M for mild profanity

I have very recently come to terms with how very fool-hardy I can be at times. I try my hardest to make decisions that are the best for the family, but those decisions aren't always the the right ones. Reality flooded into my head this afternoon when I realized just what I had decided to do and didn't fully think through the consequences of my actions.

What would my baby, my little four-year-old do if I were injured in the back yard in the middle of the day and she had no idea? When would someone notice? At 1:00 when she didn't show up at school? At 3:00 when my middle schooler couldn't get in the door because it was locked and she didn't have her key? At 3:30 when the elementary school called first the house, then my husband's office when no one came to pick up the boys from school? After 5 pm when my husband arrived home to find my baby locked in the house foraging for food, my middle schooler frozen on the front porch and the boys in tow?

I need to stop and think more often.

I did a very stupid thing this morning and I do not intend to repeat it again. It's not news that the eastern seaboard is having issues with weather. One issue being the wind gusting around 60 mph. We had arrived home after midnight from our spring break trip to find that the winds had already damaged the shed. It was sitting at an odd angle and the sliding doors were actually hanging. Not a good sign, but what can you do at midnight in a storm? Nothing. I went out this morning to try to figure out a way to anchor the thing down and set the doors back on their tracks. Don't get me started on how to properly anchor a shed while it's being built....anchoring it to a proper floor is on the "to-do" list. I shouldn't have messed with the thing. While thinking and gathering up lawn furniture, the wind gusted, tipped the shed up and over it's contents. The shed then swooped up into the air and landed five feet from me (in the direction I was walking when it's movement distracted me) and proceeded to tumble across the yard and stop a foot from the opposite fence.

Shit.

I did what I always do when I don't know what else to do. I ran inside and called Tad. Then ran back outside with the phone to stand on the shed wall to keep it from blowing further away and causing property damage to any neighbors. His advice: Since it's already on it's side, load the contents of the shed onto/into the shed and that will hold it down. Brilliant. Using pool noodles, I rolled/pushed the 300 pound shed as close to the foundation of the house I could. I found a heavy wrought iron candle hook spike and drove it into the ground almost two feet in an attempt to anchor it temporarily. I then wore my ass out dragging the lawn mower, bags of sand, six bikes, all the lawn furniture and tools and piling them higgeldy-piggeldy, yet distributing the weight as evenly as possible across the shed wall (which was now acting as the floor). The faster I worked, the harder the wind blew. The only thing that kept me moving long past the time I would have collapsed from exhaustion was adrenaline and the fear that if this fucker blew away and caused damage to any neighbor, our homeowner's insurance probably wouldn't cover it. The swearing and repetition of the words "higher premiums" and "no coverage" became my mantra.

One Aleve and a progress report to the husband later, I am getting ready to take the littlest little of them all to school and thinking seriously about taking a nap. I am worn out. But then...I've been jumping up and checking on the shed every 45 minutes to an hour to make sure it's still there. One hour down, seven more to go until the wind warnings are lifted.