The funnies of spring

Have you packed up your winter clothes yet? I have!  

Out came the storage bag and the clinging dust bunnies from under my bed. I’d washed and folded all my summer stuff last October, jammed everything in the bag and shoved it in amongst all the other stuff I’ve got stashed under my sleeping palace. 

Have you ever opened a bag of summer clothes, pulled stuff out, cocked your head and wondered why you would ever wear that? I have. 

By the time I was done sorting things out I had five good summer pieces left and a big bag of good will. Then I spent a half hour trying to justify why I just couldn’t keep wearing that big old sweater and comfy heavy sweat shirt just a few more months, so that I wouldn’t have to go shopping for new clothes.

Have you ever gone shopping for clothes after a long winter’s hibernation of feeding on chocolate and cinnamon buns in order to keep that layer of fat in place during the bitter cold months and then spend an entire day wondering why nothing you like in the clothing stores will fit? I have.

Have you started using your treadmill again and counting calories? I have, too. 

And then there’s that spring-cleaning thing. I’m still out flying a kite and thinking on that one. 

Walking across the yard to go fly my kite, I’m sure I can hear the grass growing, pushing dandelions up into my world where eventually they will take over my lawn every day for the next four months.  

Have you ever wished you had a gardener, a weed man, and a landscaper? Oh, I have. 

I spent Saturday working outside like a fiend. I started it by pouring myself into a pair of jean shorts two sizes too small, slipped on my flip flops for the first time in nine months and believed for about five hours that I was 21 years old again. Sure, I got a lot done. I piled some wood, pruned some trees, raked leaves, made 16 trips with the wheelbarrow bursting with organic matter to the field dumping spot. My muscles pulled their weight, as I knew they would, and by quitting time I’d made some impressive headway in my neck of the woods.

Have you ever looked in the mirror after that very first long day of yard work, six seconds before you pass out from fatigue, and said in your Meghan Trainor voice—with a flat stare, “You must have confused me with someone else?” I have.  

I could not bend over for fear of never standing up straight and I couldn’t sit down because I definitely would not have got up again—and the skin between my big toe and the second one on both feet felt like I’d taken a lit match to it after squeezing those digits around the flip flop toe band.  

Have you laughed hysterically, feet on fire, fingernails dirty with Mother Earth and your whole body in need of a good hot soak in the tub, convinced that you’re getting too old for this? Me too.

But like the sign says, “I’d stop eating chocolate, but I’m no quitter.”