ShortyMom. Wife. Mother. Roofing Assistant.

I cannot tell you how busy this house has been over the last week and a half. I don't think I stopped moving until yesterday. To start things off, I'll cover the last week and a half. The kids school is conveniently located near a nursery, so every year for Mother's Day, they trot over to get gifts for "someone" the week before. Thursday afternoon, I was treated with these array of flowers.Some of them are kinda puny looking because I planted a handful into the ground and the rest into my pot. The flowers in the pot thrived while the flowers in the ground wilted so I moved them yesterday.

Thursday night, my neighbor gave me a call to let me know just why Little Man has been so fussy as of late. Turns out he was cutting a 1 year molar and she had no idea! In all fairness, it's been so long since mine have been that little that I had completely forgotten they get one year molars. After she mentioned it, the whole week suddenly made a whole lot of sense. I babysat him on Friday for a bit before Dad picked him up early, then not long after the kids got off the bus, I ran to Tennessee to get Hubby so that he could start his "work"ation. That evening, we did absolutely nothing. We came home, watched a little tv, sent the kids to bed and crashed after watching the weather. Rain was in the forecast so it didn't look like we were going to be able to get much done on Saturday.

Saturday turned out better than we expected. I think we did get a little rain that morning but as soon as it had moved past us on the radar, Hubby was outside on the roof to start tearing down our chimney. By the time we went to bed on Saturday night, I had a big hole in my roof covered by a flimsy tarp. Sunday morning, we awoke to find that Callie had knocked a glass of water over on my desk and spilled water into my keyboard. Totally my fault for not pushing the keyboard up and/or putting away the glass but the keyboard was fried! Later, Hubby went back to work cleaning out the rest of the bricks that he need to and I went to work, mowing the front yard. Yes, I know. I mowed on Mother's Day, but it needed to be done and Hubby was on the roof. I got a card from the kids in addition to their flowers and slept in that morning which is always welcome. Sunday afternoon, I climbed onto the roof for the first time. And I parked my butt at the top of it and did. Not. Move. I told Hubby I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get up there and help him after all. I crab-walked my way back down to the edge and held onto his hand as I stepped onto the ladder and crawled my way back down.

Monday, we went to work as soon as the kids were on the bus. The fascia boards that are directly behind the gutters were rotten and needed to be replaced. Hubby went to work pulling them off and I helped him put them back up as soon as he was ready. In honor of the occasion, he pulled my dad's tool belt out of the truck we had borrowed and set it up for me to wear.I got my own tool belt and my own hammer! I got to hammer nails! When Hubby was finished, he climbed into the attic to support a couple of boards that had been around the chimney. While he was up there, he called me up there to adjust a board he was using and couldn't get to. Then on my way down, he needed another board and I was to cut it. He told me I didn't have to adjust anything, just to cut a certain 2x4 at the end and send it up. So I set up my board on the saw and cut it to send it up.I used that saw and didn't cut myself! Then he climbed on to the roof to start pulling off the doghouse that we had decided we hated and was coming down. I got up and helped him pull shingles off that section of the roof because we had to expose the doghouse in order to knock the support out from behind it. I did not get anywhere near the edge of the roof. I was ok as long as I was in the middle and not on my feet. By Monday evening, the shingles were off of the roof from the doghouse to the end and I watched from the ground as Hubby knocked the front of the structure loose from the roof and then tip it over onto the ground. By then, it was time for the kids to be in bed so we covered the exposed area with plastic and went to bed a short time later.

Tuesday, Hubby and I climbed back up as soon as the bus ran and was pulling more shingles off. Severe weather was supposed to be moving in and we had to get as much done as we could. Not long after we started, our neighbor (Little Man's dad) came up to help up clear off the old shingles. That afternoon, Hubby's uncle showed up just after we cleared the last shingle. He replaced boards that needed replacing or filled in while I went about pulling nails out of the boards. By that afternoon, I would get off the ladder by myself and ease down to the edge of the roof while pulling up nails. At bedtime, we had the tar paper rolled out and the top covered in preparation for the rain. I also had a nasty sunburn. This picture did not do my arm justice. My neck and forehead were just as bad. By the time I went to bed, I was miserable.

Wednesday morning, I was still without a keyboard. I was twittering from my cell phone and anything else that I sent to anyone was copy and pasted or typed by using the computer's on screen keyboard. Hubby, his uncle, our neighbor and later my dad raced to get the front of the house shingled before more rain moved in that evening. Since I was not needed on the roof, I washed clothes, mowed our backyard, neighbors backyard and the other yard that we usually mow. By the time the guys quit, our front part of our roof was completely shingled.

