Vacation? For Who, Not Me!!

So my husband is on vacation for two weeks. Thankfully he decided, ha decided, to go to his grandparents house for a couple of days.
He had some help in this decision. A little persuasion you might say.
My husband is a spoiled grandchild.
Grandpa has been trying to buy my husband a new truck for years. And for years my husband has been telling him no. Gotta hand it to him on wanting to make his own money and not caring what the rest of the family thinks. But it comes to the point that it would make his grandfather so happy to give him this truck. Grandpa has it in his head that the Awesome Green Truck is a hazard.
Well he found a way to get around Austin telling him no.
He called last week and said 'I've decided to make you my hired hand and you need a truck to drive so I can claim it as a tax write off.' Austin couldn't say no to that.
I think Austin had that AHAA moment. Finally. It took him long enough. Honestly...
So Tuesday early I had to get up and take Austin and Mason to Sioux City to pick up the pick up. From there they went on down to visit the grandparents.
I told Austin not to come home before Friday and if at all possible to stay a couple of days longer.
Funny note my husband packed himself and Mason and only took 2 diapers for Mason. He forgot the diapers in my trunk. Now he can't tease me about forgetting anything ever again. I think he learned that it is harder to pack for two. I've been giggling about it since I noticed the diapers in the trunk. I didn't even call to warn him. What fun would that have been?

So yeah my day is going to suck...

It's Monday... I work at 4... my car has a flat tire... my husband has a meeting from 3-4.
I see several things going wrong today.
First off, Austin's meeting was scheduled after he already had my schedule. He says he had forgotten to mention it to me. Like I really believe that... So anyways, he called this morning and said he already talked to his mother about it and she will be over at 3:30. Um... HELLO... my house is no where near M~I~L ready. I worked all weekend.
Second I had planned on taking his car to work because, hello, mine has a flat tire. I ran over something on the way to work yesterday because I know it wasn't low when I left the house. Why you ask, because I had to drag out the air house myself and do it because my husband is worthless like that. He thinks I should take care of my own car. I tell him he should be taking care of me and that includes things on my car. We go rounds and rounds. I told him last night after he accused me of 'forgetting' to check that tire that from now on I was taking it to a mechanic to even put windshield washer fluid in it.
So that leaves me with the truck. You remember the awesome green truck. That is if the stupid thing will even start. He changed the battery just a couple of weeks ago when we were way below zero and I don't think he got the battery cables tight. He says he did. Let me put it this way; If they were tight you wouldn't have wiggle them before starting the damn truck.
Honestly. I think he just likes to argue. Yes I realize that they could be tight but still have a bad connection because of corrosion etc. All I have to say to that is fix it right and then you don't have to worry about it. Don't tell your wife 'Well if it doesn't start just wiggle this cable and then it should.' Do you know what that gets you.
Just guess.
That's right Shit on a stick for supper all week.
Let me tell you he is one lucky guy.
I got off topic...
Third- His mother. I didn't want to spend my whole day cleaning. The living room needs picked up and vacuumed, along with the dining room, the kitchen needs swept and mopped and dishes done. (I think my husband is allergic to dishes) The bathroom needs picked up also. Austin decided to give Mason a bath last night and now all the towels that were clean are now dirty. He had taken two of the folded ones on the shelf and unfolded them until they were just halves and laid them in front of the bathtub for his knees. It's okay I laughed too. Then he said he was getting Mason out of the tub and somehow dropped the towel into the water. So he got another one and got him out but Mason wouldn't let him use it to dry his hair. So instead of getting out a hand towel for his hair he got out another huge bath towel.
That is all 5 clean huge bath towels. We have more towels but we mostly use the huge ones and there is only the 3 of us so we don't need a huge number considering Mason has his own towels but Austin obviously doesn't know where they are. I really need to get back to that re-training. He is driving me nuts. I actually got mad at him on Friday and told him it doesn't matter how bad he actually does it still needs to be done and he will get better at it. Perfect example was the bath. Now if I could only convince him to do the dishes. I wouldn't even care if he did a really bad job. Sometimes effort counts for a lot.
Those are just the obvious things I see that are going wrong today. It does not take into account the whole multitude of things that will go wrong. Like Mason getting on the dining room table a hundred times or the dog marking my fridge because I forgot him outside. And Austin wonders why I want to paint the office pink. I am horribly out numbered by these inconsiderate jerks. I think I need a vacation.
Well I better go get my butt busy. I am only going to get as much done as I get done. I am going to start on my usual Monday stuff. The bedding is already in the washer. The bathroom is back to looking like my bathroom and not a truck stop. The living and dining rooms are ready to be vacuumed. The kitchen is ready to be mopped. There is a rank smell coming from the stove. Like actually from the stove. I have this sinking suspicion that my husband forgot something in it. I really don't want to open the door on the oven but it is unavoidable. I will have to. Next is to get the dishes washed and put away before M~I~L gets here. If I don't she will put them away and then I won't be able to find anything. Last time she actually rearranged my cabinets and forgot that I am short I couldn't reach the plates. Literally. Couldn't reach them.
Hope everyone has a better day than me.

