I don't think I'll be starting a mowing business anytime soon

Jamie has a crazy schedule in the summer. He works for a company that installs athletic fields. He loves his job and we are very thankful for the job because it was an answer to a lot of prayers.

Anyway....

He is absent from our house for most of the daytime hours. When he gets in he is always very tired. So needless to say the last thing he needs is a nagging wife saying, "You know we could house an entire community of mice in our yard and you would never know it because they would be shaded by all the enormous blades of grass." Translated to him: mow the yard now.

Being the wife that I am, I decided that I would take this small chore from his hands. It might be important to add that we have three acres of yard to mow. Not an easy feat mind you. So I head up to my in-laws house (they live up the hill) and asked if Bob (my father in law) could teach me how to mow on his mower. It turned out to be very easy to operate the machine, lucky for me.

Now, this was on a Saturday. Dear Jamie happened to be at home, but I, of course, had him working through a list of five or seventeen other things. So mowing the yard was on my agenda and I wanted to make sure he saw every minute of it so he would know my ultimate sacrifice for him.

I came riding down the hill on the mower. Jamie thought it would be a good idea to for him "get me started". So he made the first few rounds to mark my path. Then he handed the raines over to me.

Now, I might need to preface this by telling you that we have big crevases (and I'm not real sure how to spell crevases) in our yard. We live at the bottom of a hill and we just built our house last year. So the grass hasn't been around too long. There is a lot of washing going on. Which just added a load full of fun to the mowing experience.

So I hop on the mower. Jamie decided it might be a good idea to watch me the first go around just to make sure I got it right. I started out, really thinking highly of myself for taking on such a manly chore. I turned the first turn, good job so far. I was keeping everything in line. The lines down the yard were looking spectacular if I do say so myself.

Then....I saw the ditch.

I was faced with a dilema. It actually crossed my mind that I could "jump" it. On a mower.

I didn't want to mess up the perfect lines after all. So I made the decision to keep on trucking (or mowing) right over that little ditch. The mower didn't make it.

I sat there with the front two tires of the mower in the ditch. I didn't know what to do, so instead of you know, turning the key off. I just stood up. Because that is what makes the mower quit going. It did make the engine cut off, but it kept making this horrible sound. Good thing for me that Jamie was still outside watching the whole event unfold. Because I'm sure that my safety was the first thing on his mind and not at all how much he was going to make fun of me.

He came to my side, turned the mower completley off and pushed it out of the ditch. Then he looked at me and said, "What were you doing?". I replied "Mowing". He said, "Did ya not see the ditch?".

"Yes, I saw it."

"Then why didn't you go around it?"

"Well, I didn't want to mess up the lines."

Perfectly good explanation in my mind. He warned me that next time I should go around. I told him not to worry because there probably wouldn't be a next time.