Thursday, we were delayed doing anything because rain had moved in the night before. Finally it burned off and the five of us climbed up again to start removing shingles from the backside of the house. By the time we got the roof ready for tar paper, I had pulled 99.95% of nails that was left behind in the roof and put them in this bucket. A one gallon bucket almost 3/4 of the way full.The guys replaced more boards that needed replacing and finally got the tar paper down just before time for the kids to go to bed.

Friday, Hubby and his uncle put the shingles back on the back side of the house. Neighbor and Dad had to return to work so they were on their own. I spent the day inside trying to bring the house back under control. Here's what it looks like now with new shingles and without the doghouse and chimney. I am very proud of what we managed to accomplish last week. What I hated is the way we had to do it. We were on the roof from 7am until after 7pm most nights. For the most part, we didn't see a whole lot of the kids who took advantage of the chance to come inside and watch all the tv they wanted. Then, because we had to reach certain points to have the roof ready for the night, the kids ended up going to bed anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half after I wanted them to. Hubby and I would go to bed at like 9:30-10pm, only for me to be so tired that I couldn't get to sleep until 1-2am. Then I would have to get up at 6 to get the kids ready for school and start the day again. Hubby was great on Thursday, allowing me to go back to sleep for an hour and putting the kids on the bus. Since it was rainy that morning, there wasn't a whole lot we could do to the roof and I had only been getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep, so he told me go back to sleep. And then I could only sleep for an hour because my body refused to sleep more. I hate that.

Friday afternoon, we told the kids that if they would help us pick the shingles up out of the yard that there may be a monetary reward involved. At first, things were going great but after a while they started to wear down. After supper, Hubby started helping us pick the rest up after he had finished with the roof and the kids started asking for ice cream. So I told them, as soon as we had the last bit up (and there really wasn't all that much) I would take them inside and fix them ice cream. Hubby decided since they had did some hard work, we would take them and the neighbor's little girl to Dairy Queen. So we did.

The neighbor's daughter spent the night, and Saturday morning we got up and prepared to take them fishing to help reward them for all their hard work. We stopped at one of the few places we usually fish only to find out just how much rain we've gotten over the last few weeks. The place has a pier over the water to fish from, and in order to get to it, you had to wade through the flood waters. So we fished from the banks. Or Hubby and the kids fished from the banks. I took a book and spent most of my time pulling tangled lines from trees and brush. I hated that I forgot my camera, again, because I saw a crane fly through and watched as two geese flew not 25 feet from where I was sitting. They caught two brim before we moved on to the next task. Then we took the kids to a local miniature golfing place, and to Kentucky Dam. We came home where I fixed pancakes for supper. The kids response? "Why are we having pancakes for supper?" To which I answered, "Why not?" What better thing could I do after not being able to be there for them like as much as I would've like the week before than to take them fishing and golfing and then bring them home and fill their bellies with sugary goodness? They didn't complain.

We spent yesterday recuperating and trying to get things ready for Hubby to go back to his truck. He has to be in New York tomorrow morning (technically he's already there) so he went through and got his stuff together and we drove him to Tennessee. An hour later, he was calling me to let me me know he was leaving and that he was on his way home. That's right, his route brought him home for supper before starting his long haul and it as of right now will bring him back by the house Wednesday. It's nice that his first week back will give us a chance to see him in the middle of week.

Now we are finally up to today. Today was uneventful. I can tell I carried a couple of things back to Lowes that we didn't need and got a refund. I took my library books back since they were due today and I finally finished my last one last night. Then I borrowed two more. I came home and got the house ready so that I could babysit Little Man this afternoon. Dad came and got him right after supper. I have cleaned my kitchen, washed more laundry than I can count and had a normal day with the kids. Today I'm glad for uneventful. Maybe tomorrow can be uneventful too.

Oh. And the cold that I just got over a few weeks back that left me positively miserable? Showed it's ugly head again around a week ago. So not only was I on a roof most of the week, I was hoarse, honking and coughing on the roof. Fun times and it's only improved a slight bit. My voice is stronger but I'm still coughing a lot and my nose is trying to finish a marathon I think. My sunburn? Peeling of course so if you see me out and about, I don't have some contagious dermatological rash that I can share with you. It's good old fashion sunburn. How has everyone else's week gone?