Apr 21, 2020 3 min read

Fun fact about me: I have this habit of starting projects that I think will be fun, only to get distracted, bored, or frustrated about halfway through and decide to abandon it or change it completely.

It drives my husband crazy.

This is due, at least in part, to me expecting him to come and help me finish said project, which, for full disclosure, he was likely to have voted against me starting in the first place.

A few years ago I decided to finish the upstairs foyer. The ceiling and walls needed to be primed and painted, and the trim needed caulked and painted.

I stopped after work one afternoon and chose the colors I intended to paint it, then gathered my tools the morning I planned to begin. Once or twice he popped his head in to give me advice, and I snarkily told him it was my project and I could handle it.

Approximately 10 minutes later, I asked for his help. Which is when he reminded me I had just said I didn’t want his advice. Of course, that irritated me, so I stormed back upstairs to do it myself. The truth was, I had gotten bored and tired and wanted his company. I just didn’t want him to tell me how to do it.

I can say the room was completed to my satisfaction. We just didn’t really get along until it was done, and it took a minimum of twice as long as I had originally estimated.

There are other times that I have just stopped the project until I got re-inspired, leaving my things where I set them down. I also have freaked out if anyone else moved them, despite my having left them in an often needed and commonly used area.

I am a real peach to live with, just so you know.

That is why it came as a complete surprise to everyone I know when I began a project this past weekend that I completed in the approximate amount of time I had planned for it to take, and without yelling at anyone.

My son and I built a raised bed out of pallets. We set pipes into the ground to stabilize the pallets, used long pole barn screws to secure the pallets to one another, and lined the inside with plastic to help contain the dirt. Then, I began to fill the planter with dirt by filling buckets and carrying it, but my husband adamantly refused to let me, and instead used the tractor to bring the dirt. Once it was filled, we topped it off with composted manure and then waited for the rain to allow the dirt to settle.

It was not without challenges. The plastic kept getting wrapped around the screws and balling up on the screw gun, before we got the pipes adjusted the pallets must have fallen over a dozen times and I got a blood blister from hauling dirt by the bucketful, but I saw it to the end, and happily.

Now I just have to remain interested long enough to get something planted inside of it and harvest it when it grows. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ve done enough growing of my own to see that happen.