This week we had no kids. They all were off with their other parents on vacation.

We had visions of romantic dinners, planned a little get away, and were going to savour every moment.

While we did go out for some great dinners, and did savour every moment of a clean house, and no running around to various sporting events, we ended up cancelling our little get away.

What did we do instead?

Lists and lists and lists of chores.

We worked.

And it felt so good to get things done that have been on “our lists” forever.

Things like shampooing the carpets, cleaning out the bathroom closet, cleaning out the back shed, painting the trim in the ENTIRE house (that was a big one), vacuuming, detailing and washing both cars, took both cars in for servicing, met our financial advisers, did all the gardening in the backyard, caught up with work stuff, caught up with friends and family (by phone and dinners – ok – this was fun, but had been neglected), ran some errands, prepped for our vacation next week, and weeded the entire front yard.

Phew.

Of course, this is on top of our usual work (including writing a long report and doing all my invoicing) and home stuff.

But it felt soooo good to get so many things crossed off  “our list”!

The biggest, and hardest project was weeding the front yard. We had crab grass growing. After talking to the experts at the gardening store, we knew we had a problem when they told us the only solution was to pull it out. By hand.

Now, I hate gardening. I mean hate it. But this had to be done. The crab grass was taking over.

Hours later, back breaking, knees bruised, sore arms, and blisters on the hands, we finished this long and tedious job. We pretty much pulled up our front yard – by hand. Of course, we have a small yard (thank goodness) but my blisters still don’t care. It felt big enough to my sore body.

As I was weeding however, I commented to Rob how of course there is a life lesson in this.

You see, he had noticed the crab grass a couple of weeks ago, when it had just poked up here and there. He mentioned it to me, but neither one of us took any initiative to do anything about it. We were busy, and had other priorities.

But it would have been so easy to take 5 minutes and pull it up when we first saw it.

Instead, it got out of control. It spread like wildfire. It took us hours to fix. It was so much work, and ended up having to take priority over everything else anyways.

Why oh why did we wait before we did anything about it??

I  guess the life lesson is that we sometimes think little things don’t need our attention, don’t need correcting, don’t need fixing. But, it is often easier to deal with things when they first happen, when we first see the problem, when we first go down the wrong path.

Of course, if we wait, we can still fix things, or deal with them, but it is a much longer journey.

You can bet that everyday, when Rob and I walk by the lawn in the front, we will stop and pull any little weed we see. We have learned our lesson and will make sure to consistently check in with our lawn care.

Just a reminder to check in with our “life care” too. Realign our compass every chance we get so we don’t get too off track.