Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The Best Laid Plans of the Father Are Rarely Good for the Mother

I'm going with my friend's (Ivy) approach to blogging and just unloading my brain instead of coming up with those well-thought out hilarious posts of mine you are so used to. The way this blog is going, it may be the only way any writing ever gets done again.

While I was in DC, Bryan came up with a plan to get work done around the house and began the execution of it without hashing it out with me first. In case you're wondering, this behavior on his part never, ever works out well for me.

He told the kids he'd pay them $7.50 per hour to do certain big chores around the house. Things like scraping and painting outbuildings, trimming trees, and weeding the garden. (The kids agreed that mowing was an easy job that didn't deserve full pay, so mowing only earns a kid half pay.) The kids choose which chore they want to do and when they want to do it.

The execution of said plan...

Giant decided to tackle the scraping and painting of the milk house. While Bryan was at work, I got to stop what I was doing (basically being vomited on by our printer's ink cartridge, leaving me covered in black ink) to help Giant pour paint from the super heavy 5 gallon bucket into the paint pan. I'm estimating a pint splatted on the grass before we got the paint pouring in the right direction. I got to help him set up the ladder on the side of the milk house, which happens to be a hill and quite a precarious place for a 13 year old to stand on a ladder to paint. Even worse when the paint pan is set upon the ladder and tilts, thus spilling the paint. Oh, and I forgot to mention there was a nice clip of a wind blowing across the farm. When the paint began to spill, the wind caught it and sent it flying in what would have been a beautiful arc of paint drops if it weren't for the fact the paint was arcing mostly onto me. After the cursing and screaming, I realized that while it was a huge mess, the white did compliment the black ink quite well.

Star decided to tackle the trimming of the trees along the driveway, which, if you'll recall, is a quarter mile long. He was doing a great job, working hard and earning every penny of his $7.50 per hour. Until he got a splinter of wood in his eye because he was never told to wear protective eye wear. He thought he had gotten it out, but three hours later, his eye was all red and discomfort turned to all-out pain. I had to stop what I was doing to get a call into our eye doctor, who just happened to be out of town, then call to get an appointment that day in an eye clinic 30 minutes away.  The poor guy has scratches all over his eyeball, so I now get to stop what I'm doing to put a drop of antibiotics in his eye 4 times a day.

Buttercup decided to mow the grass one day. She managed to get 1/5 of it done, including the west side of the driveway. Not the right side. And then she got busy doing school summer work and packing and leaving for a week-long mission trip. With Bryan. On a week that Phoenix was also out of town on his 2-week summer field studies. Thus leaving me with only one driver, ME, in the house and lots of practices and games and tryouts and appointments. It wasn't until 5 days later that I could finally get out to mow the other 4/5 of the yard. The unmowed section was quite tall, and I was so happy to finally get it done. When starting the mower, it usually takes a couple of tries before the mower really gets going, but this time, on the second turn of the key, it went pop and turned off, never to make a noise again. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I opened it up to see what I could see, but news flash, I am not mechanically inclined. I have absolutely no idea how to get that blasted thing working again. I trudged back in the house to call the service guy. He was able to pick it up that very day! Yeah! Oh, but we're about 10-12 days out before you'll get it back again. That was yesterday. For two weeks, I'll be watching my grass (and to be real, weeds. Our yard is half weeds) grow taller and taller and taller. Quite lopsided, seeing as how 4/5 of the yard have a good headstart on the rest.

BUT! in the midst of all of this nonsense, I managed to learn a new skill. Ya'll, I made me some jelly with those annoying little mulberries we have all over the property. It only took me 2 hours to pick the fruit, 20 minutes to find a jam recipe I could handle, and another 3 hours to heat, squash, mill, curse, conclude jelly instead of jam was a much better idea, strain, yell (GUYS! I NEED MORE BERRIES!! THE PECTIN BOX SAYS I NEED 4 AND A HALF CUPS OF BERRY JUICE, BUT I ONLY HAVE 3 AND A HALF!! PICK! PICK! PIIIIIIIICK!!!!) heat, squash, mill, and strain again, then boil with sugar and pectin, ladle into jars, and sterilize using the water bath method to get 7 tiny jars of yummy mulberry jelly.

