Thanks for joining in to another Grateful Heart Monday where gratitude begins my week, which for today is for one of my sponsees, Aaron, who truly has lent me an incredible hand with my yard work so far this year.
As most of those who know me can testify to, I’m pretty obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my yard and gardens. Each year when spring arrives, one can usually find me outside doing work on them during much of the day. But over the past couple of years, I’ve been finding it harder to keep up with the attention to detail I like to place in them given my physical limitations I continue to endure. In light of that, this year I decided to ask for help, something in previous years I had too much pride and ego to do and usually paid the price in my body because of it. Thankfully though, I think God had a hand in placing Aaron in my life, not only for me to help guide him through the steps, but also for him to help me out with my outdoor burden.
While one might describe our property as the size of a postage stamp, you might be surprised at the amount of cleanup and upkeep it still takes to maintain. Being surrounded by a large number of 60+ year old maple trees (all in bordering neighbor’s yards), I must deal with an annual late spring onslaught of helicopters that pile up everywhere, from my gutters, to the ponds, in the gardens, and in the yard of course too. Many in my shoes might choose to just leave them be and let nature take care of itself, but given how many of them actually come down, it ends up causing more problems than not if I ignore them. One of my neighbors in fact ended up having clogged gutters and tons of little trees growing in them because he let them go for too long. On the other hand, I’m sure some would say how pretty they must look when falling, almost like large brown snow, but frankly, their beauty is grossly outweighed by the amount of late Spring cleanup I always get from them. Cleanup that even translates into having to remove all of my mulch and lay down close to 30 bags of new mulch.
That’s why I was so thankful that Aaron, who had been currently looking for work, agreed to come help me. Over the course of a few weeks, he always showed up on time and definitely was a hard and very thorough worker. I estimate that he probably saved me about 20 hours’ worth of work when all was said and done. While I’m sure most people think I’m crazy sitting out there with shop vacuums sucking up thousands of helicopters that land on my property, Aaron wasn’t one of them and never once complained or judged me for my OCD-based task.
I’m not going to deny the fact that I’m a perfectionist when it comes to maintaining my yard and gardens, because I really am. It’s definitely my outlet for former addiction energy, yet something far healthier that’s for sure. But, finding help that could meet my OCD-based standards is most certainly tough, except Aaron consistently met that and worked like a champ to keep to the detail I place in my yard and gardens.
Nevertheless, after hauling away at least several dozen hefty lawn and leaf bags filled with those helicopters, Aaron proceeded to assist me in removing all the mulch and place down the new batch as well. For most, this work would probably seem quite tedious and monotonous, yet Aaron gave it his all and simply jammed to music in his headphones the entire time he worked, never once complaining, even on days when the heat level was ridiculously high.
In the end, even though I did pay Aaron for his work, I believe it was far worth it because good help is often hard to come by these days. So yes, I’m truly grateful for Aaron who provided me much relief this year thus far in my outdoor work, both on a physical level, and in all honestly, on a mental and emotional one as well…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
