A change of plans

Do you ever go along a well thought out path blissfully unaware that other people can very easily change their plans and knock you off course? Today was one of those days.

Today our backfence neighbor to the south cut down four very annoying trees in his backyard that had been giving us most of the little shade that we had. We knew they didn't like them and were considering cutting them down. We also found them annoying too in that most of the leaves from two of these trees would land in our yard every fall and we would occasionally get large limbs as well. But, we were in denial about their eventual departure. We had planted plants next to the fence that needed partial shade, that now get virtually no shade at all during our hot summers. We are not sure whether our plants will be able to weather the change.

We will weather the change in our plans at least. We have already started to revise our master plan for our backyard landscaping. We need some relatively fast growing shade trees. We have such a big backyard, the lack of trees makes it look vacant. We have put in 14 trees since we have moved in nearly four years ago, but only one of those is supposed to get much height. The backyard doesn't look as empty as it used to, but we definitely need some shade. Fortunately, this won't change our plans drastically.

I keep thinking that I'm O.K. with change. I've had lots of change in my life plans. But, somehow, most of those changes were initiated by me. Yeah, some required someone else's plans, too (marriage takes two after all). Yet, in many ways, I'm a control freak. I like to be in control of my world. So, this sudden lack of trees to the South is just a small thing in the grand scheme of things. But it still makes me sad and a little huffy that someone changed my world without my permission.

Now, that I have that off my chest, I'll just go back to the everyday routines of life and "get a life". After all, there is more things to life than landscaping, and I spend most of my days with three little important ones.