The Lumberjack's Wife

Are you tired of seeing snow pictures?

Too bad.

Yesterday morning, my husband woke up at 4am so he could plow our driveway.

Is he not a good man?

  Our driveway is now like around 100 yards.  He has a plow on his 4-wheeler, so he used that and then off to work he went.

Whilst he was gone, the snow continued to fall and I contemplated trying to figure out how to drive a 4wheeler so I could help out.

But, who are we kidding?

My husband stopped at his parent’s house in town to borrow their snow blower.  They pleaded with him to stay the night there on account of the dreadful blizzard warnings.

He, however, declined, and said he must make it home to his lovely wife.

I can’t say that I blame him.

He got home at 9pm and said he needed to plow.  I offered to help. 

So, I donned my JCPenney’s clearanced long underwear, GAP jeans, Old Navy Performance Fleece shirt, my husband’s hunting socks, my husband’s Carhartt beanie, my jacket, my boots, and Sweet Pea’s 99cent gloves.

My husband wore his Under-Armour gear, Carhartt’s double knee work pants, Sweatshirt, Carhartt’sheavy duty bib overalls, Carhartt heavy duty jacket, Under-Armour beanie, and heavy duty gloves.

I suspect he is more prepared for the blizzard.  I think instead of asking for my favorite perfume for Christmas, I shall be requesting Carhartt Ladies Ranchwear.

I have never used a snow blower before.  It is harder to push through a foot of snow than you might think.  Plus it shoots snow out, along with small rocks.  LJ had to remind me that I must not shoot the snow towards the house or vehicles.

Oh for the stress of it all.

This took a lot of extra thinking on my part.  I had to keep asking him to remind me of the plan.

I was a good little worker bee.  I pushed and pushed that wretched machine and made sure to not damage any of our property.

I was cold.  I had snow all over me.  I was covered in snot.

(source)

Name that movie.

I began to wonder what my purpose was out there in the blizzard.  Because everytime I would finish a section, my husband would just go over it again with his plow.

I think I was just out there to be his eye candy.

At 11:30 we finally came in.

My husband is now at work again.  I don’t know how to turn the snowblower on (darn).  And it appears as if all the snow we just plowed fell again.

Yay, winter!

***

Clarification:  Some of you are seeming impressed at how “green” we are because we plug in our rig.

The only thing “green” about our rig is that I have to use the “green” diesel pump when getting gas.

Apparently, diesel engines are fickle and need to stay warm or they won’t start.

So, no we are not driving energy efficient rigs.

We do, however, save cans. 

Does this impress you?

***

I am aware that I still have people’s questions to answer for my questions and answers posts,  and I will get to them soon.

***

I am beginning to wonder if we will be snowed in for Thanksgiving.

After contemplating what I could serve, I fear our menu would be elk meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas.  And I think I can make cookies.

Normally we go to both my husband’s family and my family for both Thanksgiving dinners.

Oink Oink.

So.

Tell me, dear readers.

What are you plans for Thanksgiving?

Have you ever used a snow blower?

Are you able to dress for success in the winter like my husband or are you a sissypants like me?

Happy Tuesday!

Since I am a seasoned hunting wife and all now (ha), I thought I would give you all some more tips.

You’re welcome.

To further illustrate how seasoned I am, I will have you know that I seasoned elk meat yesterday and simmered it all day in a delightful Elkish Taco Soup.

Excellente!

Perhaps I should have a giveaway to my house for dinner one night! 

Fantastic!

Today’s lesson is all about photography.  And you all know how awesome I am at photography.

So.  Clearly you are in for a treat.

***

If your husband shoots a buck, he’s going to want his picture taken with it.

Not just any picture.

An epic picture.

I will now show you all my attempts along with the reasons why each photo was deemed unacceptable.

Learn from my mistakes.

LJ (short for Lumberjack . . . keep up, people!):  How many points do you see?

Me:  Huh?  Points?

LJ:  Tips on the horns.

Me:  8

LJ:  You need to see all 10.  Try again.

LJ:  Most of the rack is missing.

Me:  Rack?

LJ:  And my head isn’t all there.

LJ:  Rack!

In fairness, at this point it was quite dark and I could not see my husband, nor the carcass.

And I was holding LucyFur with one hand so she wouldn’t go lick the deer and his exit wound.

Because she desired to.  Oh, yes.  She did.

LucyFur.

Me:  I think I got the whole rack!  Yay!

LJ:  Dude.  Now he looks tiny.

Me:  Huh?

LJ:  You gotta make him look huge.  Get down on the ground more.  Change your angle.

Me:  Ok.  But this is getting gross.

Me:  Ha.  It looks like you are using the horn thing for a nose picker.

