Don't invite me to a barnraising

Well, I feel like the neighborhood slug after reading Greta's comment yesterday. [Insert rueful smile here.] I will confess right here and right now that it never even occurred to me to offer to help those girls dig the garden. That's how focused I was on completing my 6.6-mile loop.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

I leave analysis up to the Spousal Equivalent; that's what he gets paid for. But I've been thinking all day and all night about why I didn't pitch in and start digging. Well, not all day and night, but it's been much on my mind. Because normally I'm considered a pretty helpful kind of person. Anything you need, just ask Debbi.

So if they'd asked for help, I would definitely have picked up a hoe. [I didn't see a spare one; maybe I needed a visual clue to spur my generous nature.]

More than anything else, I think my modern brain is wired to do things the most efficient way. My neighbor could have had that plot dug in an hour, by himself, with his rototiller. Then he would have smoothed it all out with that thingamjig he attaches to the back of his tractor. Leaving the girls more time to, oh, I don't know, bake bread or something.

But the point, really, is that they have the time, and their brains are wired to use their bodies, not machines.

Greta [by the way, whenever I type your name I type "Great" first, and have to correct it], I'm grateful for your comment, for it's made me think. Not about my ungenerous nature, because I truly am a giving, helpful person. I'm thinking more and more about stuff I've talked about before: How can I work more unintentional physical activity into my normal routine? I agree with you absolutely that after a hard workout I don't have the energy to do what needs to be done.

Maybe we need more vitamins?

And then this morning I read Jonathan's comment and wonderful quote from Wanderlust. So I guess when I came home to knit, I was 'woolgathering.'

Except I'm knitting with nylon ribbon. So I was 'nylongathering.' But purposefully!