney out of the vegetables, and my shoe lace had caught on it.  Sadly, no random person was filming my epic fall for Youtube fame.



The  beds as they were being built.  I fell out of the one on the lower left corner.
 

Anyway, what I originally started this post was to tell you about my FRONT bed that I built last year.  (This would be the one I expanded along the front of my house, in order to house all of the flowers my lovely neighbor Catherine gave me.)  I had ran out of paving bricks that the previous owners had used in various projects that either I had dismantled, or just never worked out.  I needed about three more bricks, and I had told myself I would have to give up and buy them.  But that requires driving to a store I wasn't normally going to, and I hate making trips to places I'm not normally stopping by.  And I was quite certain if I just waited long enough a FREE solution would come to mind.

This is the original bed a few years ago snapped sometime during winter

And it did!  When Brent chopped down the dead tree, I noticed there were pavers buried under the grass around the tree.  Granted, they did not match the other pavers, but never fear!  I simply grabbed pavers that I had put along the backside of the flower bed against the fence, placed the mismatched paver there, and quickly put in the new pavers...

Except it wasn't quickly at ALL.  You see, I had started a flower bed at the opposite end of the existing small bed.  I had also expanded the original part of the bed out by about two feet, and made it sort of curve along the front of the house, then off to the side...

Guess what?  I didn't actually need THREE pavers.  I needed about two and two thirds of a paver. " No big deal," I decided "I will simply expand the curve in a place by a teeny bit, and PRESTO! I will be done."

An hour later, I finally was able to cram the final paver in place. 

As I was struggling to cram this paver in place, I couldn't help but consider if my husband were the one to have laid out this bed.  He would never have started until he marked out the EXACT perimeter of the new bed with spray paint.  Then, he would have counted out pavers, figured out the length of them, verses the length of the bed, and then not even began until he made sure that there were enough pavers.  Then he would have proceeded to dig down a precise amount (say two inches) all the way around the the perimeter of the bed, to ensure the pavers were perfectly aligned along the length of the bed.

And it would look perfect.

Which makes me itchy.  Here's my convoluted philosophy...If I make it look all orderly and perfect, then there is this scary expectation to MAINTAIN that orderly perfection.  If I slap together a hodge podge flower bed with hodge podge items found around my yard, fill it with flowers lovingly handed over from my neighbors, or scavenged from roadside ditches, then it will be admired as a bit of charming nonsense. (Sort of like the tilted bird house in the picture above.  When I placed it, Brent TOLD me I didn't bury the post deep enough.  And I boldly said, "It's a bird house!  It's not like it needs to be buried deep to keep cattle from rubbing it over...And a mere year later my post is precariously tilted.  He has yet to say "I told you so."  Probably because he doesn't wander to that side of the house overly much.)

But the perfection of this man God gave me is this:  You can't do EVERYTHING hodge podge, helter skelter.  Some things take precision and attention to detail if you want them to last.  And, God in his infinite wisdom and knowledge of my hurry up, let's get it done yesterday mentality gave me Brent. 

The perfect man to balance my crazy.