The kids are out of school this week and today, being Friday, it’s the last weekday of the vacation. We had plans to go rollerskating, but plans fell through. We’ve been doing a lot of indoor activities lately, so we thought doing a little planting in the backyard would be grounding to the mind. So, we all jumped in the car with a small budget and headed to home depot.
We got to home depot, parked, and walked into the garden center entrance. The pollen hit us like a wall. I tried not to mention all the medicines traversing in my mind that we may need to take when we get home. It wasn’t long before the kids all remembered how allergic they are to pollen. I reassured them we would make the trip short and queue up some allergy meds when we get home.
The succulents were the attraction today. The are so little and cute and some have bright colors and others are grafted with cacti. My teens immediately turned to adopting a succulent instead of gardening in the sunlight and transplanting flowers in the effort to refresh the yard. Of course they didn’t realize I had plans to sit with my spouse and have a nice glass of wine after their hard work of refreshing the planting. But, I couldn’t resist their enthusiasm to adopt a small house plant for their rooms, with the condition we still do the refresh.
So, the plan worked. We meandered through the garden center and found some amazingly beautiful plants within budget to make the yard pop with color. As we chose the annuals, we enjoyed the pollen and the busy bees. Without panicking during the observation of the bees, I redirected the kids down another isle. Right in the middle of my redirection, my older daughter immediately calls me out on the redirection and reminds us that mom is allergic to bees. She’s totally on to my tactics.
As we were checking out I was remembering how amazing it is to have your hands in the soil and planting in the sun. How mindfulness is just a byproduct of this activity. I was excited to share this with the girls. We got everything in the car and headed home.
We got home, brought in the plants, and started planning out the refresh in the back yard. I forgot how small our backyard is and from planning to executing this mindfulness activity took a total of about 15-20 minutes tops. The actual walking around the garden center was the most time staking part of the journey in this event. But, the girls completed the journey we set out for and we had a great time together. They feel pretty accomplished with the refresh and that is what we set out to do. So, I think my glass of wine will be mom’s mindful activity today watching the sunset.