That isn't quite how I remember it...

So I reread the post I put up yesterday and I have to say that that isn't exactly how I remember it happening. I know hard to believe. Here is how it really happened.
We are in the awesome green truck. I am in the middle, Mason is on the passenger side all bundled up and in his car seat, Austin is driving. I knew this would be an adventure when Austin had to go back to his parents garage and grab the 2x4 block of wood that keeps his door shut. It is always a tight fit in the truck when we are all three in there because of the car seat and gear shift, this time we were really lucky and had the dog with us also. Hyde couldn't sit on my lap because of the gear shifter so he had to settle for Mason's lap. This made Mason really happy. I was hoping that Mason would sleep on the way home but the truck is too loud and he was too excited after he realized that Hyde 'wanted' to sit on his lap.
After we got all settled we were off to try to get out of the driveway. This might be where I suggested for the first time that maybe we should just walk back to the house and stay the night. Austin looks at me like I am crazy so I smile sweetly and say 'It was just a suggestion that I now realize was stupid.' Austin actually laughs. At me. I couldn't believe it.
About halfway down the drive we encounter a drift that easily covers the tires and is longer than the truck. We get about halfway through it and the back end of the truck starts to slide sideways but I don't say anything. We make it through finally and I am sure I just had a heart attack and we aren't even to the highway yet.
At this point I am thinking this could be interesting but at least it isn't too cold out for the walk back. I know I really played the 'good wife' and trusted my husband to get home in one piece.
We get to the highway and it looks clear so I am thinking that the road maintainers have been out and cleared the roads. Then we get to the top of the next hill and I know better. The road is covered in snow in areas and where it isn't you can see the snow blowing across it. About half a mile down the road we run into the first big drift. I am surprised that the truck doesn't have any problems getting through it. I say to Austin 'What is the strategy for getting through those? Speed.' He looks at me, smiles and says 'Nope. I didn't have you pressing my foot down on the accelerator.' I was speechless. I might have been wondering if I heard him wrong or something. Needless to say I didn't say anything back and made a mental note to ask him about it later. That is when we come across the biggest snow drift of the night so far.
We are coming up on this thing and Austin isn't slowing down so I look at him and he is smiling. A little excited type smile. I say quickly and a little frenzied 'Aren't you going to go around that thing.' (the last of which was said in such in a high pitch that I think only the dog heard it) as we hit this monstrous drift. To me it felt as though we had hit a brick wall. I closed my eyes vowing to myself not to open them again until we get home.
I didn't keep this resolve very long.
I had a moment to think about it and decided that I wanted to know what was coming. I open my eyes and it is like I am in some kind of nightmare. We are just getting through the drift and Austin starts laughing and says 'Don't you just love that feeling. Like a roller coaster where your stomach falls out the bottom.' and laughs again. Mason being awake is loving every minute of this. He has become a mimic lately and even if he doesn't know why you are laughing will start laughing with you. I feel as though I am surrounded by two laughing idiots that are taking me on some crazy ride down some redneck rabbit hole.
Again I am sure that he has just taken 10 years off my life. I am sweating and starting to feel queasy I ask him if we can roll down a window a little bit. I must have looked green because my husband who has an aversion to anything cold didn't hesitate to roll the window down.
The next mile or so was okay as were in the valley between hills. We come to the top of the next hill and I am sure this is where we are going to die. I don't think there is anything worse than this feeling. We are at the top of a hill where we encounter a couple of medium sized drifts but I don't notice them. I am frozen in fear of what is to come.
You see at the top of the next hill is a stop sign and what looks like a huge white wall. Austin asks me if I can see any headlights coming from either of the other directions and I can't so that is what I tell him. I still don't know if this was a bad idea or not. All of a sudden (I say all of a sudden because to me it feels like time has stood still) Austin punches the gas. I get a little frantic and grab his arm and say what the crap are you doing? Again he smiles. A little sardonic smile. I want to just slap him. For a split second I think it is my imagination and that we aren't speeding up but no luck. We hit that drift and I knew we weren't going to be stopping for that stop sign.
Austin and Mason start laughing again and are having a great old time. I feel as though I am going to throw up. I am sweating and dizzy and I think I taste bile in the back of my mouth. I don't know if it was my imagination or not but it felt like we were spinning and the walls were closing in on me.
Next thing I know Austin has pulled over and is asking me if I need to throw up. All I could do was ask him to roll down the window to give me some fresh air. He informs me that the window has been down for the last 3 miles. I tell him that I get by and just to get me home. He informs me that the worst is over. All I am thinking at this point is liar.
The next couple of miles are uneventful because it is flat ground so there aren't any big drifts. We are coming up on the second stop sign and I see that the intersection is drifted fairly bad. I also notice that my husband isn't slowing down and we have to take a right at the stop sign. At this point he notices that I am quiet and ask if I am okay. I am thinking great how sick do I look.
I yell at him tell him that I am fine. We barely get through the intersection and there is a huge drift. (there is a house close to the intersection and the wind blowing around their wind break causes a drift all the time.) I hadn't seen this particular spot drift that bad before. Austin tells me to brace myself. I really start to panic at this point. Austin being the ever observant one notices this and tells me that he has a shovel and it isn't likely that we would rollover if we happened to go into the ditch. Didn't that just make me feel better. Ha.
I don't know how it happened but I had a moment of clarity. A brief moment but a moment non the less. I look at him and say that is okay because if you really want to live to see another day if you at any point think we won't make it through one of these drifts you will pull over and walk home and get the chains and then come back and get our asses. Understood.' He didn't even blink but turned pale and agreed. We only encountered a couple of little drifts and one big one the rest of the way. The big one though we had to drive on the wrong side of the road where other people had driven through it. I was just glad it had some tracks through it unlike the other ones we encountered.
Finally we turned onto our gravel road and he asks if we can have some fun. I agree because the ditches on our road aren't ones that we rollover in. He was a little disappointed that we didn't see any big ones. I am just thankful that our neighbor knew we would be coming home that night, thought of us and plowed us a path from the highway to our driveway.
We pull into the driveway and Austin turns off the truck and opens his door, Hyde jumps out, Austin gets out and then I get out. Austin is still laughing so I tackle him. I was so mad. He just kept laughing. I put snow down his shirt and even managed to stuff some down his pants. He never did apologize for scaring the crap out of me. Nor did he yell at me for tackling him and putting snow down his pants and shirt. He just kept laughing. Probably figured he deserved it. He did.
I unloaded the truck of our junk and he took Mason into bed and came back out to help and make sure I was okay. We went inside and went to bed. I will never forget it. Never.

