Landscaping

In preparation to put our house on the market, we took the realtor's advice and hired a landscaper to come make our yard look like a vacation wonderland. It cost as much as some cars I've bought, but it really does look like a special place. So why do I feel so weird? I feel weird because it's still winter, and most of the plants are still asleep- so even after all that work most plants are still a little droopy and dormant. I feel weird because it used to be my special place, and now it's kind of not. I feel weird because I usually garden in this micro kind of way where I can't pull out one tiny half-dead plant because I feel like I know them personally and I'm not going to kill them just because they are going through a hard time. These amazing professionals are of the "only the strong survive" philosophy and cleared out all my mutts to make room for big sturdy nursery-grown plants that will be very impressive when the house finally goes on sale next month. And they did it all in 8 hours, with a little follow up the next day. I feel like I was hit with a Mac truck of beauty and order and I don't know how I feel about that.

desk time

I can't believe I haven't posted in 2 months. But I guess that's about how long it has been since I had a minute to sit and think. Since the holidays ended, I have somehow had 4 to 8 hours of meetings a day (meetings defined to include groups, one to ones, classes etc.) I had a meeting cancel, which gets me down to 4 hours of meetings for the day. It felt so luxurious to have 4 hours in a row to figure out what all these things are that pile up on my desk on any given Sunday. I know I am still a couple hundred e-mails behind, and have an order of service due by 2:00, but I just had to give thanks for a little quality time with my desk.