I Remain Seasonally Confused

I have no problem with this confusion I'm feeling. I've heard things come out of my mouth like, "Go play outside. We'll do schoolwork when it is dark" and "I would be a horrible mom if I let you look at a screen instead of sending you outside when it is so warm in December."

This morning Anna and I attended Laura and John's Christmas choir program. I put on a short sleeve, knee length dress and boots. I decided that it just wasn't appropriate to have bare knees in December so I added tights. When Anna and I got home we grabbed some lunch and headed outside to soak up the 70 degree sun. Anna brought out a bowl of ice cream and I didn't even shiver thinking about ice cream!

Josiah was climbing trees and wanted me to watch him. He was behind the garage in an area that, in spring and summer, is tick and poison ivy infested. I don't poke around much back there. Today I took a look around. I've lived on this property for 14.5 years. I can't believe what I didn't know was back here. I first noticed one large plastic container sitting in the ground. I dug it out and noticed more plastic containers.

Curiosity got the best of me and I continued digging out plastic containers. I told the kids I was digging out ancient treasure. Besides wondering just how many plastic containers were under this massive pile of 14 years of pine needles, I became very curious as to why every single container was full of dirt. Whatever was in the pots had clearly never been planted.

Josiah helped a little. He has declared this this new area to dig.

An hour later, I had excavated this pile of containers.

Yes, I counted them. 90. 90!!! That is crazy! Jeremy thought I was crazy. I was having fun! I should have/could have been inside baking Christmas cookies, but instead I was digging in the dirt and sweaty. He thought it was hilarious that I claimed to be stressed out and this project was no where on my radar, let alone a list, and here I was all proud of myself and no longer stressed out about Christmas.

We happen to personally know the last two owners of our house so, naturally, I immediately sent a facebook message to the previous owner asking if this was his ancient treasure that I unearthed. His response: "We got a huge bunch of free azaleas that were going to be dumped by Chesapeake Nursery that they couldn't sell. Probably 150 of them. Tried to keep them alive in the pots until we could plant them down here but only got about forty moved before the winter killed the ones that were left." Now I know! (It's not lost on me that there are 20 pots unaccounted for. lol.)

And now I have 90 plastic containers stacked neatly in the garage. haha.  It's interesting how some activities that are not considered restful can still be soul refreshing on the Sabbath.