Likes, dislikes change as folks age

The majority of the planting has been done. I have already replaced or replanted the marigolds and tomatoes that the squirrels have pulled up. I blame it on the squirrels but it could be any of the other animals that frequent the lawn.

We have been replacing our old windows one at a time. We finally got the last one in. It had fought us tooth and nail. It simply did not want to go in. You may have heard the old advice to measure twice, cut once. Whoever came up with that has never tried to install a window that didn’t want to be installed.

The saying should say to cut as many times as needed after measuring at least a dozen times or more. For some reason even the highest quality measuring tapes have a strange sense of humor that enables them to stretch or shrink at will.

Now that the window is in place I can finally plant the last flat of flowers.

I still find it interesting that many of the things I hated as a youth are the same things I enjoy as an adult.

Gardening is one of those things. I absolutely despised any form of gardening as a kid. It was hot, tiring and a horrible way to spend a summer day. Worst of all, it yielded vegetables, not only vegetables, but green vegetables. If the garden had yielded chocolate bars instead of green beans, I might have enjoyed it more.

When I was in school, physical education was mandatory. I hated every minute of it. It was even worse than gardening. We bought our uniforms when we entered ninth grade. They were a one-piece jumpsuit. By the time we were seniors we could barely move because they were so tight. We could have bought a new one in a bigger size but nobody ever did.

I was lousy at any and all sports. I still am. So why have I paid for exercise classes? Over the years I have signed up for aerobics, step aerobics, yoga and several other forms of physical education. I will say that I have never signed up for sports of any kind.

The other class I disliked was typing. We had old manual typewriters. If the keys weren’t hit just right the machine would capture my fingers and tuck them tightly between the letters. Then when I pulled my fingers out, the edges of the keys would scratch me. It hurt. So what do I do for a living?

I type.

Thankfully, a laptop doesn’t try to mutilate my fingers. Errors are much easier to correct now that it doesn't involve a tiny bottle of what is essentially paint that was applied over an error then the correct letter was typed on top of the mistake.

I am always surprised at how I now like things I used to hate. It never occurred to me that one day I might be planting flowers and vegetables, paying to exercise or typing for a living.

We can't know what will come in handy and what won’t. Someone once told me that in life nothing is wasted. The older I get the more I find this to be true. It just goes to show that life is full of surprises and that you might someday enjoy the things you used to dislike.