A new rake and a precious pair of gloves

My title says it all...well most of it at least. On my way home from work yesterday I was noticing all of the pretty yards at different people's homes. Instead of taking my daily left turn on Park Avenue (yes I live off Park Avenue...aren't you jealous?!), I took a sharp right towards our local hardware store. I purchased a rake and a cute pair of gardening gloves. I knew that these were not the ones that would hold up the longest or even provide much comfort, but I thought it might make the work more fun to have something cute to look at while I work. I knew I would have a good 2 hours before my husband would get home from work so I rushed inside, took Susie out, and went straight to work. I wanted to impress him. I raked several beds out in front of our lawn with dead leaves, old pinestraw, and random other things that shouldn't be in the beds. It looked like it was going to be fairly easy to do, but it wasn't at all. We have a lot of ivey that has a long vine attached to it. Every time I would get a great grasp on the leaves, the end of the rake would get caught in the vines. I knew it would be easier if I would grab the bunch of dead leaves with my hands, but I hate to get my hands dirty so I hesitated a lot. You are probably thinking, "you wore gloves, so why would you be afraid to use your hands?" That sounds logical, but once I saw how cute the gloves were I didn't want to get them dirty! I was acting ridiculous. I'm just glad my husband wasn't there to see it. I would never live it down. After a long hour of raking, I gave in and used my hands, and to my astonishment it wasn't bad.

I also decided to pull the hose around to the front of the house so I could wash off our porch that was covered in pollen and dirt. I ended up soaking the area so much I had so push some water off of the porch so no one would slip on our steps. After all was said and done, I was very proud of myself. I had 4 huge piles of dead leaves and such ready to be thrown away, washed the porch, swept the side porch, and pulled weeds out of some ivey. I then went inside, took a nice, long shower and laid on the couch watching my taped shows for the day. When my husband came home I kept waiting for him to say, "Wow babe you really out did yourself or the yard looks great!" I got this-nothing, not even a what is the hose doing in the front yard or why is the front porch wet or where did the huge piles of leaves come from? I didn't say anything because I thought he would eventually notice once he took the trash out. Before I went to bed, I said, "Man my back hurts from working so hard today." He asked why would my back hurt from sitting in a chair. I laughed and asked him how in the world he didn't notice my work? He still didn't know what I had done. After explaining everything I did he said "Oh well thank you," and turned right back to baseball. At this point I thought it wasn't worth making a big deal out of it. I decided to give myself a pat on my back and get some shut eye. In the back of my mind I thought, "Just you wait until you clean the bathroom for the first time, and want me to acknowledge it-haha!"