My yard...

Tabe wrote a comment about my yard.

"is that ur yard?? its huge"

Yes that is my yard. Our house sits on 3 acres. We have a huge barn, old pole barn, corn crib, garden shed, well house and a dog run. I thought I had done a post about my yard already but I guess I haven't so here it is.

My Yard!!

We have since taken out this little fence because we no longer have chickens.

This is the view coming from the south on the gravel. Don't let it deceive you. That little green stripe closest to the bottom of the photo is really wider than it looks.

I don't remember why I had to drive the AWESOME green truck. I mean really my car is in the driveway.

A view from the front. The property is almost completely square and if you were to draw a tic-tack-toe on it the house would sit in the bottom middle one. The front door faces the west so we get great views of the Iowa sunsets. The windows on the second level is our bedroom. the bed sits right under these windows facing the door that looks right out into the hallway and the hallway window that faces the east. So we get the sunsets at night and the sunrises in the mornings. It just so happens that when the sun peaks over the horizon it shines directly in my eyes. Consequently I rather like the sunsets.

We have a good sized riding lawn mower, John Deere 345, 20hp, 52 inch deck, and it still takes a solid 3 hours to mow the yard. It used to only take 2 and half but Austin got a little carried away with the fertilizer this last spring. I don't mind though because the lawn mower is loud enough that I can't hear myself think. It is the only time I get to myself and I love it.

So that is my yard. I love to be outside working on it. Whether it is mowing or weeding flower beds. I can't wait until the first frost so that I can out there and clear out the beds. I have bulbs that need planting. There were some beds that we just didn't like and have been in the process of redoing these last couple of years. Well I should say that I knew I didn't want what was in them so we took them out and I didn't know what I wanted to put back in them so we did some temporary landscaping. I have finally decided what I want in them and have just recently purchased a butt load of bulbs that now need planting. It should be fun. Hopefully after the first frost the snakes are in hiding and not hiding in my flower beds.

Procrastinating....

