It's Monday, But It Could Be Worse

Mondays.

They're rarely the favorite day of the week, especially if you're starting back to work after a fun weekend.

I think it's even harder in the summer when it's so tempting to be outside.

But take heart!  It could be much worse.

You could be Hayden.

Because I'm pretty sure that your Monday doesn't start with a 5:30 a.m. bus ride.

On a school bus.

Packed with adolescents.

And your job probably doesn't require you to wear a flourescent orange hat with mosquito netting attached.

If it does?

My apologies.

Still, you're probably not going to spend up to seven hours of your Monday walking through miles of corn that's taller than your head.

Fun fact:  The temperature is going to be in the high nineties today (and all week) with a heat index a good ten degrees higher than that.

I'm also guessing, that on this Monday you won't be coming home with your socks this muddy.

Or your pants.

Hopefully your Monday won't end with you so exhausted that you fall asleep across your bed before you can even get undressed.

That was Hayden on Saturday night after church.  He was out with his crew for seven hours that day.

If you know my boy, you know how rare that sight is.  He just does not fall asleep early.  Ever.

So go ahead and bookmark this page and the next time you're having a bad Monday come on over here and feel better about your life.

Unless, of course, you too are detassling.

Working For A Living

My job, as a para educator at school, is not glamorous or well paying but it allows me to be home when my kids are home and I frankly do not know how people do life any other way.  My kids are busy all summer long which means I am busy all summer long.

This summer we have been working around volleyball clinics, summer dance classes, swimming lessons, horseback riding, and marching band clinics.  None of this though compares to what hits this week:

Detassling.

Long time readers of Our Front Door are familiar with this yearly activity that leads to pictures like these:

For new readers, corn detassling is a yearly job around here taken on by teenagers who want to make a lot of money quickly.  You can read more about it in my Detassling Defined post from last year.

Detassling started here yesterday.  Hayden is the only one in the corn this year.  Faith is too young and Reagan has moved on to bigger and better things.

Reagan is scrubbing toilets.

No, really.  She is working for a cleaning company that contracts with the local National Guard base.  She goes in three times a week at 6:30 a.m. and cleans bathrooms, strips sheets, folds laundry and whatever else needs doing.  I don't know that cleaning up behind military students is all that much better than detassling - especially since she has to get up so early.  Reagan, however, insists that it is a MUCH better job and it all boils down to two words:

Air conditioning.

Rich and I feel that these crap jobs are important because they teach the kids to work hard and take pride in their accomplishments.  It's also a great lesson in the value of an education.  Cleaning bathrooms for $9/hour is fine for a summer job during high school but neither the job nor the salary are what Reagan wants forever.  It's a good reason to study math.

What about y'all?

What was your worst job?  What did you learn from it?

He Knows Better Than To Try

So.

Tired.

Also?

So.

Old.

Reagan, Hayden and I are all getting up at 4:30.  They, then, go work for 6-9 hours a day outside in some pretty impressive heat indexes.

I go back to bed.  When I get up again I do house work in the air conditioned, climate controlled house.

Guess who is more tired?

Yep.  The old person.

A reasonable person might ask (as my sister did last night), "Why doesn't Rich get up with the kids in the mornings sometimes?"

That is a great question.  He is, after all, a good guy and a good father.  He would get up with the kids and do so with a good attitude except:

1) He sleeps like the dead.  To get him up at 4:30 would require me waking up and then waking him up several times before he got to an upright position.

2) Then I, already awake, would lie there and listen to him getting the kids ready. 

3) I would not like what I heard.  I would conclude that he was doing it wrong.

Wrong = not the way that I believe it should be done.

4) That would cause me to lie awake and stew.  Stewing at 4:30 in the morning would lead to frustration and further wakefulness.

5) So then I would get up and start doing all the things my way (aka the right way) and Rich would give me a dumbfounded look and ask why in the heck we were both up.

6) This would be an excellent point but at 4:30, already tired and frustrated I would never admit it.

