1600 Shovel-fulls, plus or minus a couple

I suppose I am a subconcious goal setter. I am not one that purposely sets down and writes the list of things that I want to accomplish in the next five years--or even one year! On New Year's Day, my goal for the year is not to set myself up for failure by doing such things as, "This year, I am going to lose weight, by golly!" Nah. If I have a goal for myself, it is rarely put on paper or even vocalized. It is a subconcious though. It nags and lingers in the back of my mind like an old greasy woman from the trailerhood gripping a cast iron frying pan in her man-sized hand as she waves her wing-flapping arms yelling rather rude and disturbing proddings to my mind.

This week the old greasy woman of my mind wore a dirty and ragged dress with big blue and teal flowers all over it. She stood behind the counter of a worn down truck stop of a place; her right arm flailing in animated, yet punctuated, pan harrowing encouragement while her left hand gripped the counter with a vice-like grip. "Don't stop! You gotta get 'er done! Only one more day until the weekend! You gotta finish by the weekend! Don't stop!"

Wheel barrow load after wheel barrow load of dirt was hauled from the slowly shrinking pile on one side of the driveway to the gaping holes waiting to be filled on the far side of the yard. "One, two, three, ...ten!" Then I would shift arms in order to balance out the muscle weight of my tightening bicepts. "One, two, three, ..." Finally the forty shovel fulls filled the wheel barrow as I leaned over my load dreading the next step. My hands ached from having to lift such a heavy load over and over and over. Greasy Woman continued her prodding as I gripped the handles and pushed over the next fifty yards to empty the load. And the story continued all day until I could shovel and push no longer.

I didn't reach Greasy Woman's goal to "get 'er done" but there is much more dirt in the empty spaces than there is in what was once a huge pile. As all should do when reaching even the unperceived goals in one's life, I kept a mental note of my progress through the day. There was a time when my mind went a little blank out of sheer exhaustion (I do believe that it was right about the time that a cute little grinning man drove by on his huge tractor and waved with a gloating glee filled wave that he had a tractor and I didn't), but to my count, right around forty loads of dirt were hauled yesterday. That is forty loads times forty shovel fulls of dirt. I was surprised at how much that actually added up to. I suppose that having the proddings of my pan welding friend trotting around in my mind can be helpful. Of course, SHE doesn't have to pay the price for over exertion...that is my goodie to deal with. I am going to have to concentrate on keeping her in her place a little better.

Perhaps another day or two of dirt hauling and stone placement, Greasy Woman can move on to the next project's proddings. It is sure a good thing that I don't set goals. Who knows how many truck stop trailerhood prodders I'd have rambling around in my head!

*footnote: I, Gay VanderLinden, am in complete control of my mind and although it may, at times, seem my cheese has slipped my cracker, all is well and I do profess to be quite sane and mentally competent.