Never A Dull Moment

I think that I have mentioned that the kids and I are living at my in-law's beach house this summer. What I may not have mentioned is that their beach house isn't the come in with your feet sandy and sit out the couch with a wet bathing suit kind of beach house. Instead, it is the brand new, all-white furniture kind of beach house.

The Farmer didn't want us to live here because he didn't want the kids to mess anything up; he knows that our kids are kids, and that they don't exactly live like neat little adults. But, we sold our house and needed a place to bunk for the summer, and, as we are moving back to his farm and I work around the clock here in the summer, this will be a recurring summertime problem, so here we are.

And, honestly, no matter how fabulous this house is or how beautiful the view is, after this summer, I am with The Farmer -- next summer we will be looking for another place to live, because my stress level has been maxed out after the responsibility of living in someone else's brand-new house.

Why? Well...

We had been here for maybe a week, and we were coming home after church one Sunday. We stopped to get some sandwiches for lunch, and then we were going to spend some time on the beach. The Farmer called to find out where we were because there was an alarm going off at the house saying that the house was on fire!! All the way back out to the house -- a 20 minute drive from where we were -- my legs were jello because I just knew that I had left on my flat iron and burned my in-law's beach house down to the ground.

We got out to the house to find two fire trucks and half the neighborhood in front of the house. I left the kids in the car in the middle of the street and ran up to the nearest fireman to ask him if the house was on fire. Luckily it was just a false alarm, but the alarms were still going off. It took forever for me to get the alarm off as three fully-suited firemen and a neighbor stood around watching me.

And it took forever to get my heart rate back to normal.

We have also had a case of MRSA this summer. Our nanny and her daughter -- I am not sure which one had it first -- had it and passed it on to Bubba. Poor Bubba got a huge, nasty infected toe, and I had to spend many nights after I got home from the packing house (at midnight!) disinfecting the house. Neither of the girls ever got it, so I think that I have managed to kill all of the germs around the house. I just hope it's not lurking around here somewhere -- that stuff is nasty!

Bubba slept with me one night and wet the bed, and, of course, it went through the mattress pad and soaked the brand-new mattress. Luckily, the nanny found some kind of wonderful stuff that got the smell out of the mattress.

We have also learned the magic of the Magic Eraser.

The knob came off the cabinet in my bathroom.

I could keep going, but it is too stressful.

It's one thing when it's your own house; it's totally another when it's someone else's. So, basically, I have spent my summer working, worrying, stressing, and cleaning.

And I live on the beach in a beautiful house with a beautiful view...it doesn't make any sense!