7)  Probably unpleasant words and attitudes would ensue.  Actually, not probably - definitely.

8)  Things would get ugly.

Frankly, I don't have the energy for ugly right now.  And as tired as I am, normal ugly would become Uber Ugly when you factored in the crabbiness quotient.

The beautiful thing about 19 years of marriage?  I know all of this up front so I can have all the conversations in my head and work out all the logistics and come to the final conclusion without having the fight.

So it seems that the good parts of getting old may just balance out the bad.

It Takes A Lot Of Work To Support The Workers

4:30 a.m. - Alarm clock goes off.  I get up and go wake up Hayden.

4:35 - Have his breakfast on the table for when he makes it down.  Start putting ice packs and food into coolers.

4:40 - Go to Reagan's room.  Open the door and turn on the light and then run before she can start growling at me.

4:45 - Fill water coolers and check for leaks.  Wrap Hayden's blisters before he puts on his socks and boots.

4:50 - Remind them both to put on sun screen and start checking to make sure they have gloves, hats, bandanas, mosquito netting and safety glasses.

5:00 - Listen to Reagan as she snarls at me.  Reagan is not a morning person.  About the worst thing you can do to a non- morning type is to get them up before sunrise to go walk through 10 miles of corn.  Her attitude reflects this.

5:05 - Head for the bus.

5:30 - Try to go back to sleep.  Stare at the ceiling and think that I should just get up and go exercise or something.

6:00 - Fall asleep.

7:15 - Rich's alarm goes off.  He hits snooze.

7:20 - It goes off again.

7:25 - And again.

7:30 - And again.

7:31 - Forcibly kick the man out of the bed and ignore him while he gets ready for work.

Sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 - Get up.  Get Faith up.  Drink coffee and start on whatever chores need to be done that day.

12:00 - Anytime between now and 3:00 I'll get the call to go pick up the kids so Faith and I are fairly housebound.  This is a good time to do some baking.  Yesterday I made Zucchini Brownies.  Please believe me when I tell you that they are the best zucchini food I have ever had.  I don't just make them to use up zucchini - I actually want them.  I would even buy zucchini from the store to make these brownies.

After I pick up the kids it's laundry time.

Do you like my new laundry room?

Goodness Mindee!  Why on earth would you do laundry on the driveway?  Not exactly classy now, is it?

Oh.

I see.

After the clothes are sprayed I take them up to the washer where I select "Heavy Duty", "pre-wash" and "extra rinse."

When I take the clothes out they will be moderately cleaner.

The inside of the washer will be littered with corn stalk leaves.

The laundry room will smell like hot corn.

This is not a good smell for a laundry room - especially when the laundry room doubles as the master bathroom.

4:30 - Make dinner. Because the kids have been working so hard, I've been trying to make food I know they like.  We've had chicken nuggets and spaghetti and breakfast food.  Last night I made French bread pizza and fruit salad.

Fruit salad is not a vegetable, but it is still good for you!  Plus I put veggies in the brownies so let's call it good, shall we?

5:00 - Eat.

5:30 - Take Reagan to volleyball clinic.  Poor girl.

6:15 - Wash out the lunch coolers and water coolers.  Refill the water packs they wear on their backs and stick them in the freezer.

6:30 - Make sandwiches for tomorrow.  Hayden takes one ham and cheese and one PBJ.  Reagan likes one ham and one turkey.  Clean up the kitchen. 

7:30 - Fold the now dry, moderately clean clothes.

8:00 - Try to make the kids go to bed.  Suddenly they are wide awake.  Sleep?  Sleep is for wimps.  They don't need to go to bed now.  They're teenagers!  Teenagers don't go to bed at 8:00.  No!  They will not be tired tomorrow.  Not at all.

9:00 - Yell.  Yell loud and long.  Threaten.  Threaten and yell.  Finally they go to bed. 

9:30 - Yell some more because they're lights are still on.

10:00 - Call it a night.

Wordless Wednesday - Cornfields? Muddy.

Those socks were brand new and white when he left the house.