Getting Through Projects That Aren’t Any Fun

Close your eyes. Imagine that you are standing outside. You can hear the birds singing their merry songs. The breeze gently whispers through your hair. Visions of peonies, tulips, and sweet peas dance in your mind. You kneel and run your fingers over the exposed earth inhaling the familiar, comforting smell of dirt. Eagerly you grab your trowel and begin to dig.

And you’re welcomed back to reality with a loud *CLANG!!*

Because your trowel managed to make it about .00038 centimeters before hitting rock.

The previous owners of our house loved rocks. Our whole house was surrounded with river rocks. The one lone tree next to our patio was surrounded with rocks. You could even find random piles of rocks in the middle of the yard. (Especially if your mowing and even think about daydreaming instead of watching what’s in front of you.)

I on the other hand have very different feelings about those rocks. I loathe them. I curse their very existence. In fact by the time all of these rocks are out of our yard I won’t be surprised if I have night terrors involving rocks.

-But,

Loathing them doesn’t get rid of them unfortunately.

So that’s up to me.

We cleared the front two beds and the tree by the patio last year. What remains this year is basically the whole back of the house. Since I am most eager to plant in the middle bed that is where I started. I scooped rocks into our makeshift sled by the shovel-full. Progress was made very quickly and I felt like I had the upper hand on the rocks. I scooped so vigorously that soon no more rocks were visible. Thinking that I had indeed won the great rock battle, I knelt down to have a closer look and discovered that the top 3 inches of soil or so is actually, also rocks.

At first I thought I could just get my trowel under the rocks, push them up and easily scoop them out by hand. So I tried that. It seemed to be going well. So when about an hour and a half later I stood back to look at my progress and realized that I had completed about 11% of the bed I was ill-tempered.

This kind of heartbreak called for a cup of tea so I lumbered inside to make one. While drinking my tea I did some pondering (and a fair bit of sulking if we’re being honest). This isn’t the kind of working in the garden that dances in my mind when I close my eyes. It’s an obstacle. I can’t plant lovely peonies in that bed with any amount of pleasure until the great rock battle is won. So therefore the fight must continue.

Since it’s hard to keep working away at something that feels like it will never end I have employed what I call the “Tea and Snacks” tactic. Every 2 feet of bed that I manage to free from its rock prison will warrant a break that includes two of my favorite things: tea and food. Maybe I’ll get silly and competitive with it and see if I can create a legitimate excuse to have 9 cups of tea in one day.  We’ll see.

How do you get through projects that are not so fun? If you have any tips, tricks, ideas, or advice please share it!

Thank you for reading and have a lovely (and hopefully rock free) rest of your day.