We have been really busy lately. I made it to the freak show family reunion. It was just beautiful out. Seventy and sunny with just the slightest breeze. Mason was cute and as well behaved as can be expected of a one-year-old. He positively charmed everyone as he was eating off of everyones plate. Even though the little stinker had his own.
Austin left for Germany on Tuesday. He drove himself to work in the horrid awesome green truck of his. We debated on whether or not I should drive him in and finally decided that I wouldn't be needing the truck so he took it...it really is true what they say about hindsight being 20/20. I ended up needing the truck and he had the keys in his pocket sitting in a meeting in Germany. Great place for them...
Our adopted dog, Bubba, passed away Tuesday evening as I was leaving for my MOPS steer team meeting. Bubba was close to 18 and it was his time. He passed peacefully and will be greatly missed. Bubba came with the house because he wouldn't stay away and we didn't really want him to leave anyways. The previous owners, Mel and Olive, have said all along that they would like to have him cremated and the cremains mailed to them. I respected their wishes and had to take him to be cremated today. To do this I had to go borrow my father-in-laws truck and then I had to get one of the neighbors to help me load him. I am not sure who was crying harder, me or the neighbor. Have I mentioned that I love my little corner of the world. I have the absolute best neighbors.
My father-in-law had to have his appendix out Friday so he is still recovering from surgery. Otherwise he would have come over and helped me load him. Jeff is recovering nicely. He still can't lift Mason even though he tries. I am afraid he will hurt himself but he won't listen to me.
I have told Austin that he can no longer out of the country. Every time he leaves something happens to make me feel completely helpless. Every time he has gone to Germany something has died. I told him that we only have Mason and Hyde here and I couldn't bear to loose either of them so once he gets home he is home for good. (Some of this might have been said through some hysterical tears and raging hormones although I can't be entirely certain.)
So... that is what has been going on here. Now instead of blogging I need to get my newsletter finished for MOPS tomorrow. It is amazing that even on my weakest days I feel strong being surrounded by other breathtakingly genuine mothers. I do not know what I would do without this wonderful group of women to lean on and complain to laugh with. Our theme this year is Adventures in Mothering. It truly has been that. From the moment we found out about Mason it has been an adventure. My mother upon hearing the theme for this year said there needed to be a group with a theme called Adventures in Marriage. I suggested to her that she needed to write a book about her Adventure in Marriage. It would certainly be a comedy about a tragedy.
Well I have procrastinated long enough. If only I could write the newsletter like I do this blog....

It's Real Life- How I Roll

It's time for It's Real Life over at Farm Fresh. This weeks theme is How I Roll.

The rule is to not prep for these photos. You know REAL life. Well my car is a disaster because my husband has been driving it. I can't even get him to pick up his dirty clothes from the bathroom floor. What would make me think I could get him to get his trash out of my car. Therefore my car is a mess but I didn't clean it for these photos. So this is HOW I ROLL.

The front view. It rained today or it would look way worse.

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Side view. We live on river rock gravel. This is the cleanest I have seen my car in a while.
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Back view. Most of the time you can't see the Chrysler or 300 for all the dirt.

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Yes I am hoping to see this turn over 200,000. I am cheap and cars are expensive!
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Gum, a dollar and a Hy-Vee receipt. You never know when you are going to need a dollar. The gum is so that my husband will never know when I sneak a cig.

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I just liked this little flip flop. I wasn't crazy about the smell so I let it hang from the BBQ grill outside until all the smell was gone.

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My cute little plaid purse that carries one diaper, a Ziploc baggie with wipes, a folder with my MOPS publicity papers, a notebook, one lighter, and a pack of cigs, for those days when my husband nuts. Occasionally it will also carry my check book.

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My radar detector. Never leave home without it. It truly has saved me hundreds times.
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Mason's car seat. We don't leave the drive without Alo the buffalo being on his lap. The little yellow fish he got from the Farm Progress Show. I need to get him turned back to rear facing it was just soooo hooootttt. The sun would beat right on him and no air conditioning would reach him. Every time I would take him out he would be dripping wet.

We are going to keep him rear facing hopefully for the whole winter because it is so much safer.
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Another of Mason's toys. This sits right behind my seat. Makes it easy to reach.

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Mason's stroller. Papers from the Farm Progress Show. 3 gallons of water that needed taken inside. (I did go ahead and take them in after taking photos) The license plate and the crazy colored book are my sisters that I keep forgetting to drop off at her house when I see her.

To the very right is a red object. It is my ice scrapper. I know it is August in Iowa but realistically we could be using this in 6 weeks. Scary thought for all the Iowans out there.

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Again it rained today. Otherwise this is how my whole car would look.
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Mason's cowboy hat from the Rodeo.

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This is what I drive when Austin drives my car and I have MOPS.

Now don't anybody get jealous.

Yes it is John Deere green.

We paid $650 for it 3 years ago. It gets me from point A to point B.

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I wouldn't mind driving it if it didn't have this stack. Yes ladies a stack. With a tractor flapper. For crying out loud a tractor flapper. Not to mention the 75 gallon fuel tank in the bed.

It truly is an embarrassment and Mason loves it. Good thing because it is probably going to be his first vehicle.
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She sure is a beauty!! Especially all the dog pee on the tires. Really who wouldn't want to own this truck.