This is What I Do When Doug Leaves

Doug travels a fair amount in the summer.  He just got back from being in Greensboro for 4 days. For a few days before he leaves, he sighs a lot.  He acts like this is such a burden to "have" to go.  He ain't foolin' nobody up in here.  He's up there, in a hotel, eatin' dinner out every night, with all his buddies- no wives, and no children around. Does that sound like a work trip, or a vacation?  Anyway, this year I did something sort of dumb on the day he left.

The day before he left, we had a tremendous storm come through.  The neighbor behind us had some tree damage, and apparently called his "tree dude" to come clean up the debris, and cut any damage out of the trees, on the day following the storm.  Well, the tree dude saw our dead trees, and came over to quote me a price to take them down.  Doug and I are fully aware these trees are dead.  We've been debating for months what to do with them because they're too dead for someone to climb and cut down in pieces (so we thought), and we can't bring equipment out to where they are, because our septic field is there, so we've just been kind of waiting to see what we would do.  Well, this tree dude assures me his guy is going to climb the trees and take them down.  I said, "He's gonna climb those trees, even though they're dead as a hammer?"  "Yep.  He'll climb 'em."  Well . . . the price was good, and I knew we wanted them down, so I agreed.  Yes, I agreed to have the trees cut- without consulting with Doug.  I told the dude to just get the trees on the ground- we'd take care of the rest of the work.  

Our backdoor neighbor asked, "You sure your husband will be okay with this?"  I said, "Oh yeah- Doug will be fine.  In fact, this is gonna be a surprise for him when he gets home!"   In my head I was thinking- "He'll be so glad to have this job taken care of and she got it all cleaned up too!"  (I was going to get it all cleaned up on my own, because you know- how hard is it to clean up 5 big trees?)

The dudes showed up at 8:00pm.  What, the what?  Y'all are gonna climb dead trees, and cut them down in the dark?  Shhhii- I mean- thank goodness y'all aren't my husbands!  Anyway- they got all the trees down and were done Monday evening, except for one, that they came back sometime on Tuesday to cut- while we were gone.  Thankfully the kids told Doug about the trees when he talked to him Monday night, so this whole ordeal wasn't a total shock.  He asked me a lot of questions- but didn't seem upset that I jumped the gun "a little" on this decision.

Tuesday afternoon I head out to the yard to start cleaning up the branches and stuff.  I don't know if you know this, but it turns out 5 trees- even though they're dead- have a LOT of branches. And guess what else? A lot of those branches were too big for my little ol' pruners.  I worked for 2 hours and you couldn't hardly even tell!  There was still a TON to clean up.  And my arms were sooooo sore from using the pruners. My triceps and biceps were burning.  I could barely lift my arms and they were kind of shaky when I did. While I was out there pouring sweat and making muscles- I decided, "Well, maybe this will teach Doug to go on "vacation" at the end of the summer, when I'm running low on my Mom magic and the kids are sick of each other!!!!"  

While I was out there working like a dog, I got a great idea- I have a friend who's teenage son helps his dad with their tree cutting business.  I bet this teenager would love some extra cash, and how hard will it be for him? The trees are already on the ground!  He's young, and has a chain saw!  He was a gem, and came out.  Guess what? Even with a motivated, young man . . . there was still a TON of work left! We worked for 3 hours (with Andrew and Alexa. . . well, with Andrew.  Not Alexa.  She got us water though, and sometimes carried a branch.  Sometimes).  There was still a TON to go.  I won't lie- I was starting to get pretty discouraged.  There was literally no way I was going to get all of this cleaned up before Doug got home.  No way.  I wanted to surprise him with a job finished, but it was turning out to be too big for me.  

On Thursday morning, I was out there working again, and my backdoor neighbor comes out to talk to me.  She's super sweet, and she is very concerned that Doug will be mad.  Huh.  It hadn't occurred to me- up to that point- that Doug would be mad I got 5 trees cut without talking to him.  Oh shoot.  Is he gonna be mad?  I mean- it's one thing to hear I did it.  It's a whole other thing, to actually see 5 trees and all their mess on the ground- still needing to be cleaned up.  There is nothing I can do about it now!  The trees aren't going back!  But- if he is mad- the yard isn't going to help matters.  It has trees everywhere.  I have piles of branches everywhere!  Great!  I rarely do completely stupid things that make Doug mad.  Sure I intentionally aggravate him- just to press his buttons- but that's in fun. This tree situation ranks up there with all the times I've rear ended other vehicles or backed into objects or gotten speeding tickets (what can I say- I'm not a great driver).   

So . . . I went inside, took a shower, and talked myself down from the limb I got on (hahaha- an unintentional tree pun!).  Later that evening when Doug got home . . . he wasn't mad.  He seemed okay, but not quite the level of excitement I had secretly hoped he'd have. He has cursed me a few times today, but that's because loading branches onto a trailer to take to a burn pile is exhausting and he got scratches and jabs and . . . it's just super annoying. I can deal with that.  That don't bother me at all.  I will say- I did learn a lesson from my guilt . . . maybe I should consult with Doug before I take on big yard projects from this point forward.  He might appreciate it.  Maybe.