Summer Begins . . .

Did I tell you that we are all working at scout camp again this summer?  We hadn't intended to—we were hoping that Bruce would find a full-time job (instead of substitute teaching) before summer.  But then along in April some time, after a couple of discouraging "Thank you, but no's," he suddenly felt like scout camp would be the thing to do.  So he contacted Stephen Eborn—last year's camp director at Steiner—and said that he and I would like to work with him again.  Stephen is running Hinckley Scout Ranch this year; our older kids had already applied and gotten jobs with him for this summer, and he was happy to give Bruce and me some jobs too. Hinckley is about thirty miles down and around the mountain from Steiner. So Bruce will be a rifle-range instructor and I will be . . . are you ready for this? . . the person who orders and delivers commissary to Steiner.  Yes, I get to be the one who tells the Steiner cook—the infamous LeDawn—that she must take five cases of bananas a week. ;-)

Well, in preparation for camp (we leave this Friday—the day after school gets out) I decided that the house had to be clean.  Amazingly clean.  We left it in kind of a mess last year.  So I've been putting on my bossy mom hat every day—and forcing Bruce to put on his bossy dad hat—and making kids clean their rooms, do their chores, wash "extra" laundry, etc. I, myself, spent hours yesterday cleaning the kitchen. 

As if deep-cleaning the house, preparing and having an Eagle court of honor, holding a couple of bake sales, getting through the last weeks of school, and running around for medical exams—both for scouts and for missions—were not enough, on Monday morning the city delivered great big trash bins to our neighborhood (three on our street!).  They do this periodically and, apparently, totally randomly—we never know when they will show up. So we started overhauling our yard, too.  We got rid of an old couch and some nasty old carpet that was on our back deck; we got rid of the wood pile (wood disaster) that was overgrown with weeds and infested with bugs and snails; we pulled weeds (there's lots more of that to do!); and we cleaned the garage.

This was about six weeks ago, when they were planting peas.  You can see the verdant jungle growing all around them already, and the wood pile behind them.

The sun beams down on my men cleaning up the yard.

Wow! Look at that!  Still some weeding to do, but so much better!

The girls weed out the front flower beds.

Then we got rid of the living room carpet.  Yes, we did.  We can't afford to replace it yet—probably can't until tax returns next year (and then no carpet. Anything but carpet!).  It was disgusting before the cat had at it; now it is intolerable.  I mean, it always used to be that when people came over they'd say that my house smells great; now I'm afraid they will walk in the door and vomit in their mouths. (You can't ever get rid of cat smell, although now we may get rid of the cat.)

before

Jessica is shocked by the mess that was inside the couch.

Need I say more?

Bruce is the man! He'll get the job done even if he has to use a broken shovel (it broke doing the yard work Monday night).

The shovel is for getting the glued carpet pad off of the floor.

In the process of getting the living room ready for carpet removal we had to take the couches out.  When we tipped them so they'd fit through the door we heard a very jangly-clanky sound.  So we pulled off a bit of the webbing from under the couches and, in addition to random junk, we found: a candy-cane (eeeww!), a long-lost Wii-mote, a DVD remote control, a spoon, some pencils and scissors, an MP3 player, and Michael's camera that's been missing since Christmas of 2011. No money though.  When we had a look at our couches in broad daylight we decided to get rid of them too. (OK. They were ugly in the dark of night, too.)

There they go . . .

. . . and there goes couch number one. The second one followed soon after.

This is what our living room looks like now.

And this. Niiice floor! ;-)

So, anyway, we've been really busy.  Hopefully the house and yard will be finito by this afternoon. Then tomorrow we will pack up our stuff, and Friday morning we will be headed up to the mountains.  And then we will have a restful summer. ;-) Yay!