"And today is the day..."

"And today is the day you wore your lipstick..."

One liner from a neighborhood girl who's family (sisters and brother) have become my newest yardwork helpers. It never fails that within minutes of stepping outside to work in my yard, they appear out of nowhere insisting on helping. They grab whatever yard tool is lying closest to them and dig in.

I love my little helpers. I really have accomplished more in my yard in one week than I could've on my own in three. We've cleared a corner of my yard that was overgrown with raspberry vines, tiny trees, garbage and chopped firewood (amongst broken glass and nails) that the previous homeowners left for us. We've planted two rows of petunias, blue angel hostas, watered plants, mulched...the list goes on.

Then today the most amazing thing happened. As I was planting petunias with my oldest and middle babes, my usual helpers came skipping into my yard and slowly, one by one, the "park crowd" made their way over to my yard. At one point I had over 10 kids, most of them the normal troublemakers. They helped wet the newspaper I layed down prior to mulching and they watered for me (while getting each other wet, too). I paused at one point and looked around and felt like I might have realized in that moment part of the reason I'm in Marshalltown. You know...well, maybe you don't...but you know when you wonder why God has placed you somewhere and you seriously rack your brain and can't, for the life of you, understand why you ended up in a strange town you know nothing about and never EVER imagined yourself living in? Well...this might be a tiny bit of an answer for me...not the whole thing, but a taste I think.

Ah...tomorrow will be just as interesting. Things change from moment to moment here.