The Update

I have added a page to our blog entitled “Landscaping the Castle”.  We live on two streets with royal names so we like to call our house the Castle.  And now we’re trying to get all our landscaping done!  I’m in the middle of making a master plan for everything we need to do in order to finally have a handle on every part of our yard.  Our house is on the corner and and we have many different areas  and levels to keep track of (rather than just a front yard and a back yard).  Sometimes I feel a bit crazy trying to keep track of all of it.

So, I’ve made a map, which you can see here.  I’ve categorized each part of the yard into edible or non-edible and labeled it.  So for example, I just finished making the mulch circle for our maple tree.  That’s the orange diamond in A1.

This is my latest accomplishment, which took me over a week to finish (in short bursts, remember).

Here’s the before (with a bit of work already done):

And here’s the completed “circle” (which is not entirely perfect but oh well).

In case you want to orient yourself with the map and this picture, I took it standing on our front porch and you can also see King George Rd, A1, A2, A3, the driveway, and A4 in this picture. I’m planning on refering this map whenever I post gardening/yardwork updates.

The Revelation

Now, I am fully aware that I am probably the only one who thinks that my map is really cool.  I had a really fun day last Friday, making the map as Ellie was sleeping in my arms.  While I was working around the house that day, I was thinking about how I could improve it.  I came up with the letter/number/color  identification scheme while folding laundry.

I was feeling a bit silly about enjoying making this map so much until I had a revelation.  Making this map (and other things that I’ve made over the past few months) is serving the same purpose in my life that making worksheets and handouts did when I was a teacher.  I took probably too much pleasure in making handouts for my students that were perfectly spaced and aesthetically pleasing.  I often found myself obsessing over margins, font size, and graphics.  All my handouts for a class looked uniform – I used the same font, formatted my titles the same way, etc.  I often asked myself, “Would I be annoyed by this if I was handed it in a classroom?  Or would I get pleasure from doing my work on it?”  If it didn’t please me, I kept tinkering with it.  Yes, that kept me at school longer than I might otherwise have been but I took pleasure from crafting these things for my students.

Over the past few months, I’ve made a house management schedule for myself, cutting diagrams for sewing projects, invitations for parties, etc.  I love the work of designing and producing something useful and beautiful.

So, even if no one else looks at this map, I will use it and think, “That is so useful and beautiful too”, and be glad that I took the time to make it.