Weeds

Why, why, why do I let my flower beds go so long without weeding???  Truth is, until I get up close, I don't even notice the weeds.  So I walk by them into the air conditioned house everyday and promptly forget them.

OH, I notice my neighbor's weeds.

Oh, yes, I do.....I even sigh when I look at them and wish she would do something about them!  My neighbor is a very sweet lady and keeps the rest of her yard immaculate (which by the way, is more than I can say for our yard) but this one area I am puzzled by and wonder why she doesn't just take it out.  Yes, I notice her weeds.


Isn't is kind of like our lives?  It is so easy to notice the weeds (or splinters) in our neighbor's lives while overlooking the weeds (or logs) in our own lives.  Much, much easier for me to talk about her weeds than it is to actually bend over and pull my own out of the ground.


Since I'm talking about my neighbor, I'll tell a funny story about her house and neighbors in general.
One day recently, the neighbor on the other side of me came over and asked if I had seen Velma (completely made up name) and I said no.  She then told me that Velma's car had been gone for several days but her garage door was open.  She also told me, and I'm ashamed I didn't know this, that Velma had fallen several weeks ago and laid on her floor for a night and part of a day before the postman heard her calling out and called 911.  Velma had fractured her hip and her wrist, had been in the hospital and rehab and I never knew it which makes me the neighbor of the year.  **Please note I was too busy watching her weeds grow because I'm a horrible person.**


All these fact together made my other neighbor and myself start to worry about Velma and so we went over and knocked on her door and called out to her, but got no answer.  So we walked into her garage and tried the door and much to our surprise it was unlocked!  We went in just far enough to determine Velma wasn't on the floor then left locking her door and putting the garage door down.  
**Also note that we have had several break-ins in our neighborhood in the past few months.**


Velma is an only child and her mother lives in town and has caregivers with her all the time.  I knew the caregivers might know where Velma was and so I called to let them know what we had done.  That's when I learned Velma was recovering at the beach about 45 minutes from her home.  O.K. I had done my neighborly job and thought that was that.  This was about 8 o'clock p.m.


Oh, no.....about an hour later I went to my garbage can and low and behold, a truck was pulling into Velma's driveway and Velma and some friends got out......I started over to explain what had happened when one of the friends said quite loudly "Who in the h*** locked the garage door??"  I quietly said "that would be me".....I then went on to explain how the neighbor (who was NOT concerned with Velma's weeds) had been worried about Velma and we were checking to make sure she was o.k.  Velma was happy she had noticed and the only problem was she never locks that door so they had to figure out another way to get into the house.  Uh oh....
It all ended well.


I'm trying to learn a lesson from all this, pull your own weeds and look out for your neighbor's welfare not their weeds!


By the way, I started pulling my weeds and suddenly a light bulb went off and I figured out why no one was pulling weeds.  It's HOT!