A lesson in persistence

Coping with two boisterous toddlers isn't all that easy. So I try to make them tired by playing outside a lot. Which is when I noticed that our lawn had been taken over my weeds - a total invasion.

So I got out what I call a weeding tool. It's got a hook and two sharp points at the end and is very helpful to loosen the roots of the weeds - which posed to be more difficult than I thought. After 3 hours of weeding I had covered a 1m by 1m block -  very disheartening, to say the least.

That made me think of another South African woman who planted enough plants so that her garden, which is in the shape and colours of the South African flag, can be seen from space. When asked how she did it, she answered: one woman, one plant at a time, one day at a time, two hands.

Inspired by this I decided to persist. Our back lawn is about 50 squared meters and so far I have covered one. Unfortunately I forgot to put sunscreen on my back, arms and neck so I burned red and couldn't go out for 2 or 3 days.

After that, and putting on sunscreen and wearing a hat, I started again. My 18 month old thought it was great fun to throw all the weeds out of the bucket and then pack it in again, so I just let him be.

At the end of our holiday I didn't manage to finish weed the whole garden. Oops, I forgot to mention this is the back lawn at our little beach house. When we left the lawn looked hilarious - mostly clean grass with a lot of holes in it!

Although I didn't finish, I was proud of myself in persisting and removing as many weeds as I could, one at a time.

This helped me to realise that I can persist if I want to and I can apply this to other areas in my life.