Spring is here you guys.
Ask me how I know. C’mon! Just ask me.
I know it’s Spring when…
I have to take my car to the carwash 17x a week. This is where my dad would say, “Melissa Paige, quit spending that kind of money and just use a hose and some old towels.” And that is where I would say, “You have met me, right?” So, I take it down to the car wash where the guy brushes off your front grill for you and then reminds you of the rules (Put Car in Neutral. Stay off brake. Go when light turns green.) and then I wave at him in some lame-brained effort to let him know I understand said instructions and am a rule-follower. I am hoping that my wave will make him less mad at me when he has to help me get on the track. I can never get my car on the track; I have to do the drive forward, back up, now drive back, back up a little more. Ugh….but at least I waved.
When I go in for the wash my car is a sexy black/green/yellow color. When I leave, it’s just black. Which is what it is the other three seasons of the year.
See you in eight hours, young man!
My back yard looks like it’s the set used on a Jellyroll video. I don’t know what happens between October and March but it’s like my kids go out at night and party out there. The minute the weather starts to change and the ground starts to defrost I notice stuff I haven’t noticed before. Yesterday I saw where two raccoons have made a love nest inside one of the cushions on my lounge chair. There’s a blue chair turned upside down in my roses; I have never seen this chair before and have no idea where it came from. Why is there a 10lb hand weight in my shrubs? Why did I just find a half-eaten bag of Funyon’s floating in the pool? Oh look, a cooler is sitting beside my patio furniture. When was the last time we used a cooler? Rocco’s 8th birthday? Why does no one pick up after themselves out here and why am I just now noticing it?
Remi has pink eye. The doctor told her she got it from the pollen. He told her not to be around anyone until the antibiotic has been in her system at least 24 hours. This is information we would have liked to have known YESTERDAY, when she kissed me good night and laid her head on my chest and begged to play hooky from school. Now, I’m on a flight to Denver to speak to a ballroom full of women and I’m wiping my right eye because I’d swear there was an eyelash in it, but WE ALL KNOW THERE’S NOT! (Also, the pic I used for this article? That’s me and my sinus mask. Be jelly.)
Flowers. Landscaping. Planting. Listen to me, I would rather drive screws through my fingernails than to attend to any one of those three words I just listed. You thought my parenting was scary? Watch me raise a plant. Of course you cant, because the minute I get it home from Lowe’s it curls into a fetal position and plays dead. So every year at this time I am left passing by my neighbors out mowing and planting and watering and making their front porch look like a Pinterest dream, and what am I doing? Driving down their driveway to see if they’re missing a blue patio chair and a hand weight.
So those are a few of the ways I always know it’s Spring. Because Spring makes me feel like less of a person. Spring makes my back yard look like we’re Rednecks, AND WE ARE, but geez Spring, keepittoyourself.
So this year I am doing things differently…
If I don’t want my car dirty, then I think I’ll park it in the garage. Does that mean I’ll need to clean the garage out? Yes. (Is this another whole set of issues? Yes, yes it very much is.)
If I don’t want my backyard to be a disaster then I am going to force on my children the only parenting technique that I have found works 100% of the time: Policing each other. “If you see your sister leave her Funyuns in the pool, please let me know.” “If Rocco decides that my shrubs are a perfect hiding spot for all of his shoes and dirty clothes, could you mention that to me?” My children would rather be asked to police each other than to go to Disney World. I kid you not.
And as far as the planting and the flowers go, I came across a TikTok video the other day from @TheCrackerJack Shack who feels the same way I do! She said all she wants to do in the Spring and Summer seasons is sit on the front porch with her husband and she isn’t going to waste a minute of it planting something she can’t keep alive. So y’all, prepare yourselves for what I’m about to say: she plants fake flowers. And y’all, they look amazing.
I don’t think fake flowers are the same as we remember from 2002. I tried it! I bought a fake fern. It turned an ashy white about three weeks after I got it and a spider set up a maternity ward in it. But then Jeff Bezos was born and now everything is AMAZONING!
Amazon has UV resistant faux flowers out the wazoo and I’m here for every bit of it. Stick around for an upcoming article and I’ll show you exactly what I’m buying and planning on doing with them. Until then, no one tell my parents, okay? Whenever my parents see my yard, they look so sad and say things like, “I wish we had spent more time teaching you how to have a green thumb. Did you know the outside of a persons house is a direct correlation to the happiness you can find inside? I read that once, Melissa.” So this year – for the first time in ever – they are gonna think the Radke’s are in absolute elation within our four walls. Happiness abounds!
And all it took was a car wash membership, giving a badge and handcuffs to my teenagers, and two day Prime delivery.
Girl, you absolutely crack me up! I am sitting here reading this, by myself, laughing my fool head off. Thank you for bringing laughter to this world.
So good to hear from you friend! I will also follow your lead. ❤️