Lessons I learned in the weeds

*You can plant bulbs in even the toughest of soils all the way through October, and sometimes even later than that. You can even plant them in the snow, as long as the dirt a few inches below hasn't frozen over yet.

*Weeding is 250% more productive when you're using gloves, a hand shovel, and (if you have 6 foot tall weeds, like me) a big man shovel. These items also work well as protection from the next item on my list.

*Many, many bugs live in our backyard. There are the cute ones: ladybugs, rolly pollies, I'll even throw earthworms in this category. Then there are the ones I've never seen before: weird beetles and other winged things. Add to that at least a dozen varieties of spider, the largest of which made several appearances on different parts of my body, the worst being on my neck crawling toward my chest, later seen hanging off the edge of my ponytail. Yes, I screamed each time. And threw anything that was in my hands at the moment (shovel, gloves, weeds) across the yard (cause that's helpful).

*I don't have the heart to kill any of the bugs. I think it's because I'm on their turf. I'm outside in nature. Their home. I felt so bad every time I dug a hole and found two little earthworms, only to discover that it was really one earthworm, cut neatly in two parts. Poor guy. He sure did a good job on that soil though.

*When you bring a cd player outside to listen to some tunes, and you turn the music way down when your husband calls, and you accidentally forget about it when you go inside to make dinner, and you don't remember it until you start writing this blog post a day later, it's ok. Even though it rained. Because you can just go outside, and it'll still be playing that old mix cd you recently found from sophmore year. ("sad, but pretty," remember, lex?) Just bring it inside, smash all the little bugs off, and wipe it down. (It's ok this time because the bugs are on YOUR turf now.)