a prickly [moment]

[moment 226]

Every year we clean up and update the landscaping at my parents' house. The kids usually help a bit, complain a lot, and end up in the neighbor's pool while their father does the bulk of the work. This year it happened a bit differently. 

Two of the young adults were out of town, so it was just Jim, Onyx, Eris, and I against the landscaping. I spent the first part of the process looking through and scanning photos with my mom while Jim did the trimming and the kids bagged them and did some weeding. After a little cookout lunch, I headed out with the crew to help cut up and bag the copious remainder of the trimmings and move the bags to the side of the house. We quickly determined that we would be too exhausted to do the rest of the weeding and the mulching and that the kids and I would return during the week to work on those things. 

The kids did end up in the pool - and deservedly so. 

At one moment during clean up I asked my husband if next time he could trim at least the bushes with prickers little by little so that the pieces didn't need to chopped up before they could be bagged, as I was getting ripped to pieces trying to break up long tendrils with long, sharp prickers. Out exhaustion and frustration, Jim responded that this is how he's always done it and he's had to deal with it mostly on his own in past years. I requested that I be able to make a logical request without being snapped at. After a few moments I pointed out that he basically said to me, "I've done this in a way - a way that doesn't work efficiently and causes pain - for years, so you need to suck it up and have it not work well for you, too!" We laughed and he apologized for snapping at me - and asked if he could rephrase his response to something like, "There's nothing I can do about it this year, but I'll do my best to keep that in mind for next year and make the bagging process easier and safer."

If you just take a moment to calm down and breathe and find the humor rather than argue, life is less prickly.