When Did It Become "Our" Job?

For as long as I can remember, it was tradition that men did all the "outside" work and women always did the "inside" work. Of course, my family had made that a pact long before I was born. For that matter I had never even touched a lawn mower before my first husband and I divorced except maybe to walk by it or move it from one side of the garage to the other! However, after the divorce, I found myself doing more and more of the lawn work--to the point that my second husband calls me "She-rah". I swear though that before my husband left on his last deployment he told me that if I took care of the yard while he was gone, he'd be the one to do it from the time he retired from the service on! So much for that.

I came home today and decided that the yard needed to be mowed! And it really did need to be mowed--or maybe just the leaves and a few of the weeds taken care of. I thought that I could kill two birds with one stone--and actually I did, but I must be crazy for taking on that project. I used the bagger so that it would "vacuum" the yard as well! LOL There was some method to my madness though. Ever since Katrina and then a leak in the plumbing, we have a corner of the back yard that is now much lower than the rest of the yard, becomes a pond in heavy rains, and the yard is becoming lower than where the fence meets the ground--not good with 2 dogs in the back yard! So every bag that I collected got dumped in what seems to be a gradual sink hole! After 4 or 5 bags (filled to the rim and overflowing the bagger) the yard is almost up to the first of several different levels in the back yard. We'll see how that works (at least until the first good thunderstorm)!

Those of you that have green thumbs--as opposed to the brown or black thumb that I seemingly have--what is happening to my plants. In general, I do very little to/with my plants as I feel God is the best Gardener of them all. I figure He knows when they need water and when they don't. After all, he's been in the business of making the Earth green and fruitful for MANY years! So I don't put on all the extra fertilizers, weed & feed, change the soil, or give extra water to them unless we haven't had rain for a LONG time. And until the last few months, we've had beautiful plants along the front of my house. Now???? They are all either being eaten up with something that looks like coffee grounds or look like they've been burnt by a drought (from the bottom leaves and inner most leaves out to the outside or top leaves). It's really weird looking. One of the plants that had sat in a pot for seemingly forever and was doing beautifully, started dieing as soon as I planted it. I figured it would have thrived now that it had room for its root system instead of being strangled and getting root rot in the pot. I had a camilia bush that bloomed all summer long (July through mid October)--and none of the other plants did--but the camilia normally blooms in the spring, not summer. What is going on with my plants? Any ideas?