I am woman...hear me roar!

Today started off as what could only be described as a bad day. My lovely daughter soaked through her pull-up last night and climbed into our bed in that state this morning, creating a laundry nightmare before I was even fully conscious. Then, as I was struggling to get some sort of beverage into my poor system, our cat wouldn’t leave me alone, so I gave him what he was begging for: some milk. As I was attempting to return the gallon of milk back to the fridge, I somehow lost my grip and kerplat…it fell to the floor. Of course, the flimsy lid flew off and the contents of the container gushed out. My oh so quick reflexes caught it before the entire kitchen had flooded.

Just when I thought the day couldn’t get much worse, I discovered that some critter somehow got into our garbage can and had made a huge mess in our driveway. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not in the first trimester of my pregnancy, because I probably would not have been able to do clean up all the old garbage without getting severely nauseated. Luckily, I managed this task and silently thanked Yoshi for all the times he has had to do it when I left the lid of the can on a bit too loosely.

So, you are probably wondering, exactly which part of the day made you feel like an empowered woman? Well, despite my disastrous morning, I decided to try my hand at mowing our lawn for the first time in my life. Yes, that is correct. I have never mowed a lawn before. I guess my parents were afraid I would somehow injure myself or break the lawn-mower. For most of my adult life, I lived in apartments, and Yoshi has always mowed our lawn since we moved to our house.

Unfortunately, poor Yoshi has been very busy lately single-handedly remodeling our basement. He has been letting the lawn go, and I have been a little annoyed by the excess bugs, and also worried about what our neighbors must think. Today when I was driving Maia home from gymnastics, I saw a woman mowing her lawn uphill! Well, I was inspired and decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, how hard could it be?

With Maia, safely in the house watching a video, I managed to turn on the lawn mower with the help of the directions pictured right on it. Though I exerted a little more energy than I needed to, it was an overall positive experience. When I say I exerted energy, well, I didn’t realize the lawn-mower had a lever you were supposed to pull if you wanted to go forward much more quickly. I used my own force instead of the “power” version. Now that I know about the “power” lever, I might even do this on a regular basis.

Yoshi was quite proud of me when he came home, and I felt proud of myself as well! It feels good to know that I can take care of myself when necessary and won’t have to rely on a lawn-service someday. Next step: adding gas and oil to the lawn mower. I’ll let you know how it goes.