Greasy Spoon Mind Trick

Every time it rains, the yard grows a fuzzy green, like a chia pet. It's all weeds but it's kind of pretty until the weeds get taller and start looking like themselves and then out come the gloves, the rake, and the podcasts.

Lately, I've gotten in the habit of tidying up the yard on Saturday mornings. I get up early and listen to podcasts while I'm doing it. Often, the yard doesn't actually need work, but I want to listen to my programs so there I am with my earphones in, raking, pruning, potting. It's one of those things where you combine something you don't like doing with something you enjoy to trick your brain into thinking you're having fun. Like when we had to go the laundromat on Saturday mornings, we'd stop at Frank's Diner for breakfast on the way, so our brains didn't think we were doing laundry. Our brains thought we were eating pancakes. At least at first. By Friday, we'd even stop saying "You know what we have to do this weekend? The L word." The L word being what we called the unmentionable thing we didn't like doing at the laundromat on Saturday mornings. But by Friday night we'd have stopped saying that and we'd be talking about tomorrow's breakfast at Frank's.