I mowed my very first lawn today

Today I mowed my very own lawn for the first time. I know, it is pretty amazing that a 30 something wife and mother would either never have done this or admit to never have done this. Let me explain. As a teenager I never mowed the lawn because my family lived in a condo where we had people paid to do this little chore for us. After I married, my husband handled it or we lived in a place where this service was provided.

Last year we finally grew up and bought our own home. Since then my Navy husband has been able to handle the lawn between short deployments. That all ended today. He's been gone 2 1/2 weeks and it was starting to look pretty shabby. Add to this that there is a good chance of rain in our neck of the woods for about the next week and I finally had to break down and do it. He had made me practice starting the lawnmower several weeks ago in preperation for this so at least I wasn't totally clueless, however, when I went to do this on my own it wouldn't work. Finally, after like 15 tries yanking on that thing I realized that I had forgotten to hold onto the handle thingy (very technical talk here) which you have to hold down before it will start as a safety feature.

Once I got it started I have to admit it was sort of relaxing. Who knew? I sort of zoned out into a meditative state or something. It was something about the vibrations in the handle as you push it and the sound (vvvvrrrrmmmmm) that puts you into a trance. Anyway it was good practice for the big deployment coming up in September.