The clean up this week has been truly a big pain in the ---! What were once pristine rock pathways and flower pots full of herbs and flowers turned into tangled, mangled and rotting piles of debris. With the help of Sam, Laressa and Kate, we tackled the yard clean up, just moments after getting the go ahead from the insurance company. It may be up to two more weeks before we can see our adjuster and his team and I just couldn't stand to look at the mess any more. What a difference a few days made, with a team of determined girls and one wicked ass industrial leaf blower. We kicked some major hail butt! My blood pressure is starting to go down, I am not twitching any more, there are still a few beer left in the fridge. And by the way, FYI. Thank you, Connie, for showing up with a cooler of beer within hours of the hail!!! May God bless you!! You know how sometimes you just don't know what to do in a situation? Or what to say? Like, after someone dies and you are trying to think of a particularly wise and comforting message to give to the family. In my case, in times of trial and disaster, just give me beer. You don't have to say a word, just hand me a cold one. This week took a few more Coronas than usual, but then again, it was an unusual week! In the middle of the night, I had a thought. Which, during the light of day, didn't quite seem as genius as it did in my dream. Maybe a leaf blower would work to "blow" out all of the drifts of apples that were strewn around the trees. I have about 30 truckloads of washed rock in my back yard and it was COVERED with crap. We (and I use that term loosely, as it was mostly Laressa and Kate) tried raking it and we raked out more rock than leaves. Enter the leaf blower. I was thinking, in my dream, that if I could get the apples rolling and the leaves flying, that the landscape rock would stay put. It worked!!! It wasn't without tribulation. Andrew stayed long enough after lunch to get the cursed leaf blower running for me, helped me strap it on my back and was still shaking his head when he left the yard. It was really heavy. And noisy. If my hearing was somewhat damaged after the hail storm, it was finished off by the leaf blower episode. Not to mention that the bulky damn thing snagged on every overhanging limb and made me sweat like a lumberjack. If someone had come along with some money, I swear I would have sold the farm, thrown in the dog and my husband for free and been down the road so fast that the leaves would still have been in the air. It did save us DAYS of time, so I guess manhandling that thing was well worth the pain and effort. Note to self...wear proper footwear when handling a big leaf blower! I thought it was optional, but I should have thought better. Andrew was long gone before I realized this mistake and I could not shut it off, knowing that I would never get it started again. We had to do one big section of the yard by hand, and I literally mean "by hand". But at the end of the week, you could tell that we were winning the battle. That was week number one of my summer vacation. It isn't even a "staycation". It is a "suckcation". Big time.