We ordered 15 yards of mulch.
I knew it was 15 yards when we ordered it. I watched the truck dump it in our driveway. And still, when my husband and I walked out and stood in front of it, we looked at each other and said the same thing at the same time.
That looks like more than 15.
It was not more than 15. It was exactly 15. But standing in front of a mountain of mulch on a Saturday morning has a way of rearranging your sense of scale.
Our kids thought this was hilarious. Both texted something to the effect of being very glad they were currently out of state. This is not strategic avoidance — that’s just where life has them right now. But the timing was noted.
We do mulch every other year. We do it every other year because it’s a lot. And somehow, every other year, we are still surprised by how much a lot actually is.
My husband had work to finish inside, so I started alone.
I am a systems thinker. This means I do not just start shoveling mulch. First, I put down Preen — because we had spent the better part of two weekends pulling weeds, and I was not about to invite them back. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right. Make our lives easier down the road.
Then I picked up the shovel.
For a fleeting moment, it looked like a mountain.
So I stopped looking at it.
Fill the wheelbarrow. Dump it in the bed. Don’t scatter — that was always my husband’s job, and I tried it once and did not enjoy it, so I left neat little mulch mountains around each plant and kept moving. Fill. Dump. Move.
And every third load — a sip of my McDonald’s large Diet Coke.
I am not above a reward system. I am, in fact, deeply in favor of a reward system. The large Diet Coke has become its own shorthand in our house — LDC, said with the reverence it deserves. It sat on the driveway next to the pile and it was the entire reason I kept moving.
Fill. Dump. Third load. Sip.
Don’t look at the pile.
When my husband finally came out, he assessed my work, thanked me for the filled wheelbarrows, and gently relieved me of scattering duty for the remainder of the project.
My technique, apparently, did not pass muster.
I was not offended. I went back to filling the wheelbarrow and left the scattering to him.
Here is what I kept thinking about while I was shoveling.
I have been avoiding organizing my electronic files for somewhere between five and ten years. Passwords living in three different places. Photos scattered across devices like mulch left by someone with questionable technique. Emails with no rhyme or reason — some dating back to 2014, growing up in my inbox like the weeds we’d just spent two weekends pulling.
Every time I thought about tackling it, the pile appeared in my mind. The whole thing, all at once. Impossible. Later.
Last week, I finally sat down with it. Within an hour I had a plan.
The monster in your head is almost never the size it appears. We’d done this before — with small kids underfoot, in our younger years. It got done then. It would get done now.
Same brain. Same trick. Same Diet Coke, metaphorically speaking.
Don’t look at the pile.
Fill the wheelbarrow. Dump it. Move.
And give yourself the Diet Coke.
The pile was never the problem. Looking at it was.
What’s the pile you’ve been looking at instead of picking up the shovel? Tell me in the comments.
If this landed somewhere true for you — share it with a woman who needs to read it. And come back next Monday. We’re just getting started. 🌿
Don't look at the pile. I am writing this on a sticky note immediately. The thing that makes so many of us stall is not the size of the work. It is the habit of measuring all of it at once before we pick up the shovel.
Oh I loved this.
"Don’t look at the pile" is going straight into my emotional operating manual, probably somewhere between "stop trying to solve your whole life before breakfast" and "give yourself the coffee."