Next time, I'm thinking I can cut the time down to only four hours.

Well, that's all the time I have to unload today. There's a nice, hot, humid afternoon calling my hair to come out and play.

I hope to be back soon to update you on other non-exciting times in our lives.

Have a lovely day!

18 comments:

  1. What a cluster. You poor thing. I think you should be paid $50.00 and hour for all the clean up. I'm just saying.

    Way to go on the jelly though. That totally rocks.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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    1. Fortunately, I don't need paid per hour. I'm in charge of the checkbook. :)

      The kids are so tired of me talking about that jelly. I could not be more pleased with it.

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  2. Oh, I'm sorry. This sounds like my Brian and his projects. They always involve me, and I'm never as gung-ho.

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    1. It isn't often that Bryan comes up with things like this, but when he does...ouch. I must say, though, in his defense, it was a good idea. It just wasn't thought all the way through before he sent the kids on their way. I am enjoying the work the kids are managing to get done.

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  3. I believe it was 2 years ago we did quite a bit of painting.
    Came in from Angle Stew blog.
    Coffee is on

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    1. Thanks for stopping by!
      Bryan was a painter in college, and he taught me the proper way to paint many years ago. Painting we can do. That's about it, though. :)

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  4. So you've given up writing well-thought out hilarious posts, yes?? This one may be off-the-cuff but still funny - sorry, but I laughed at the printer ink and paint spillage - I can imagine the mess, AND all the chaos elsewhere.

    I hope Star's eye is ok, it's not funny when you get something in it like that. I once got paint flecks in both mine from grinding old paint off a tractor bonnet without wearing goggles, the flecks burnt onto my eyeballs and the pain was excruciating - I had to go to hospital to get all the bits taken off. And there's something about having your head clamped into a vice and seeing a needle coming towards your (numb) eyeball that makes sure you wear goggles next time :(

    The mulberry jelly sounds good, I hope it was worth all the effort :)

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    1. Ha! Well, ok, so maybe they haven't all been thought out or funny. :) Once it was all over, I was laughing about the paint and ink, too. Especially when I added mulberry juice into the mix.

      His eye is doing well, thankfully. That experience of yours sounds ghastly! I'm guessing you wear goggles to do just about everything that has even the slightest chance of flinging bits. My eyeballs hurt just thinking about the pain you experienced.

      It is!! The learning curve was steep, so I expect future jelly making will take much less time.

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  5. Your life is WAY more interesting than those Krapdashians and actually real. I think a reality show is in your future!

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    1. Ha! While I'll agree that our life is way more interesting (and a lot more plenty of things) than theirs, I can't see us doing a reality show. I'm happy to simply entertain a few friendly readers. :)

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  6. Haaaaaa...amazing life on that farm!

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    1. I don't know if amazing is the word, but it's something. :)

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  7. I think I need to try Ivy's method too.

    Still hilarious BTW. :D

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  8. Maaaaaaaaaan I like when you write Ivy's way! *giggling* Sorry about the chores-all-gone-wrong, and the stress of all the things, but at least you got lovely jelly, and new ways forwards.

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    1. Ha! I'm just glad I got something written. It's been a loooooong time since I've paid much attention to blogging. I'm sure my dad is getting mighty frustrated. :)

      The jelly makes me so very happy. And while the new chore thing has had it's annoyances, I must admit that the kids have gotten some great things done around here. The trees getting trimmed and the basement getting cleaned out being the best of all.

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  9. My life is sounding ALL kinds of simple right now!

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  10. Oh, your poor kiddo with the splinters. Good for them to work so hard, though. I've tried to convince my younger two to pick up slack here. One is good, the other not so much.
    Totally frustrated to watch that grass grow with no mower, we experienced that in the spring here. Looked like hillbillies facing foreclosure after all the rain we had, too.
    Do post a photo of the canning project when it's done! That's the most satisfying part of it, besides eating;)

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