Me:  Now it is poking your eye out.

LJ:  Better.  But I can’t see all the tips.

Me:  Can we pretend?

Me:  Sure.  This is the picture you choose to “smile” in.  But in all your family portraits you look disgruntled.

LJ:  This is good.  This is good.  I just want the rack to look a little bigger.

Hmmmmm.

LJ:  Perfect, hon!  Perfect!  You are the best!  I am so proud of you!

And there you have it.  Simply put, make the rack appear bigger.  You will have a happy husband.

Lest any of you are confused or snickering, the rack refers to the antlers.  Thank you.

***

In other news, my sister saw Joyce’s question yesterday and she would like to have a guest post to answer the question about our sisterly relationship while growing up.

So that will be interesting.

Happy Friday!

I know what you are thinking . . . “Two posts in one day?!?!?  Has Lumberjill gone mad?”

Today has been crazy busy and I have absolutely no time to be blogging.  I should be paying bills.

Paying bills is a total downer.

I just wanted to quickly share with you something my girls did today.  I am always talking about those naughty boys of mine, and sometimes I wonder if people even know I have two daughters.

It’s true.  I do.

Consider yourselves informed.

We started school today and things were going along swimmingly.

Here’s Daisy Mae’s classic, “I don’t understand what is going on and when can I have a snack and why do we have to do this and when can I have a snack and everything is too hard and when can I have a snack and I’m bored and can I go play and when is snack time and somebody stole my pencil” look.

Bless her heart.

So, the morning was going well when I suddenly had to take an important phone call.  This signaled to the children that they must now run, yell, holler, get all the toys out, and begin a pillow fight.

I was not pleased.

So, I told the children they had to get the house back in order because, eventually, WE MUST LEARN SOMETHING.

Soon, I saw my girls running around quickly doing chores and checking things off of a list.

They cleaned rooms.  They put laundry away. 

I caught Daisy Mae on the couch praying.

Then, Sweet Pea, stopped what she was doing and led everyone in a worship song, complete with dance moves.

When they weren’t looking, I confiscated the list:

Here’s what is says, in their own spelling:

moms bed

clean room (Girls)

clean moms room

clean upstairs

Awana

School

Read to boys

Clean the Living Room

Kitchen

feed Lucy

feed bunny

mail

claen faces

clean hand

pray

read books

Bible

words

help Mom

Bible

eat dinner

snak

worshep God

A to Z Read

***

And they even gave themselves a sticker at the top for a job well done.

Aren’t they the cutest?

(Lest any of you think I am an evil dictator, I do not require my children to clean my room and make my bed.)

(Although the idea has merit.)

Happy Wednesday!

Hold on to your pants, folks.

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Consider this my formal apology for the length of yesterday’s post.  I went back to reread it and fell asleep 4 times.  If you are one of the gentle people who persevered and made it through the post, then I say to you, “Well done, Good Reader.  Well.  Done.”

I will try to make this one a little more . . . condensed.

Alright.  Moving on.

So, you all may recall that we had a power outage on Monday night.  And vomit.  And marital discord.

See?

So much wind, a tree done got broke.

On Tuesday morning, we woke up with power (holla!) which was a good thing because we had to skedaddle into town. 

First stop-Drop off a meal to someone in our church and pray that the meal is edible.

Don’t worry.  It did not contain elk.  I am not evil.

Second stop-Pick up the darling daughters from piano lessons.

Third stop-Portfolio Conferences for school.

And this, my friends, is where our story truly begins.

You may say, “Taylor!  You home school!  What are these portfolio conferences you speak of?”

Well, dear readers.  It’s a long story.  But I am in a special kind of home school program where you can have a contact teacher hold your hand and assure you that you are not messing up your children.  

There is more to it than that.  Just go with it for today’s purposes.

Now.  I firmly believe there should be a special reward in heaven for people who have to haul multiple children to such events and attempt to have an “educated” adult conversation all while trying to facilitate two girls’ educational conferences and two naughty boys who could care less that their mother is attempting to appear as if she is “in control.”

I will have you know that I maintained eye contact with that teacher all while accomplishing the following:

1.  Found a toy deer in my purse for Little Dude.

2.  Retrieved a box of crayons and coloring books for Handsome Dude.

3.  Noticed that some spare markers were in the box. 

4.  Removed aforementioned markers and shushed Handsome Dude’s protests in one swift move.

5.  Stopped Little Dude from escaping 17 times.

6.  Picked up text books knocked down by both boys.

7.  Wiped up spilled water.

At one point during this fine morning, Handsome Dude asked me if he could throw something away.  For some reason, the trash is down the hall and out of my line of site.

Being the fool that I am, I agreed.

And then we heard the loudest crashing sound known to man.

