Tiny Steps in Some Direction

My petunias are getting leggy. This is always the time of the year when they get leggy and I turn again them, resent their not keeping themselves thick and lush. I would have to sit out there on the front porch for three hours to deadhead those damn petunias and, really, is it worth it?

I think about it but then I realize everything is leggy and disappointing. I think about this while carrying in a new pack of doggy training pads which I’ve been using to prevent Tempest from peeing in the same spot on the landing’s carpet. Except the pads don’t prevent her from peeing in the same spot (as countless dogs before her have despite the carpet cleaning guys with their loud machines and giant tubes snaking their way out our front door to their truck), the pads have reinforced her peeing in that spot.

Yes, I am training a dog (who is otherwise housebroken and really well-trained and obedient) to pee on pads I put down on the carpet because I don’t want her to pee on the actual carpet. It’s crazy. And there’s no clear path forward.

On the front porch (where the leggy petunias are sitting), there is a table that is set up with art supplies and paper and coloring books and bubbles, and the porch serves as sort of an outdoor playroom for our granddaughter who lives with us. Also, on the porch, waiting its turn to be put away, is a storage bin of her mother’s costume jewelry and several Christmas ornaments. I want to put this box somewhere because it is beginning to feel like the leggy petunias, but I am loathe to move it because every so often my granddaughter opens the box and takes something from it and that thing or things show up in a place that is precious to her, like these tiny shoes sitting on a table that she has fashioned into her ‘desk.’

So, I think I will just let that be. Not worry about the box of jewelry or the training pads but maybe deadhead the petunias, just to have some forward movement here.