“Holy Crap- when did I become such a Grown Up?!?!”

As usual, Michael and I had a busy weekend. This seems like a standard for us these days, but fortunately most of what makes us “busy” ends up being pretty fun. However, this weekend our busyness brought on those same feelings that our Easter dinner did (See the Grown Up Easter post).  More than once I found myself thinking “Holy Crap- when did I become such a Grown Up?!?!”

Grown Up Moment #1: Saturday we spent the whole morning and afternoon doing yard work. That’s right, garden gloves, little rakes and shovels, and a yard FULL of weeds to tackle. I know we’re home owners, I know we have upkeep, and I know this doesn’t seem that unusual. But for us, it was the first time that together we worked on the landscape. The contractors who did our landscape didn’t put any of the black plastic stuff under the beauty bark, so we had lots of work to do. Immediately Michael was channeling in his father’s advice as he had seen him work in the yard each spring and summer growing up.

After 4 hours we had the front and back weeded, Michael mowed, and Grown Up Moment #2 I planted flowers in our new flower barrels. My whole life every spring when my mom tactfully persuaded me to come out and help her get the Wavy Petunias, Geraniums, and Fuchsia baskets planted or hung I remember rolling my eyes. It was a task I did not look forward to one bit. And yet this year I planted my own. What the heck is going on here?  When did I become a flower person?

And finally Grown Up Moment #3 occurred when my neighbor stopped me about a current endeavor she had taken on: Slowing down cars on our street. We live in the longest cul-de-sac in Independence. There is something like 30 houses to get to the end of the street which turns into a dead end/cul-de-sac that you have to turn around and come back to get out of. For safety, this is great because no one wants to cause any mischief in a neighborhood that they can’t easily escape. However, because the road is so long and straight, for some reason people seem to think of it as more of a drag strip than a residential street. So the neighbor was asking us about petitioning for speed bumps and explaining the steps she had taken to get the Independence Police department aware of the issue. Since when did Michael and I care about people driving a bit too fast? Apparently since we’ve found this new sense of Grown-Upness! LOL! We were definitely on her side and happy to do whatever it took to get the people/ie college students down the road to slow down a bit. We don’t’ have kids now, but someday we will and that will be important. And until then I’d like to keep my little yellow rocket car safe as I pull out of my driveway. J

Saturday goes down in the books as a success. The yard work got down, flowers looked great, and we had a nice chat with neighbors. Overall we felt pretty accomplished. Then in our most beloved event of the day was Grown Up Moment #4 where we finished the evening at the Presidents Club Dinner where we enjoyed some grown up wine, a delicious meal, and fantastic supporters of Western Oregon University. While I’m not happy that I’m only 3 years away from 30, and I’m still surprised to see myself really caring about all these things that I have for so long labeled as “Only for oldie grown up people” I’m thinking this whole adult thing is working out pretty dang good.

And now this weekend we head off to Vegas where we can leave all that responsibility and be “kids again”. Well maybe…