Summer Deja Vus

Today, I did two things that I haven't done since nearly a decade ago.

1. Work on a jigsaw puzzle.
2. Pull weeds.

I had a blah day so the only thing I felt like doing was something mundane but calming...so I pulled out a 1,000 piece puzzle that I received many years ago but hadn't put together before.

When we were younger, we always spent summers at Gramma's. Summers meant watering the fruit trees and rose gardens, picking peaches and plums (and Asian pears for 2-3 summers), cutting roses to make fragrant arrangements for the kitchen and my bedroom, playing the piano, journaling, pulling 100s of weeds, and putting 1K or 5K jigsaw puzzles together.

During my H.S. years, I spent summers completing 1,000 and 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. I believe my interest in them stemmed from staying over at Mom's. She really enjoyed putting them together. Once, I helped her put together a 5K piece of a tiger (her favorite animal).
Much to my dismay, it was missing 3 pieces when we were done.

I ventured forth in my puzzle endeavors (pre-3D days). I marveled at how I could sit literally for hours and work on them. A friend once said, "Puzzles teach patience." To this day, I still believe that.

(Update: 7/15/07: I finished the 1,000 piece puzzle literally the minute before we left Rancho! It's missing one piece, though. Argh! Now, if only I could get paid to put puzzles together...)

The majority of my summer memories also consist of pulling weeds. Gramma's backyard was a jungle of weeds every summer, because she had no landscaping done. From 5th grade to maybe 11th grade, my bro and I pulled weeds every summer. Like multiple Hefty bags full in the Inland Empire heat. By about Junior year, Gramma gave up on the weeds. They had taken over and there was no fighting. I thought weed-pulling days were over.

Especially when Gramma finally landscaped her backyard a few months ago! The first time I saw her backyard was a few weeks ago. We had gotten home late the night before so when I woke up, I looked out of my window and gasped at how beautiful and serene the backyard looked. The fruit trees were bigger than ever, and there was now lush grass spanning from one end to the other and over 60 rose plants lining the rear wall.

Unfortunately, there was less admiration today when I got down to pull weeds from one end to the other. I thought my weed-pulling days were long over. Alas, I was mistaken. (I can't imagine how much more disappointed Gramma is at the fact!)

Some things truly don't change...