The Lumberjack's Wife

1.  We have been in our new home in Ruralville for about 1 month. 

And so, far this is what we have destroyed:

*Dishwasher is all messed up.  Both boys have stood on it when it was open, bending and pulling it from wherever it is anchored.  Therefore, the dishwasher is all tilted and, if the dishwasher is feeling feisty, the bottom rack full of plates and other heavy dishware rolls right out and crashes to the floor.

Good times.

*Some of the blinds have been broken.  Boys.  Boys, Boys, Boys.  It was all the boys’ fault.

Shocking.  I know.

*Daisy Mae kicked in the girls door while trying to surprise Aunt Meagan on the grand tour of our new plantation.  There is now a hole in the door.

Surprise!

*The kitchen floors have dents in them from the cabinet breaking and all of my Christmas dishes crashing to the ground.

So . . . . yeah.

It is good to know we are drastically decreasing the home value of our new place by the minute.

We truly are wise investors.

2.  I fear Handsome Dude needs some help with learning his colors.

I realized this when we were at the beach the other day.

Do you see the pink floatie and the green floatie?

Well, at one point during our day, he stole them (shocking, I know) and offered one to his brother, whom he lovingly calls “Cokey.”

Handsome Dude:  Cokey!  Wanna go swimming?  You take the blue one and I will take the “lellow” one.

So, last night at dinner, I was trying to teach him colors.

Me:  Dude!  What color is your shirt?

Handsome Dude:  Red!

(This was right!  Color me surprised! get it?  get it?  hardy-har-har!)

Me:  Good!  What color is Sweet Pea’s shirt?

Handsome Dude:  Um . . . baby!  No, stars!  No, hot!

Hmmm . . . .

3.  Speaking of Handsome Dude, last week he woke up at 6am, per usual, and came weeping and wailing up the stairs.

HD (short for Handsome Dude . . . keep up, people!):  My bed got me dirty!

Me:  Huh?

I looked at him.  He is soaking wet.

HD:  My bed!  It made me dirty!  Bad bed!

Me:  Dude.  Did you pee your pants?

HD:  No!  I not!  My bed did it!

Me:  Dude.  Do not tell lies.  Did you pee in your bed?

HD:  Yes!

4.  Let us continue on with Handsome Dude, shall we?

This poor boy is certain that my dad, his PopPop is coming for a sleepover in his bed. 

And every day, he has announced that PopPop will be sleeping with him soon and he must go prepare his bed for his special guest.

Attention PopPop:  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  And since Handsome Dude’s bed is known to randomly get its inhabitants wet, I suggest wearing a poncho.

5.  Yesterday, The Lumberjack had a day off.  This is a rarity.

He was doing all sort of manly activities, such as moving around rigs, loading up rigs, and changing oil in rigs.

At one point he moved our Excursion.

Then he left on some errands for quite a while.

I began to notice that Mabel, our smelly dog, was missing.  I would call for her, and she would not come.

After about 6 hours of her missing, I decided I needed to do a little more of a thorough search.

No luck.

As I was walking back into the house, I heard a faint “tap, tap, tap.”

I opened the door to the Excursion and out she came!

Holy Hotness, Batman!

She had survived 6 hours trapped in a hot car.

She was alive, happy, and drank 3.7 gallons of water.

It was a Festivus Miracle!

(Name that TV Show)

Fact:  Lumberjacks and their wives to not suggest trapping any live creatures in hot vehicles for 6 hours.

6.  Sweet Pea wants to set up a lemonade stand out here in Ruralville.

She is sure she will make a fortune.

Good luck, Sweet Pea.

Good luck.

7.  My friend, Bimlissa, is moving across the country in about 9 days.

In honor of her departure, I shall post this recent picture of her, I, and our other friend, Alisa after our beach date.

Fun Fact:  At one point in our friendly-mom-ish lives, all 3 of us drove similar white minivans.

Even Funner Fact:  At the beach, we discussed varicose veins and pregnancy related swelling.

Most Funnest Fact of all:  We know we still got it.

Happy Thursday!

Today is my little sister, Meagan’s birthday.

She is now 25 whole years old.

In honor of her special day, I would like to share with you my favorite memory of my sister.

If I may be so inclined.

Back in the early 90’s, this was me and my siblings:

I am the one with the giant leg straddling the couch, my brother, Danny, is the cool dude smack in the middle, and my sister is the little one in pink.

And, I would like everyone to know that to this very day, whenever my siblings and I have conglomerated, we jump right into that position for a fun family moment.

We are that close.

It was around this time that I was about 12 years old.  My brother was 10.  My sister was 8.

When I was 12-ish, life was not so easy for me.

I had started to put on weight and was smack dab in the middle of those fabulous junior high years, complete with pimples, periods, perspiration, pudge, portliness, pouting,  and, of course, friend drama.

Well, one night at dinner, we were all conversing and having a jolly good time when we noticed my sister had dropped her fork and was loudly sobbing into her food.

Us:  Meagan!  What is the matter?

Meagan: *sob*wail*sob*wail*sob*

Us:  Meagan!  What happened?

Meagan:  I just had a really bad day at school.

Boy, could I relate.  Every day was hard for me.

I took another heaping helping of my mother’s delicious home cooked food, and gave my sister my full attention.

Us:  Well . . . what happened?

Meagan:  I am just SO popular!

Now, this statement made me stop eating.

Meagan:  Everyone follows me around begging for me to play with them, and I just can’t do it!  I have too many friends!  I am just too popular!

*sigh*

I ain’t gonna lie, folks.

