This Crazy Hectic Life

My life has been the kind of crazy and hectic for the last 2 1/2 years that would make your head spin. For a solid year, I worked 7 days a week, with 6 of those days being 10 hour days, driving 2 1/2 hours round trip every day. At one point, I went 9 weeks without a day off, and I even set a new record- I went 6 1/2 months without a hair cut. (It wasn't pretty!) After a solid year of this, I just couldn't take any more, I was exhausted, and my brain was completely fried. I must have been getting rather difficult to live with, because my fiance decided that we should switch stores with me taking the store only 20 minutes from our house. The drive is much more agreeable to me, but the damage to my brain, and my sanity has already been done.

It's so bad that most days, I'm not sure if I'm coming or going and no matter how much coffee I drink, I'm still no better informed. You know it's bad when you start to think that being committed wouldn't be so horrible, people get a lot of sleep in those places and it's probably pretty peaceful there.

Last week, I washed the same load of laundry 3 times because I couldn't seem to get it into the dryer, and it was so hot that rewashing it was a necessity. But of course, by the time the wash load was done, I was already out the door, and by the time I got home, I had completely forgotten about that load of laundry. Of course, when you get out of the shower and there's no clean towels, you remember the load of laundry and streak down to the laundry room to start the washing machine up again... and the vicious cycle starts all over.

3 days ago, I woke up in a complete panic. I couldn't figure out what day it was. Maybe it was the 40 pound boxer puppy sound asleep on my chest restricting the airflow to the brain, or maybe it was just pure exhaustion. All I know is this morning, I made 2 (not 1, but 2) pots of coffee without ever putting grounds in the basket. I guess I could blame that one on not having enough coffee to drink, right?

The other day, I was driving somewhere and had no idea where I was going. I asked Lucy, but she wasn't much help. She did give me a kiss though. Thanks Lucy!

Yesterday was my day off. Just wait till you hear what a wonderful day off I had. You'll most certainly be jealous. I scrubbed 2000 square feet of hardwood and tile, vacuumed another 1000 feet of carpet, dusted, did 7 loads of laundry, scrubbed 3 bathrooms, and tried to find the shelves of the refrigerator underneath all the gross stuff that's been living there for weeks. When I was all done with that, I put 2 coats of paint on a folding door and went to the grocery store. And the whole time I was doing this, I was thinking to myself that by this morning, you wouldn't be able to tell I had done any of these activities. And I was right- except for the paint on the door, and the groceries in the fridge- they're still there!

Lucy was completely oblivious to my cleaning frenzy yesterday, and all it took was a yummy meat bone filled with peanut butter to distract her from chasing the vacuum, mop and dust rag! She hauled that bone right up the steps, and planted herself there. It definitely made it easier to go up the stairs with overflowing laundry baskets...

As if I didn't have my hands full attempting to make our home sparkle and look like no one lives there, Lucy was definitely in the mood to be dirty yesterday. Not sure what it is, but somewhere along the way, a little pig must have showed my girl how to get in the mud and roll around to cool off. She was definitely paying attention to that training session, because any time there is mud or dirt available to Lucy in our back yard, she makes sure to jump right in there.

I know what the problem is, I'm just running out of ways to try to fix it. We have what was probably at one point a very beautiful decorative pond in our back yard. It is no longer beautiful, and it's no longer decorative. As a matter of fact, the only way to describe it's current state would be "SWAMP!".

This foul smelling, horribly brown muddy water is home to at least 30 frogs the size of mice, and is most certainly without a doubt, the object of Lucy's affection. She loves this little body of water more than anything else in our yard- much to her human's dismay. I'm not sure what it is about this disgusting pool of water that draws Lucy to it so much- it's probably the frogs who jump in and out of there at least 20 times a minute. Lucy just wants to play!

I have been complaining about this wonderfully smelling backyard attraction for as long as I can remember. This pond is right next to our hot tub, and on hot days, it's just not something that you want to be smelling when you're trying to relax in the hot tub.

I've tried everything in my power, and a few things that judging by the pain in my neck and shoulder, were not in my power to remove the foul smelling water from that big puppy swimming pool.

Yesterday, Lucy just couldn't stay away from that mess! I hosed her and myself down, spent a little time in the yard with her, and went back inside to continue being Cinderella. Not even 10 minutes later, Lucy was at the back door, and she was a mess again! We did this 4 times yesterday, and twice, Lucy managed to wiggle her way through the sliding glass door, spreading the swampy water smell all over the newly scrubbed kitchen floor, and I had to scrub our white kitchen floor all over again.

(Is it the camera adding what looks to be about 10 pounds to my little girl, or is she just getting really big?)

I am completely disgusted by this mess of water in our back yard, but that didn't stop me from grabbing a bucket and making up my mind that I was somehow going to get that water out of that pond yesterday. Of course, both Lucy and I got covered in swamp water, because she just had to be in the center of the action! And to make matters worse, while I was able to bucket out a considerable amount of that wonderful water- there was no way I was getting it all.

And so we were on to plan B. We have a ton of large, flat, very heavy rocks all around that pond. I managed to drag a couple of them over there and drop them in! (Getting really dirty in the process because large rocks, make large splashes.) That did a little bit, but still not enough. So, I thought about it for the remainder of the afternoon and had this conversation with my darling fiance last night:

Lucy's Human: " Honey, I need you to go buy a big sheet of something like plywood, but not plywood because it's too expensive."

Lucy's Daddy: " What are you going to do with it?"

Lucy's Human: " I'm going to put it over top of the pond in the back yard."

Lucy's Daddy: " I don't know why you would want to do that. Lucy loves that pond."

Lucy's Human: " That's exactly why I want to do it. One way or another, I'm constantly cleaning up after that pond."

Lucy's Daddy: " Aww, let her go!" (Spoken like a man who hasn't just washed the kitchen floor 4 times in less than 8 hours!)

Fast forward 20 minutes as Lucy's Daddy is lifting her out of the truck.

Lucy's Daddy: " This dog stinks."

Lucy's Human: " Ya think?"