I wish...
How many times have we all said that? And how many times do the things we idly wish for actually happen? Pretty rarely, right? Well, today and tomorrow I am doing my best to see that some of the little wishes come true for two of the people I love most in the world, my son and daughter-in-law. Dylan and Sarah's first anniversary was yesterday. Today is Sarah's 21st birthday. I wanted to buy them something special, but they both mumbled "I dunno" in answer to my asking them what gifts they'd like.
So instead of buying something, I am doing something. While Dylan and Sarah are gone on vacation, I am taking care of a couple things on their wish lists. (And okay, some of the doing involves buying, but I think it'll be okay.)
Sarah's dad fixed their porch posts a few weeks ago but they remained unpainted. Sarah had said, "I wish those porch posts would just paint themselves." Today, I painted them. I painted the rail by the steps, too, because Sarah had said, "I wish that rail wasn't burgundy. Yuck." Now the porch posts and the rail are white.
Dylan had said to me a week or so ago, "I wish we had a decent mailbox." Now they do. A shiny black mailbox replaces the rusty and dented one they used to have.
When I made the little flower bed in my back yard Dylan had said, "I wish we had something growing in our yard besides weeds." Today and tomorrow, my mom and I are turning part of their weedy front yard into two flower beds.
And here I must tell you that today I had a wish of my own. Today's weather felt more like July than May. It was 84 by 11 a.m. and the humidity was somewhere close to 80 percent. Fifteen minutes into the yard work, my mom and I were wringing wet. She told me as we were gulping Gatorade that back when she first started working at the County courthouse, in the mid 1950s and before air conditioning, the rule was that when the temperature plus the humidity equaled 150 or more the courthouse shut down. I said, "I wish that was the rule for yardwork today." My wish did not come true. We continued on and finished one flower bed completely and half of the other one before we threw the spade to the side and headed to Sonic for a couple of cranberry limeades. Tomorrow we'll go back over there and finish the rest of the flower bed before Dylan and Sarah get home mid-afternoon.
I wish I could be there to see their faces when they come home and find flowers in their front yard where weeds and rocks used to be.