Nothing to Do But...

Daylily "Donnie's Delight"

Busy mothers will often fantasize about a day with “absolutely nothing to do” except what they want.  It flashes through the brain somewhere between picking cheerios out of the refrigerator vent grate and handling a fifty minute instructional meeting for two hundred employees. 

If you’re a gardener, that absolutely “nothing to do day” can be a really wonderful fantasy until you flick that last cheerio into your eye and have to drag two kids under the age of five to the ER with you, but, I digress. 

Dreaming about that moment when we can leave work behind, children are raised and gone and the day is yours – yes that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

It’s looking at photos in magazines of gardeners stretching their legs out on the $2,000 custom lawn chair while gazing into the 1,000 gallon koi pond while holding a glass of 100 year old wine from the wine cellar built into the custom pergola and knowing someday that will be you.

Daylily "Fly Catcher"

Its hybridizing daylilies (Yes, my own special daylily vacation dream.) and introducing the very first all blue daylily the size of a Texas dinner plate that stays open for a week.

 It’s having the hoity-toity snooty-patooty garden publication call and ask if they can take pictures of my gardens to use at their seminar because no other garden is so perfect.

Its walking through my gardens in July and not one insect bothers me or my plants.  AND, it rains just enough and only at night between midnight and 4 am.

It’s when you’re in labor for the fourth time in six years and your husband shouts, “I love a big family!”  This is when you take that little mental break (because you can’t reach anything to throw) and dream about a garden where there are no weeds and every plant thrives upon your touch. 

Yes, these are the things a gardener can dream about when the going gets tough and life never seems to hit the highs of our expectations.

Daylily "Megan's Love"

It’s that family picture with everyone is strategically placed among your flowers and it doesn’t rain, no child gets stung by a bee, and no one has to potty until it’s done. 

It’s when you realize you will have the Griswold family cookout and you have “nothing to do but” visualize a Martha Stewart magazine article of the outdoor cookout with real cloth napkins and granddaughters wearing custom made silk shifts and running barefoot around the yard with butterfly nets and ribbons in their hair.  Grandsons with little blue knee pants and starched white shirts and striped ties blowing in the wind.  Seriously have you ever seen Martha’s parties???

Flower beds are magically and perfectly edged in my dream get away.  The cat doesn’t leave bird heads and feathers where little kids will be warped and the dog doesn’t poop where someone steps in it and then walks through the house.  I know but it’s my dream, OK?

And if you think the dream “nothing to do but” are only for the employed, Oh silly silly you.  Retirement is billed as the perfect time to go all laid back and enjoy the fruits of your labors.  Right?  Those are the words that keep everyone working like crazy until they retire.  And then by golly not one of us retirees has any more time for “nothing to do but” and we’re still all taking a dream get away while living life. 

Dreaming about “nothing to do but” is good for the brain and the spirit.  It’s a refreshing vacation and costs nothing.  Actually having nothing to do is a mental and physical killer.  Even a baby somehow knows waving its hands and feet is better than simply laying there.

Enjoy your little “nothing to do but” moments but come back to the garden of real and enjoy life as its happening.  Your life – my life – weeds and all.