If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you have seen the plethora of pictures I have posted of the fall leaves. They are incredible in the various shades of color and size. Some days, I walk out back and the wind is blowing just enough to create a sense of it raining leaves. It's gorgeous and I pinch myself that I live here to see it. Most people drive miles and/or pay for a vacation to see this in a lifetime. I'm very fortunate.
However, the down side to all those incredible falling leaves is that they of course, end up in our yard, in the rain gutters, on the patio that track into the house and they need to be cleaned up, bagged up and hauled away.
Jim of course, lives for this stuff. He loves nothing more than to work on the yard. I get it, it's that instant gratification of seeing a job that needs to be done and sitting back hours ( or in our case days) later and seeing the results of a job well done. Overgrown grass, once cut, with rows where the mower ran through not only looks good but smells great. So, on Saturday when we saw piles and piles of leaves in the flower beds, rain gutter and pretty much everywhere, we rolled up our sleeves and grab our rakes. This was new to me, something I have only seen on Peanuts when Charlie Brown gets tricked again to kick the football only to have Lucy pull it away and he lands in a pile of leaves on his back. I've see in Sky Mall magazine or LL Bean catalogs people raking up piles of fall leaves and I assumed it was a staged photo shoot that some leave company brought in the props for the fall like picture to sell some fall type product. No, all of those leaves do truly exist and they were all in our yard.
We picked up the recycling bags from Lowe's and I love the statement Lowe's has written on these bags, which in my opinion is a genius marketing campaign " Never stop Improving" . Funny thing was as I was opening these bags to scoop up the leaves Jim had blown into piles, I was sort of grumbling. Wasn't exactly how I wanted to be spending our Saturday afternoon. Jim had been gone all week and I wanted to play. But as I read and re-read that statement, with each bag I opened; I took it personally. I don't think any of us can ever stop improving and by that I mean growing. I know I want to always be growing. Growing both Spiritually and in my marriage, in a way that shows improvement.
I know a grumbling attitude toward work that needs to be done isn't going to bring me much spiritual growth. Nor will it improve my day with the time I want to spend with my husband. He loves doing this stuff and he loves when I want to do it with him. He whistled and smiled the whole time. Occasionally looking at me and saying "Isn't this cool? Annie is having a blast out here, I just love being out here". Then he'd go back to his whistling. I pointed out the comparison of how night and day yard clean up was in the summer in Arizona to fall clean up in the cool crisp temps in New England."
Then, I began to improve my thoughts to being thankful for this moment. Thankful for the beautiful fall season that I witnessed of raining leaves, that I am not bleeding out from the cuts on my arms from thorns of bougainvillea branches or dehydrated from the triple digit temps. Thankful that I have a husband who works hard, provides for us and wants me to spend time with him, whether work or play. And that I have an amazing God who loves me, cares about me and will never leave me. He has given me much to be thankful for!
It was amazing how quickly my grumbling turned to gratitude. I can't say I started whistling along with Jim but there was a spring in my step and a joy in my heart for being able to even be outdoors hauling bags of leaves up the driveway.
I'm still learning, growing and I pray that I never stop improving.
"give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. "(1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV)
~Pressing On
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