Adults were coming from all areas of the building to see what on earth had happened.  I didn’t know there were so many people in this building.

And there was my Handsome Dude.  Surrounded by knocked down water jugs.

Apparently he had tried to help himself to some water, which resulted in me no longer looking like I was in control of anything.

Darn it.

Can you see it?  Can you see it?

His nose is all scratched up.

Do you notice what is missing on his darling face?  Hmmm?  Do you?  Do you?

Somehow between Ruralville and town, his glasses lost a leg.  Or an arm.  Of whatever the long thing on glasses is called.

So.  My girls are doing fine in school.  My boys are still naughty.  And then we had to go shopping.

My main goal in going to the store was to buy water jugs and flashlights.

You know.

For disaster-prepared-ness.

I spent $55 and guess what I forgot to buy?

Water jugs and flashlights.

*Random Topic Quick Change!*

My husband came home early and immediately set out for a hunting adventure. 

He came home about 15 minutes later.

He had been heading out to his tree stand . . .

When right in his path was a deer. 

It was a 5×5 buck to be exact.

Look at me with  my big-girl-hunting-lingo!

So.  He shot it.  And then I had to be the photographer.

Joy.

To.

The.

World.

Bad News:  I fear he thinks it is “mount-worthy.”

Yes.  I was smart enough to put the wreath above the fire place to ensure no mount would be placed in it’s stead.

Because we all know that once wreaths are placed on a wall, they can never be moved.

Nevertheless!

There is still massive wall space above my bed.

Mayday! Mayday!

I need some ideas for what I should do to prevent impending disaster.

Please submit your suggestions post haste.

Good News:  Hunting Season is over!

Let us all stand up and do a happy dance.

Bad News:  Someone had the audacity to inform my husband that if you mix deer meat with pork meat it is somewhat edible.

Deer/Pig mixture in my freezer?

Ground Elk in my freezer?

I would like to make a formal statement:

From heretohenceforth, I am now renouncing all meat and meat byproducts.  I will welcome vegetables and breads into my diet and try not to toss my cookies when I cook up some carnivorous meat for my manly-man husband.

Thank you and what has become of my life?

*Random Topic Quick Change!*

Ok.  I am sorry.  I know.  Annoying.

But, here is your daily reminder to vote for me in the Babble-icious contest.

Thank you very much for taking the time to vote.

You rock my world.  You complete me.  You are the wind beneath my wings.

Click here.

I am now at #8!

Thank you! 

Happy Wednesday!

PS-Did anyone else notice that this post was also extremely long and tedious?

I wish I weren’t a liar.

Handsome Dude.

You have all heard me speak of this 3-year-old boy from time to time . . . no?

He is exhausting, busy, unpredictable, stubborn, and naughty.  He has peed on my washing machine, defrosted our freezer full of beef, peed on my dryer, made me question why God made me a mother,  and broken no less than 78 pairs of glasses.

And he is precious to my heart.

Yesterday was a glorious day in which he decided to be my little helper.  You see, Handsome Dude, as precious as he is,  had created colossal messes in 4 separate rooms of our house.  So, I asked him to start cleaning.

This never goes well.

Usually he throws himself on the ground for all the injustice and inhumanity in his world and shouts furious statements, such as:

“The Libbing Woom is too tired!  I can’t clean it.”

“Cokey not helping me!  He wee naughty.”

Cokey is his name for his brother.

And my personal favorite:

“I don’t like this.  I’M GOING TO BED!”

Ah.  That would be a shame.

Well, yesterday, as soon as I asked him to clean, he ran downstairs and cleaned his room.  Then he proudly marched over to me and asked:

“What’s next, Mudder?”

Obviously, this means I am an awesome parent.  Feel free to email me your quandaries with our own offspring and I will try to help you.

Handsome Dude also decided yesterday was the day for him to learn how to hang up clean shirts.

This task frustrated him.

(Look!  See?  There’s Horton Hatches the Egg!  I told you people I have to read that darn book 3 times a day. I meant what I said and I said what I meant, I am not a liar, one hundred per cent.)

Finally, last night before bed, Handsome Dude was showing Little Dude a candle and telling him to smell it.

Calm down.  The candle was not lit.

HD (short for Handsome Dude . . . keep up, people!):  See, Cokey?  Smewl it.  Is nummy!

LD (short for Little Dude):  Uh-huh!

HD:  Cokey, wanna hold it?

LD:  Uh-huh!

HD:  Ok.  But you gotta use three hands!  I help you.

LD:  K!

Little Dude.

Little Dude isn’t as helpful these days.  If I ask him to do something, he yells,

“Just a minute!”  or, more accurately, “Nah-Blah-Min-In!”

