I Used to LOVE Gardening

Am I imagining it, or is gardening getting harder (or less interesting) than it used to be? 

A few years ago a sunny spring day meant I would grab a shovel and have my garden all ready for the first plants of the season in just a few hours.  The next day, I would head for the garden store, spend a few minutes making choices from all the exciting offers in front of me, and the plants would be in the ground, complete with fertilizer, and a final watering applied by mid-afternoon.

This year, a number of sunny days went by, before I even ventured outside and then, after a tedious half hour of weed pulling, I gave up, and came inside to rest for a while.  The "while" quickly turned into the rest of the day, and the next day, and the next.

Now, after several weeks of fairly decent weather, I have managed to get about half of the garden ready for planting, but alas, nothing planted yet. Maybe I need new gardening gloves.

I did notice, in today's paper, that a local building supply store is having a sale on strawberry plants.  Perhaps if I concentrate on how wonderful home-grown strawberries piled high on shortcake and topped with whipped cream would taste, the gardening bug would return.  That bug seems kind of elusive this year, a bit like the writing muse which also seems to have deserted me recently. 

I just added, "BUY PLANTS AND PLANT THEM," underlined, and in capital letters to my to do list. At the rate I am going, I might get it done by the April after this one.  Wish me luck.