Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
Lawn Stuff: Don Doesn’t Rake Leaves
I don’t rake leaves. I don’t bag leaves. I mulch them. Religiously. I mow them right into the lawn.Â
I don’t bag my grass clippings in the spring. The summer. Or in autumn.Â
All these mulched grass clippings and leaves make incredible soil for my lawn.
First, raking leaves sucks. We all know it. It’s a constant battle for weeks on end. Rake on a Saturday afternoon and by Sunday evening you might wonder if you raked on Saturday, at all. Then it rains and the leaves get heavy and gross.Â
But ..if you mulch your leaves into the lawn, you don’t care. Dry leaves. Wet leaves. Lots of leaves. A few leaves. It doesn’t matter. It all gets mulched and decomposes all winter long right on your lawn. The snow. the rain. Just feeding your soil.Â
The ONLY downside is that you might find yourself mowing parts of your lawn 3 or 4 times a week. And when I say “mow”, I only mean mulching the leaves. In Michigan, where I live, by the time you get to mid-October and we’ve had a frost or two, the grass isn’t growing anymore, anyway.
Ya know what else I do? I carefully chop down every summer shrub and bush. Hostas. Purple cone flowers. Day lilies. Every perennial flower I have. With the exception of the Yuccas (which are pretty much an evergreen bush), everything must goooooo! I chop. I gather all the chopped flowers and annuals. I put them in a pile on my lawn. Then I mulch them into the lawnmower bag attachment. Pour them out. Mulch them again. Then spread that all over my flower beds like a cozy winter blanket.
It’s not like I’m an Earth-first type guy or some environmentalist. I simply believe one should use all the organic material available and mulch …compost …and give yourself amazing soil and healthy grass.
#NoRaking #NoBagging #NoBurning
Join me.Â
Before
After
This doesn’t suck …my Shark Navigator Vacuum Cleaner Review
When you buy a high-quality item, after extensive research, and it arrives and lives up to every review you’ve read and every expectation you had for it …life is good.
Household chores can actually be joyous. If you have a Shark Navigator Life-Away Upright Vacuum Multi Surface Floor Cleaner, that is. Before I got this vacuum cleaner, I had this behemoth Dyson. It was also top-of-the-line but …behemoth. Big. Powerful. Too big. Heavy. If I’d had this Dyson in the ’80s, when everyone had wall-to-wall carpet, it would be perfect. But it’s 2022. My entire house is hardwood floors with area rugs and despite having a perfectly-good and working vacuum cleaner, it was time for a change. Read More
Your iPad Makes You a Loser
The NCAA basketball tournament means millions of eye balls watching TV and, hence, new TV commercials from major brands. If I ran a company, I wouldn’t even bother with a ad in the Super Bowl that gets aired once, critiqued like crazy, and forgotten.
Anyone remember the ad with floating QR code? Oh, you remember the ad and it was for crypto currency something, but you don’t remember what the actual advertiser was.
Advertising like AT&T and “Lilly” stepped up their game by adding many big Hollywood stars. The ads aren’t good, or funny, but they’re “there” and that’s good enough for branding. I guess they want me to move my entire family from my current wireless provider to AT&T and they’ll give me a free phone or something, Read More
Self Improvement Stuff
Let me tell you about a fool. An idiot. About a guy so dumb, I’m ripping him off every day. It’s all about me and he doesn’t even see I’m robbing him blind. Also …this fool …is brilliant.
It’s Cal Newport. How I’m only now discovering this genius is, well …because I’m actually the fool who follows and invites Internet ads like a moth to a flame. I read an article by someone I like. I immediately hit their website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and when I do, all the other “gurus” and self-help wanna-be’s find me by Internet cookies and by guesting on Podcasts I listen to, and most of them might help people a little, but mostly they just want to sell more books, courses, or coaching sessions. Read More
Fountain of Youth, Part 1
A new person recently hired in at my company at exactly the right time for the health of my skin.
It was January. The middle of a very cold winter. I had just started a new skin care regiment and got Harry’s face scrub, eye brightener, and daily facial lotion. It was not going well. My face was basically a giant surface of flaking skin.
Every day. More face scrub. More lotion. And every day I felt like my face was literally falling off. Read More
Don the Hero, Part 1
I forget how many times I’ve been a hero, but it’s alot. I’m like Batman. What’s my latest bit of heroism? I’m glad you asked.
Starting in December, I started getting calls on my cell phone from people saying they’d like to schedule a counseling session. It started slow. Maybe one each week. I would never answer these numbers I didn’t recognize, but I always listed to the voicemails they left me. Read More
Lent, Part 48
Today is Day-1 of my 48th Lent. Well, it might be my 44th …hard to believe I was giving things up in those early year, but let’s just say it’s Lent #48 for me.
I love Lent. For me, it comes at a perfect time to reflect on the New Year’s Resolutions I didn’t keep and hit the restart button. Oh, and there’s the whole “proud Catholic” thing. It’s about giving something up, starting something, and almsgiving (and I’m going to look up the definition of that word). Read More
“Marry Me” Reminds Me I’m Sucker for RomComs
We live in a world where anger and misery are headlines, where a pandemic killed millions worldwide, and where truck drivers won’t drive because they don’t wanna eat their spinach. So we need J Lo’s and E Wo’s (that’s what I’m calling Owen Wilson and I hope it catches fire) “Marry Me”. It’s delightful. Charming. A perfect date movie on Valentine’s Day Eve-Eve. I think the wife even teared up a little at the end.
I won’t have it! I won’t have anyone bagging on sappy RomComs (how we insiders refer to the movie genre “romantic comedy”). I’m a guy that won’t actually watch Hallmark Movies, will often make fun of them when my wife is watching them like they’re an Ozark marathon, but I’m glad they exist. The fact that Hallmark movies and RomComs exist and have any viewers at all tells me the world ain’t really as bad as it seems. Read More
Sweating the Small Stuff: Daily Journal and Skin Care
Does anyone remember that book … Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff …and it’s all Small Stuff”? That book really bothered me when it was released. I mean, life really is mainly about the “small stuff.” It’s the “small stuff” that sets the foundation for the big things. Trust me. I read the book. I got the point they were trying to make. Like don’t worry about burning your toast or breaking a dish because, well, if you’re healthy and the people you love are healthy, well, that toast and that broken dish aren’t really a big deal.
But, for me and I think for many, the “small stuff” are the things that keep us smiling, sane, calm, and in control enough to handle the “big stuff.” Read More
Best of 2021
I’m way behind on this, but I wanted to try this Past Year Review thing I heard about on the Tim Ferriss show. His step-by-step says to review a calendar of your journals from the past year and go week by week, put two columns on a piece of paper, and put the good on one side, and the bad on the other.
Well, if I looked at my Google Calendar, it would be dentist and doctor appointments and payments due on the “bad side” and I guess a buncha holidays and birthdays on the “good side.” Lesson learned …put more things on my calendar. Read More
Don Kowalewski 