A Day In the Life

            
I mowed the lawn today. I know, riveting stuff. I haven't mowed the lawn in forever. It has rained so much the past 3 months that my yard has been a swamp. Then we had the tropical storm last week that helped complete the ensemble with random tree limbs strewn everywhere.

The yard has finally sobered up and today I mowed it. I have been in charge of the yard since I quit my job last summer. We always paid a yard guy because my husband HATES mowing the lawn and he would put it off all the time. I tried to mow it but I could never get the damn lawn mower to crank and it was so heavy to push. I am the size of a 5th grade child. It was not compatible. We could not justify the $160 a month yard bill with me quitting so I looked for a solution.

I brought a tiny, light weight lawn mower. It has an extension cord but I'd never mowed the lawn before so I didn't know the difference. The first time I mowed the lawn, I was so excited. How is it that is 32 years old life, I had never known the satisfaction of making beautiful lines in my grass? Plus, it burns 500 calories. I freaking LOVE mowing the lawn. I look forward to it.

My husband hates the fact that I mow our lawn. "I feel bad. I should be mowing the lawn. The neighbors probably think I'm a piece of crap because you mow the lawn."

I laughed, "Who cares what the neighbors think? The neighbors also have seen me curse the kids out at 6:30 in the morning in my pajamas, get the mail in my slippers, and sometimes we leave the trashcan on the side of the house. What are we supposed to put on airs for these people?"

I actually have really cool neighbors who are totally not judging me and my 2 neighbors across the street have a 4 kids each. They don't give a sh*t about us, they are just trying to make it through the day.

I joked, "Next time I'm mowing the lawn you should come out and yell, "When you're done with that, come in here and make me a sandwich." He laughed.

I can mow the lawn if I want to.
                                 
I don't mean that in a penis-hating, vagina-hat-wearing, free- bleeding feminist kind of way but in a Yay-girl-power-I-have-choices feminist kind of way.

Let's face it, I'm not really independent. I'm dependent on my husbands income, love and emotional support, and his ability to lay the smack down on our children when I feel like I want to drive far away and enter the witness protection program so no one will find me. You know, stuff like that.

I took me 4 and a half hours to mow the jungle that was my front and back yard and drag pieces of the neighbors tree to the curb. I edged and watered my flowers. I felt so accomplished. Any day I mow the lawn in a good day.

The kids are okay. School is busy for them both and their activities are in full swing but it's almost October which means Halloween is coming! I asked them what they wanted to be for Halloween. My youngest was like, "I want to be this obscure character from this obscure anime from 1998." I looked to see what was available. Nothing. "Anything else you might want to be?" She replied, ""I want to be this obscure character from this obscure anime from 2007." I could not even.

                
My damn kids do this to me every year. They can't be anything normal like a f*cking witch or a scarecrow. They request some crazy costume that I usually wind up sewing. I am not doing it this year. "I'm not spending $150 on a cosplay costume for you for Halloween." This child actually looked and me and asked, "Why not?"
"You have a $50 limit, that's it." I think $50 is MORE than generous. They are lucky I don't buy them sheets from Goodwill to put over their heads.

She did find a costume. She is going to be Yuno.
                       
Do you know who Yuno is? Neither do I. But I do know she is about $50 so that works for me.

My oldest wanted to be a clown, but everyone is going to be a clown. I was browsing dresses the other day and I sent her text. I know you want to be a clown but you do SUCH good hair and make-up. You should totally be a flapper. She agreed.

I'm not talking about a trashy flapper with all the fringe. I'm talking a Great Gabsy classy girl.

                    
Long strand of pearls, long satin gloves and gold slippers....how cute and pretty is that?

So I the lawn is mowed and the Halloween costumes are picked. I've checked 2 things off my ever growing list.

Hurricane Preparedness

We've been watching Hurricane Irma for weeks. The forecast looked like it was going to head straight for us and we have been busy getting ready and making evacuation plans.

My husband wanted to evacuate to New Jersey. Damn New Jersey. I've been having to hear about New Jersey a lot lately. I don't know what his obsession is. Last month he was like, "We should take a long weekend and go up to New Jersey."

I was like:
                     
"Ummmmm.....YOU can take a long weekend and go up to New Jersey. If I'm taking a long weekend to go somewhere, I'm going somewhere good."

I grew up in New Jersey, certainly there are people I love in New Jersey but Jersey doesn't feel like home to me. I don't really have great memories of being there. I have little desire to go. We live in Charleston, South Carolina - people should just come visit us.

Anyway, when it looked like the storm was coming towards us, he was so excited. "We can go to Jersey and it will be awesome!" I prayed hard for the storm not to hit us - to spare our beautiful city but also to prevent me from having to go to New Jersey.

It did turn but we still were expecting strong wind and rain so I started my hurricane prep. I went to the store and got all of our supplies. I purchased non-perishable food. Disgusting stuff that I would never ordinarily eat. We might lose power, but at least we'll have diarrhea, I thought. I was just throwing things in my cart, not looking at the prices - I spent hundred of dollars. Uggggh!       

The storm was approaching, there was a full moon last week too and things just didn't feel RIGHT. I felt like the whole world was off-kilter and I couldn't put my finger on why.

My youngest has been especially grumpy. Having flip outs, being unreasonable and just not pleasant to be around. More so than usual.

My husband was also really grumpy and ornery. I think living with three women has slowly begun to wear on him. Three weeks out of the month we exist in PMS land- a place with lots of chocolate, irrational outbursts and crying fits. This is him at all times:
                               
Last week was especially hard. He laid down in bed and looked at me seriously and said, "I'm considering becoming a dead beat dad." I laughed. I get it.

My oldest has been not herself either. I got a text message from her on Tuesday, an hour after I dropped her off at school. MOM, PLEASE COME. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU NOW. I tried to text her but she never texted me back. So I did. I went. I'm THAT mom. I signed her out of school. You have to give a reason to the front desk. I didn't have a legitimate reason. I leaned in and whispered, "My daughter is having a female emergency. I'll bring her back in a little while." I wasn't lying, per se. She is female and it could have been an emergency.

I watched her come down the hallway and the look on her face told me that she was upset about something. She hadn't been crying but she was bothered. We sat down in and car. "Let's grab Starbucks- you have half an hour."

I drove to Starbucks and ordered us coffees and she told me about some middle school drama that was bothering her. I listened. The thing about adolescents is that they lack life experience and perspective. Everything seems so BIG, therefore they have very little chill. I get it - I've been there. We all have.

I parked the car and we sipped our coffee and I commiserated with her. "You are going to have situations in life that are like this hurricane. You know the storm is coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it. All you can do is prepare the best you can, let the storm come and when it's over you pick up the pieces and start over again. You know what I'm saying?" Score hurricane-metaphor-life-advice.

She seemed better after a while. I'm not sure if it was my "everything-will-be-okay" pep-talk or the coffee. "I don't know. I just feel like everything and everyone is so WEIRD right now,"she said.

I had this deep down feeling that the world was off-kilter and she could feel it too.

The storm did come. We did our best to prepare. We had some downed tree limbs and lost power for a few hours but we fared pretty well. We took the kids to a Chinese buffet after the wind and rain died down. We got lucky, we were spared.

Hopefully life can return to normal now - if there even is such a thing.