Well, I keeled over in the yard again. Rather stupid of me...

I didn't mow last week, primarily because I was glued to the couch and drowning in the reality that I no longer have a job. This week, already it has been difficult to move as well. Yesterday, I waited for the phone to ring. I waited again for comfort. And then I threw the cell phone across the room (thankfully it is not broken) and dove into a thick book. All day I thought of the prescriptions waiting for me at Target, but couldn't inspire myself to pop off the couch, venture out into the heat, and drive the two miles it would take to pick them up.

So today, the pressure was on. I had to get up at 8:00 to take care of something and crawled back into bed at 9:47. The next thing I knew, it was 2:45 and Kashi wanted out and the birds wanted out and those prescriptions were weighing heavily on my brain. I did roll out of bed, but I did not get into the car until 5:30. It was an arduous journey to my vehicle.

I pulled away and started heading home before I remembered that my filter needed changing in my new HVAC system. It is quite dirty. I had checked it during the flood and promptly forgotten to get another one. So, I U-turned to head back to Lowe's and picked up some of them...yet another thing on the credit card. I was in sweats since clothing is not something I wish to tax myself with, which garnered me quite a few strange looks given the heat. I didn't care. In fact, I did some rather blatant staring back of my own. I did congratulate myself that I actually popped in a new filter as soon as I came home.

I wanted to rest on my laurels for a few more days, but I saw a weather forecast that spoke of rain for the rest of the week. Given that this strange stuff masquerading as grass in my back yard is as high as Kashi, I determined that I should mow.

It is hot. It is hot. It is hot. I puked in the flowerbed, drank some Gatorade (Blue because I am rather sadly out of Orange), and went back outside to finish. I should have used my inhaler. I keep forgetting that my oxygen drops with exertion. I keep forgetting and ended up face first in the grass. When I awoke, I was covered with mosquitoes because I had forgotten the protection. I checked my oxygen sats, learned I was at 84, and sat with the nebulizer. No coughing, just a wee bit of wheezing...yet I was in poor shape.

Of course, since I was drugged up, I decided to finish the yard. What's a mowing without an edging, after all? I whacked on the roses, which are looking rather peaked for the first time in four years, and gave them some fertilizer. I pulled some weeds. And then I sat down and studied that strange grass that now looked like thick spider legs that had been chopped off. Since I don't know what it is and I don't want it spreading, I started pulling it up, huffing and puffing and destroying. By the time I finished, it was 9:00 and I was covered with dirt that stuck to my sweaty arms and legs.

It took me an hour to cool down enough to take a shower. I am now clean and have just finished another nebulizer treatment to be on the safe side. With that bad asthma attack last weekend, I should have remembered that ones like that are often followed by secondary attacks...sort of like aftershocks.

I cannot pay someone to mow. It can't just let it grow willy nilly. Yet, mowing in the summer heat is not something that I can do easily without harm to myself. What's a gal to do?

The yard sure looks nice...