My former 12-year-old chubby self became miffed, yes, miffed at my sister that night.

Here she was complaining about too many friends and I had been contemplating paying people to befriend me.

Oh, for the drama of puberty.

Good times.

I think during that time I was slightly jealous of my skinny little sister.

She was so little . . . so cute.

I was not so little and looked remarkably like my cocker spaniel.

Brace yourselves for the next picture.

It.

Is.

A.

Doosie.

And now, dear readers, if you could just humor me for a moment, I would like to write young Taylor a little poem . . . from old Taylor.

“Those shorts are no good.  Those shorts are too tight.

Say no to the button fly.  It just ain’t right.”

Thank you.

This promise I make to you:  As God is my witness, I shall never wear button-fly pants again.

Happy Birthday, Meagan!

Love,

Your older-wiser-zipper-wearing sister.

Welcome back to my camping weekend recap.

Alert:  Sometimes it takes me awhile to tell stories.

This camping trip recap might go on all week.

Consider yourselves warned.

Soon after we set up The Parachute, the camp host made his way to our site.

“Excuse me, Taylor?  Your parents are on the phone for you.”

At this campground, we do not have cell service.  The Camp Host, however, has a working phone.

My parents L-O-V-E this campground so much, they have his number programmed in their cell phones so they can call ahead and check to see if the campground is full.

Remember my parents?

Turns out my parents had been en route to our campsite when their truck broke down. 

Conveniently, their truck broke down about 10 minutes away from our home in Ruralville.

Yet, we were not-so-conveniently about an hour away.

My dad told The Lumberjack that his “serpentine” belt was broken.

Are you wondering what a “serpentine” belt is?

You are not alone.

So, we load all the children back into the rig and drive back to our neck of the woods.

The kids are slightly confused and keep commenting on how short that camping trip was.

Poor Lumberjacklings.

Such a life of confusion.

As we are flying down the river road, we come into cell service.

And now, for your reading enjoyment, I shall present to you:

The Lumberjack, and his family, in all of their Glory

Lumberjack to me:  Dial Lisa.

Interruption:  Lisa is The Lumberjack’s older sister.  She is married to Jack, has two little girls, and is more woman than I shall ever be.

Me:  Done.  Do you want me to talk to her?

Lumberjack:  No.  I’ll talk.

Interruption: This is good news, since I had no idea what we were calling Lisa about. 

Over and Out.

LJ:  Lisa!  Are you still in town?

Lisa and Jack were also joining us for camping.  They are just super poky and had not yet made their departure.

Lisa:  Yes.

LJ:  Ok.  We have a situation.  Grant and Connie broke down.

Lisa:  Uh-oh.

LJ:  I need you to find me a Serpentine Belt.

Lisa:  OK, will do.

LJ:  Do you guys have tools?

Lisa:  Yes, what do you need?

LJ: blah-blah-blah-blobbity-blah-blah

Silly readers!  I knew not what tools they were speaking of!

Lisa:  Of course we have those!

LJ:  Call me back soon.

Sadly, we are out of service again.

I ask my Lumberjack 4.2 billion questions.

Here is a sampling:

What are we doing?

Why is Lisa getting a serpentine belt?

What is a serpentine belt?

Sounds like snake! ha!

What are Jake brakes?  All my life I have wondered what Jake brakes are.

What are compression brakes?

Same thing?  That’s dumb.

Why did you want to move to Ruralville?

Why don’t you highlight your hair anymore?

Where are we going?

When do we eat?

Do I still have to cook dinner tonight?

All of a sudden my phone gets 2 texts and a voicemail, alerting us that we are back in service!

Text 1:  From Bimlissa (aka Melissa) informing me of something cute our girls did.

Text 2:  My sister asking me to tell my dad about a job interview she has.

Voicemail:  Lisa needing to know if my dad’s truck is a 2 wheel drive or a 4 wheel drive.

Sorry, Bimlissa and Meagan.

Lisa gets top priority.

Phone call to Dad.

Phone call to Lisa.

Text Bimlissa.

Message failed.  Out of service.

Luckily for the Lumberjack, I am out of questions.

Cell service resumed!

Text to Meagan:  Ok-but Dad is stressed and broke down right now.  Not a good time to tell him.  David is to the rescue.

Lest any of you are confused, The Lumberjack also goes by David.

Meagan’s return: What’s wrong with Dad’s truck?

Me:  A serpentine belt?  Jack and Lisa are en route from town with a new one.  David and I are headed to tow the trailer.  A tow truck is towing the truck.  But Jack and David will try to repair truck.

Meagan:  David and kin are uber impressive!  haha!  Refrain from telling Dad my news until he cheers up!

Me: Will do.

Magically, we all pull up to my parent’s truck/trailer fiasco at the same time.

Jack, David, my Dad, and the Tow Truck Driver all look under the hood and try to repair the truck.

Fact:  The tow truck driver had a lot of strange facial hair happening.  But that is neither here nor there.

The manly men come to the conclusion that there is more to this repair than a serpentine belt and deem it unfixable by them.

So, the truck gets towed to a shop and we tow my parents back to camp.

On the way back to the campground, I inform everyone that it is almost 10 pm and I am still hungry.

So instead of me grilling up some delicious Teriyaki Chicken Burgers-

*I will wait while you get over your amazement at my mad skills*

my parents treated everyone to pizza and we went back and finished setting up for camp.

And thus, Friday night came to an end.

Tune in tomorrow for more pointless recap-u-lations.

Or, be wise and stay away.

The choice is yours.