The day started off well enough, morning snuggles gave way to a semi-early departure to Walmart and Lowes for provisions for our gardening/home projects. Today we were to finish mulching the garden and make some pretty ’boutique’ looking lamps for my 8 year olds’ rooms, along with making from scratch and hanging 3 rope swings and a rope ladder on our beautiful trees out back. Oh, and can’t forget today was the start of the football season, so we also had to watch the Steelers game. Today was a beautiful day, weather was nice, not too hot, clear. We spent great family time, but it seemed just after watching the DVRed football game, when we decided to finish our projects, that things went awry. My dear sweet husband climbed the tree to hang the first disk rope swing, only to find that, as he went to come down, he wasn’t coming down right, and he was losing his grip and was about to fall the 12-15 feet to uneven, root-filled ground. Scared he was going to break his ankle or worse, he held the scratchy bark tightly, trying to stay up until we figured something out, but his grip wasn’t holding. The kids were scared. I felt absolutely helpless, 9 months pregnant and due any time now, I couldn’t just scale the tree or anything to help him – so scary! He was able to hold on long enough scale to a point where he could fall, but not before seriously scraping his arms, inner thighs, and giving himself rope burn on one hand. The part of the tree where he hung precariously was just way too thick to hold onto well, he couldn’t get wrapped or stay wrapped. We were very very lucky last night due to some quick thinking and someone watching over us.
Meanwhile, while trying to tend to his ‘boo boos’, my 4 year old must’ve been over a red ant hill, s he was attacked by red ants and bit over 30 times. My 20 month old, who was nearby, came away with maybe 2 bites luckily, but not before getting a head-full of sand from her brother. As my oldest and I stripped them, we must’ve let loose a few ants, because later I got bit as well along my arm and underarm, long after we’d thought it was all over and done with. All while I’m finishing the kids’ lamps (recall the project I was to do?)
So here I am at the dining table, shirtless (not sure where the ant went that bit me, so I figured this was the safest thing), attempting to finish their lamps, putting the last touches on them. As I’m affixing the decor to the newly created lamps, the glue gun’s cord, which wasn’t long enough, kept weighing down the lightweight gun, and pulling it off the table and towards me and my watermelon belly, causing it to burn me.
I’ll tell ya, tonight was just not our night. Let’s hope tomorrow is a better day.
