craziness!: the big debate

BLOWER vs RAKE

so, for my birthday this year, i asked for a leaf blower--yes, a leaf blower. i realized that after spending every day (and i mean EVERY DAY) last fall raking up leaves and putting them in bins/bags for the trash guys to take, that i really don't have the time to do that again. and, unfortunately, the kids are still a little too young to do much good moving around the big, hefty rakes (esp when nate bought the super cheap one, so the rake part keeps coming off the stick). so anyway, i buckled down and begged for a blower.

now, it may not seem like a big deal to most, but i love the fact that i grew up doing manual labor. i raked, shoved, painted, cleaned gutters, mowed, weeded, mulched, etc, etc. i firmly believe in the good work ethics that working actually produces. so, it's quite difficult to relinquish this and grab technology that provides an "easy way out". i'm scared that the kids are just going to see that raking and such is a waste of time and complain if i make them do stuff that is "too hard."

now, of course, i acknowledge that some advances in technology are good, but nothing beats having to go out and shovel snow for a couple of hours to get the heart pounding and the blood flowing. blowers don't really do that. however, jeremy did have fun trying it out and blowing leaves all over seth (i admit i had fun doing it to them as well! anyone see that spongebob...) so, anyway, i think though that i'm over this for the time being--at least until the kids are 7 or 8 and can be useful and then maybe the blower will "break" and we'll be too poor to replace it. i have to admit that it's actually quite a quick and useful thing and it's fun. oh, it also has a vacuum so i can suck up all the leaves instead of spending hours trying to balance them on a rake and spill half as i try to put them in a bag. it also sucks up all the acorns that hurt your feet when you walk barefoot in our extremely threadbare grass--i thought we had enough rascals in our yard to take care of all of them, but maybe they aren't hungry enough. oh well.