It would have been funny if it happened to anyone else

Remember how I said that it rained the last night we camped? Well, that meant that I had to bring everything home wet. And it had to be taken care of.

We got home Wednesday afternoon and I decided that I was way too tired to mess with it then. I slept in Thursday, but then it had to be done. It was hot, sunny, and there was a light breeze. Perfect weather for the job.

I parked the van in the street near the driveway and started pulling all that wet, dirty camping equipment out. I set up the chairs in the driveway and hosed them down. I set the big tent up in the backyard and K's little tent (that was never used to sleep in) in the front yard. Everything that wasn't nailed down in the car was put in piles in the front yard. I started washing sleeping bags and ended up spreading one out on the grass to finish drying. The girls and I put away most of the stuff in piles and I pulled out all the back car seats, then I took the van to the car wash to clean and vacuum out all the post-vacation nastiness.

When I returned, I wiped down all the surfaces in the van and scrubbed the floor mats, hosing them down and spreading them on the sidewalk to dry. Mr. at Home left to take care of his own car stuff and I was dripping sweat and running out of steam.

Then the most horrible thing happened.

A familiar sound came out of nowhere. I looked up and I spied a lawnmower.

The lawn guys had come one day early. And they were headed my way.

I raced to push everything off the grass and onto the driveway, then I ran through the house yelling at the girls to help me get the tent down. As we were pulling up stakes and folding up poles, the weedeater guy came through.

Crud.

We got that tent down in record time. Frantically pushing, pulling, hauling, and panting, I got everything except the wet floor mats moved and put away before the lawnmower made it to our yard. Thankfully everything else was dry and is now all stored neatly out of the way on the garage shelves.

Yesterday, hubby mentioned that some friends of ours were camping at another friend's house. For about 1.67 seconds I considered joining them. Them I thought about what I had gone through to get the camping equipment put away.

We stayed home.