Disney Got It Wrong

Chapter 6

The week that followed brought more rain, and we all know what is to be said about April showers. In my unfortunate case, those showers brought more weeds than flowers and a yard that needed cutting.

With a two day break in the rain forecast with more predicted for the week to come, I took advantage of my Friday while the kids were at school to do some much needed spring cleaning outside the house. I abandoned my run for the morning and drove into Tupelo to Lowe's after dropping the kids off to purchase what I needed to overhaul my yard. After a couple of hours of perusing mulch brands and colors, completely losing myself in the selection of annuals, and spending more money than I had originally budgeted for, I left with everything I went in for plus supplies to finally complete a new pet project for the patch beneath my bedroom window.

With my bedroom all the way at one end of the house, I have a window seat that looks out over the back yard. I had done up the inside to be my little reading nook with sheer curtains and dim string lights over it and heavy drapes over that which are usually tied to either side. There is a comfortable padded and upholstered bench seat with storage drawers beneath it and bookshelves on either side of the seat. The window itself bubbles out and opens on a hinged window pane big enough for a person to step in and out of the window and is low enough to the ground to do that safely.

Yeah, it stays locked. Don't go freaking out about safety concerns. Its a romantic idea in books, but a frightening concept in the real world.

I already had the flower beds extending out toward it, but I had bought a wooden outdoor bench seat at a yard sale a few months prior that I had restored and wanted to implement it in a design that included a circle of white gravel in which the bench would sit to be surrounded by a colorful assortment of small flowering plants. I had a few solar powered stake lights and a few stepping stones to embed in the gravel that would completely circle the bench and lead back to the window behind the bench as well as to the edge of the circle toward the yard in front of the bench. I also had a few ornamental pieces that I wanted to place in the midst of the flowers. I also wanted to do something with a small pergola and some hanging lights, but that part was a carpentry project I would need my youngest brother for when he had the time.

I had big ideas of creating a little fairy garden. I'm one of those people who likes to lose myself in a daydream. My head stays in the clouds with the absence of other outside stimuli to occupy it, and my favorite daydream is of my own little magical fantasy world full of bright colors and twinkling lights. I'm also a huge Disney fan, so of course a knight in shining armor type of guy is often included in the daydream, complete with an unrealistically perfect love affair in which he is completely devoted to me and my every equally unrealistic desire.

Notice the keyword there: unrealistic. Root word: real. Prefix: un-. Definition: not realistic; inappropriate to reality or fact. Synonyms: impractical, unfeasible, nonviable, unreasonable, irrational, illogical, senseless, silly, foolish, fanciful.

You get the point.

I suppose that's always been my problem; I'm a hopeless romantic. I love the idea of love; the nerves, the excitement, the butterflies. I have high expectations of what I really want and need from someone. Sure, I settled with far less than that with the handful of one nighters I've had, including Derek, but they were never expected to go further than that anyway, so I can't really count them as settling. Except Jamie. He was a one nighter that didn't want to end and definitely counted as settling.

Speaking of Derek, I never called or texted him. I threw away the sticky note with his number on it, but I did thank him for the nice date and flowers and for putting me to bed when he messaged me on Facebook earlier in the week. It was a mercifully short conversation in which he expressed a hope to get together again some time, and I supplied some noncommittal reply. I had pretty much decided that I would be busy in the weekends to come like I was with my current yard work to-do list.