Trend-setting lawn care

I feel it is time to broadcast my latest extraordinary adventure...

My husband I are moving....

Starting in about a month, I'll be electronically connecting with you from our new home in Lincoln. Tyler's going to be part owner of a construction company, and me, well...I'm considering applying at McDonald's because meditating has not brought me a new job. In fact, my future posts will most likely center around my search for a brilliant career as a columnist; if I'm still writing about it in a year, you will then most likely be reading about ulcers - mine, specifically.

So the last few months have been filled with weekly hour-and-a-half trips to the new place to move in a few things, mow the lawn, etc. It was actually kind of fun, until harvest arrived and Tyler became one with the combine. Now I've got the sole responsibility of hauling up boxes when I can and of course, mowing. This is not difficult, I realize, but because sometimes difficulty in simple situations is my specialty (hey - watch the blonde jokes!), last week's excursion left me deciding that having a manicured lawn isn't THAT big of deal...

After convincing myself that yard work in 40-mph wind and sub-50 degree weather would be good for me, I bundled up in two shirts, a sweatshirt, a coat, a hat and a pair of gloves. I wedged my RedBull into the cup holder and secured my iPod headphones into place. "Ok, Amanda, remember - turn key to first position, push throttle up, pull choke, turn key rest of way."

The sound that answered my efforts was such that I would not have been surprised to look up and see someone strangling a cat - a really, really big cat.

Crap, now I was going to have to seek help. I had already called Tyler earlier to inquire about the location of fuel for the mower, and he informed me that because the combine and field were on fire, he did not have time to help me. Pssh. Where are his priorities, anyway? So I did what any 28-year-old married woman would do: I called my mom.

But turns out, even moms can't fix mowers over the phone, so I reluctantly took her advice to try and find a mechanically-inclined neighbor. After a 10-minute door-knocking marathon, I returned, plopped down on the mower and asked the two neighbors who had come back with me what to do: my new canine friends were all out of options.

Luckily, a very nice man from the Mower Medic (yes, I picked it out of the YellowPages because I liked the name), talked me through a variety of options and we finally figured out there was an air bubble in the fuel line. A switch of a lever with just the right amount of choke and I was up and running!

Thirty minutes into my task, I felt upon my already numb nose a drop of cold water. That drop turned into enough rain that after fifteen more minutes, I hustled my Hustler right back into the garage.

Now our house has a reverse mullet. I bet the neighbors are jealous they didn't think of it first.