mowing the lawn

Saturday, while mowing the lawn (which I suck at) I was thinking how I have never had instruction on the finer points of mowing. Is this something you learn to do or just a skill you acquire. My mom taught me how to do the laundry, make the bed, fix things with tools and sort of cook. I'm decent at all of those things. I don't mind mowing the lawn (except the front hill which, while mowing I refer to as the death hill because I have images of either cutting my foot off or tumbling down the hill behind the mower in front of the occasional on-coming traffic....such would be my luck) but I think I need some lessons. Any volunteers?

The countdown to the end of Carl's crazy work schedule is on...approximately 8 more days!!! which coincidentally is how many days I have until classes start. I'm planning a suprise for him. I have pre-ordered the Nightmare Before Christmas (one of his favorite movies which is being released from the vault!) and I'm going to make him black and white cookies (our cookies of choice in college)...kind of a lame-o suprise I know, but I'm excited to do something nice for him since he's been working tons of hours (no days off again this weekend and yesterday he worked from 7am until after 11pm, at least he was able to come home at 9:30 on Saturday night)!!!!