Rainy Days and Mondays

While I realize it was a complete drag for Karen Carpenter, dealing with rainy days and Mondays has always been the complete opposite for me, if not respite.  In the eyes of my friends and family, they think I spend my days lying about in a sunny field, shoes kicked off, perhaps sipping a cool refreshment while perusing a romantic paperback book and occasionally picking a dandelion or two, ruminating about my days as a small boy in the suburbs. On the contrary, in my business as a landscaper, the seasons all provide different challenges and it's a lot of work.  In the spring, my schedule is heavy on the front end and laborious, dealing with cleaning up after winter, spreading 100+ yards of mulch and planting 700 flowers, all while working around the rain and while maintaining the cutting of grass, especially if it's an early growth season like the one we just had.  The summer is hard dealing with weeds, which seems to be the only things that grow, and enduring the humidity and sun beating down on you all day long, burning you to a crisp isn't fun, despite my Mediterranical olive skin-tone, luscious as it is.  Fall, of course, is all about keeping up with the leaves, relentlessly falling and blowing around, making progress a fool's errand.  No sooner do I get them all to one side of the parking lot when a gust comes and blows them right back.  Winter is the only season when I get a break from labor, but it's also the hardest because I'm usually not working and being alone in my head for long periods of time without a focus isn't good.  Besides that, there are the holidays to get through and everything is dead and it's cold outside.  I try to take a trip in winter, but I usually go by myself, since everyone else is working.

Monday's the day that I have to be at the hotel since it's the day that the platinum members check in for the week and, heaven forbid, if the place doesn't look like Utopia, the world will end and they'll bitch about it until they get a free drink in the lounge.  I like Mondays though because it starts my week off and gives me a purpose.  While one may think owning your own business is pure pleasure, it can be difficult, especially staying motivated and on-track.  It may seem like I have complete control over my schedule, but that's not entirely so.  There are so many things that pull me in different directions... I may plan to work on a certain area of the hotel and it turns out that there's another contractor doing something there and I have to regroup... or the weather may not cooperate... or something can't be delivered or I can't get the help to show up... or, and this is the biggie... my family requires something (see previous paragraph where I obviously must be just laying about in a field and, therefore, have all the time in the world) and I don't get to work at all.

If it's a sunny day and I don't end up doing work, I wind up feeling so guilty that whatever I'm doing is ruined and I can't enjoy myself, not that I feel like being out in the heat after working in it all the time anyway.  As a result, I have a new bike and new kayak that never get used, and summer is just a waste of a season for me, recreationally.  Rainy days... now that's what it's all about.  Waking up and seeing the rain is the best kind of day for me because it's a total free-pass.  No getting up early... no rushing around...no working... no one wondering where I am... and, best of all, no guilt.  I love to hear the rain hitting the window and the fresh smell in the air... all the dirt being washed away and nature getting a drink.

Landscaping is physically strenuous, mentally tormenting and, with everyone wanting everything for free these days, it can be not very lucrative as well.  It's for these reasons that I am looking to sell my equipment and get back into business management.  At times, I feel like I've been hiding out from my previous 20+ years of success in accounting and management.  As a Controller/Operations Manager, I was under constant stress as well, but you felt like you were getting things accomplished and making progress and contributing.  I suppose I contribute to nature, I just need more at this point in my life.  I need a purpose and a challenge. So, instead of me pulling roots as a business, I'm pulling myself back to my roots... in business.