Yes.

My boys’ early language skills are impressive.

My boys.

They exhaust me.  But I love being their mudder.

***

After the boys went to bed, The Lumberjack and I participated in, what I like to call,

“The Same Thing Happens Every Night.”

We are both exhausted, but like to pretend not to be.  One of us suggests a show.  The other agrees.  One of us suggests a snack, even though neither of us are hungry.  The other agrees.  We eat.  We watch.  We sit.  I ask my husband if he wants to go to bed or watch one more show.

“Another show is fine.”

Like the fool that I am,  I fall for this trick of his nightly and in no time, he is twitching and snoring and snoring and twitching.

Such is my life.

Does anyone else have a spouse who does the weird tired-twitching thing when they are falling asleep?

Well, last night, while I was watching a show and LJ was twitching, the power went off!

Me:  David!  The electricity is out!

LJ:  So?

Me:  So?  I’m scared.

LJ in his “I’m-too-tired-sassy-pants-voice”:  Why are you scared?

Am I the only human who gets scared when wind is howling, the house is in complete darkness, and the fear of no electrical appliances in the morning lurks about?

Right then, we hear Little Dude wailing from downstairs in his crib.  Little Dude is wee afraid of the dark.  The Lumberjack and I try to get ourselves from the upstairs loft to the main living room and find some flashlights.  We find a tiny one and use that one to help us find the bigger one.

Which is, of course, out of batteries.

The Lumberjack holds the tiny one for me so I can put in new batteries.  I do and the flashlight doesn’t work.

Me:  I wonder if I put them in wrong?

LJ:  You did.

Me:  Why didn’t you tell me I was doing it wrong?

LJ:  Because you are an adult and you should know how to put batteries in.

Great.  I see he is still hanging onto the “I’m-too-tired-Sassy-Pants-voice.”

I finally rush downstairs to Little Dude.

Little Dude was not wee afraid of the dark, friends.

Little Dude was wee covered in chunky vomit.

Ah.  The joys of being a mudder.

So, I call to LJ that I need help and try to assess the damage.  LJ comes down and, oddly enough, is annoyed at how I am handling things.  He informs me that I need to get our son out of the crib.

This is information I am aware of.

However, it gets tricky because, may I remind you, OUR SON IS COVERED IN VOMIT.

LJ decides what I need is some trash bags and he heads upstairs to get some.  When he returns, he is holding open the bag as I dump all the soiled linens in.

As I am dumping, he keeps sighing and rolling his eyes.  Yes.  He is still sassy.

Are we surprised?

No.

Me:  Is something wrong, David?

LJ:  Yes, Taylor.  Why are you putting blankets in that don’t look like they have throw up on them?

Me:  Hon.  I’m just washing everything.

LJ:  Whatever, Taylor.

Me:  Can you get him in the bath?

LJ:  Taylor.  We can’t.  There’s no power.

Me:  We have no water?

LJ, again baffled by my stupidity:  No, Taylor.  But our pump is not going to work.

Me:  Huh?

So, LJ disappears with vomit-boy into the dark abyss and somehow manages to wash him up, sans water pump, while I make up a new bed.

We get the sickly dude back to sleep and then go upstairs to get ourselves ready for bed.

Me:  David, can I flush the toilet?

LJ:  Kind of.

Me:  David.  Should I save flushes?

LJ:  Taylor.  We only have so much water and when it is gone it is gone because the PUMP is on ELECTRICITY.

Me:  NEAT!  Do you want me to not flush?

LJ:  That would be great.

Then, I had the audacity to brush my teeth.  As I was watering my toothbrush, he slammed off the water.

LJ:  You just don’t get it, do you?

Me:  Nope.  Guess not.

So, we went to bed, grumpy and smelling like vomit.  I was confused and scared and LJ was twitching and snoring.

A couple of hours later, I was awakened to a few lights and a very cheerful husband.

LJ:  Look, hon!  The electricity is back on!  Love you!

Then he kissed me and went back to twitching and snoring.

That man exhausts me.  All my boys exhaust me.

***

Alright!  Thank you for voting for me in the Babble Top 50 Mom Blogs!  I am now at #9!

Holla, Voters!

Holla!

I have no idea how long this contest lasts or how the voting works.  I have heard from some people that you can vote once a day, while others say you can vote once.  I don’t know when this will end.  I don’t know how many more times I will shamelessly beg you do vote for me.

I apologize for all the unknowns.

If you wouldn’t mind, you can click here to vote.  Once you click on the link, you scroll down a bit and find my blog’s name and then you click on the little “thumbs up” picture that says, “I like this Blogger.”

I would really love to remain in the Top Ten.

Thank you again!

Happy Tuesday!