Outward Visible Sign. . .

March 17th 2012 or thereabouts. . . time to start on the yard.  It is a beautiful Spring day.   So warm it lulled me into planting my vegetable garden early this year.  Everything survived and mostly thrived, well, except for those couple of tomato plants that I never should have put in the ground.  But the brocolli, lettuce, spinach, and brussell sprouts did just fine!

The vegetable garden was the easy part. . .

My ex-husband (at this point he was my soon to be ex-husband) had moved out and left the house pretty much in a shambles.  There were construction materials either left all over the yard (from other jobs or trash picked or dumpster dived).  In addition there were four vehicles (none of which were in running condition) strategically parked as if they were "waiting for Godot".  It was all too much for one person. Thank God for my brother-in-law who alternately calms and focuses me and makes me crazy.  In this case, he said "let's get the 30 - 40 feet around the house cleaned up and your garden planted."  "It will make you feel better".  He was right.  So my brother-in-law, my brother, and I worked all day on that yard.   We tilled and planted my garden.  Mowed and fertilized the yard.  Cut back bushes.  Put down mulch.  Moved  a bunch of construction material (trash) away from the house.  And piled up as much trash as we could for the special pickup, bulk trash day.

And the cherry on top (there has to be a cherry on top), we moved the swing set closer to the house where my daughter could actually play on it.  Three years prior, a neighbor generously gave us a swing set with an attached "fort" and slide.  It was delivered in two pieces and separated in the yard.  There were several excuses why he would not put it together by the house for her to play on it.  His favorite reason was that he could not do it by himself and needed at least four men to help him.  So, I always asked him when he was going to invite people over to do it.  It was stupid of me to ask because I knew the answer was never.  It would not happen unless I invited people over to do it.  Even then I am sure it would have been a struggle to get it done.  But in my opinion the real reason he did not want to put it together near the house was pretty simple... he liked to drive his truck(s) through the yard (since the broken down and undrivable vehicles were parked forever in the driveway making the driveway basically unusable.   If the swing set was where I wanted it and where my daughter could easily play on it, it would stop him from being able to drive through the yard.  Just as an aside. . . it is amazing how nice the side and back yard look now that he is not driving on them anymore!   She and her friends play on it all the time now. . . I think that was the best thing that we accomplished all day!  She was surprised and happy when she got home!

Now the back of the yard still looked horrible.  I mean can you say redneck.  Here is what I am talking about. 

But the front looked great!

And so did the vegetable garden. 

This transformation was for me an outward visible sign that we were going to be alright.  That we were going to be able to get through this.  I could make this work.