Livin’ La Vida Loca – Long Weekend Style

This is a nice picture of the dog. A little less nice of my lawn.

Where was I? Oh yeah….  Update –  I’m not that good at multi-tasking anymore because it appears that I can’t work full-time and blog. So since we still like to eat and even moreso drink, I guess my posts will be sporadic/annual going forward. But as I contemplated what a mess I’m making of the first long weekend of “summer”, I thought it too blogworthy to ignore. I actually had the added benefit of getting Friday off too. This had all the earmarks of being a super productive weekend.

In one of the many ironies that is my life … now that we don’t live on a farm anymore, hubby has gone into farming in a big way … working for a large cash crop operation.  Since this is planting season, basically that means that he is home for about 6 hours in the middle of the night for a much needed shower, feeding frenzy and power nap before being gone again at the crack of dawn. Which means I’m left to my own devices on this … the biggest of all outdoor project weekends. Let’s see … what did I accomplish yesterday? And make no mistake, there are many projects and maintenance things that need to happen. I got an early start…

8:00 am – 10:00 a.m. – Coffee. Put on tv to see news. Accidentally watched whole movie called “The Beaver” with Mel Gibson.  Worse than that, it made me weep, setting the stage for the rest of the day.

10:00 am – Dug up a few dandelions. Played the “weed-or-plant?” game trying to figure out what else to pull out, got tired and came back in the house to eat a couple squares of chocolate bar in case my blood sugar was low. Ate 12 squares.

11:00 – 12:00   Read paper outside and threw ball for the dog. Was impressed at how far I could throw it from a sitting position.

12:00 – 2:00 LUNCH

2:00 – Went to get wheelbarrow to collect pulled weeds, only to discover it has flat tire so it’s too hard to push.  Aborted mission. Sprayed dog with the hose.

2:15 – 3:00 – Googled what to do when your daffodils look like mine do … Got distracted by Facebook, looking at all the cool, fun and productive things that other people were doing this weekend.  Lost interest in doing anything about the daffodils. I don’t think I did anything with the daffodil remnants last year and the world didn’t end (much to disappointment of Mayans).

3:00 – Decided to fire up the push mower to cut some grass, because cutting the steep hill with the riding mower is too death defying for me. It’s hubby’s job, as he is heavily insured. Began a series of phone calls to tractor-dwelling hubby.

Call # 1:  “If I just put some gas in this should it start? Do I have to put anything else in it like oil?”

HIM: “No, that’s it. Should start right up.”

Call # 2:  “Is there a special button or anything that I’m missing? It’s not acting like it’s going to start at all, ever”.

HIM:  “No, no button or anything. You could tape up the idiot proof handle if that’s making it awkward, then just use two hands to pull the cord.”  I let the questionable “idiot” reference slide.

Call #3:  (This one took a long time to answer and turned out to be entirely one-sided) “ Yeah, it’s not going to start. My back hurts from pulling. This is stupid. I hate this.” Click.

Call #4: “I think I know why it won’t start. I can see it’s got a little leak in the hose. It’s probably because of how you stored it. Why did you put it away like that? Is there any way I can plug it? Is it going to kill the grass? Where should I put it so that the whole tank of gas leaking out won’t matter?” He dutifully answered all the questions but I don’t remember what he said, because I already lost interest in cutting the grass, and ceased to care whether leaking gas killed it. I ended the call.

4:00 – 7:00  Attempted to clean out the garden shed. Mostly whipped myself into a swearing frenzy after seeing all the junk that we’ve still got after our big move last year. Unless we’re going to be building a railroad in the foreseeable future, I think that there are a lot of giant pick-axe type tools that we can get rid of.  See exhibit A.

Exhibit A.
Dog added strictly for scale. The blue thing weighs roughly 250 lbs.

Also made mental note to ask hubby why it is that we can’t get rid of the 3 saddles we have. We managed to part with the horses years ago.  Failing a roving herd of wild mustangs making an impromptu appearance in our yard … I just don’t think we need them. Call me crazy. To make my little cleaning task even more interesting, the garden shed is home to several hundred bees including I’m pretty sure, those of the Killer variety because they are as big as birds, and they were all engaged in a fast paced game of “dive bomb and try to touch her head”.  That wasn’t so bad … kind of took my mind off the blackfly bites I’d been collecting all day.

Stopped cleaning when I dropped super heavy silver part of air compressor hose onto my shin.

6:45 – 7:00 – Iced shin.

7:00 – 7:05 – Pulled weeds from between deck boards.

7:06 – Got sliver.

7:07 – 8:00 – Worked on getting sliver out. Finally got it out, treated the wound and dressed it.  Decided I best have a stiff drink like on the western movies when somebody has to get a bullet dug out of their flesh.

8:00 on ….  A blur of educational shows like The Soup, Fashion Police.

11:30 – My back was pretty sore by this time, so took hot bath with glass of Baileys and read about world issues like Avril Lavigne’s wedding plans and Prince Harry’s polo skills.

12:00 midnight. Hubby home. Calls into the bathroom. “Did you get the gas for the lawnmower from that red can you left in the middle of the driveway?”

“Yes!”, I shot back.  Thinking the whole time … “So sue me for not putting it away. It’s heavy, and I’ve been slaving all day….”

His two word response was the perfect capper to my day:   “That’s diesel.”

Of course it is.  Is it Tuesday yet?