Maggie Hauls Mulch: Helping my parents do yardwork

I consider myself an academic, to a degree, but there's really nothing more satisfying than doing an honest day's work.

I mean like labor work.  Don't get me wrong, I get damn close to moksha when I finish a huge paper, but I collapse into bed with pure, delighted exhaustion the way I do after I spend two days hauling mulch for my parents.  Which is pretty much what I did.

My parents are spiffing up our back garden for the summer (yeah, I live at home), and that meant two trailer loads of dirty, stinky, soggy mulch.  For reasons still unknown, I volunteered to help.  This meant several hours of standing in a rickety old trailer attached to a rickety old Chevy Blazer, muscling mulch into a rickety old wheelbarrow with a pitchfork, and then hauling it down a hill, dumping it into the back garden, and hauling it right back up to start all over again.  Pretty much the only variation in the event was the tone or accent I used to holler "MULCH!" at my dad and the location he designated for the mulch dumping.

It was really, really fun.

I'm serious.  Working up a sweat, tiring out your muscles, getting utterly filthy, and (honestly) making your parents proud.  It's really satisfying.  Yeah, so maybe it's gross when you head inside and realize that your entire skin is coated with a film of sweat, mulch dust, and bug spray.  Maybe it's embarrassing to explain the state of your fingernails to your very posh boss at your upscale retail job later that day.  Maybe your back aches a little the next morning.

But the garden looks awesome.  And your parents think you're super cool.

I guess that's the point I'm trying to make.  Helping out your parents just because feels really good.  They really appreciate it when you take the time to do something for them, something for the house.  It's a great gesture, considering everything they've done and everything they've sacrificed and all the money they've spent for you.  My mom has cleaned up my vomit, listened to me cry hysterically over the phone, and French-braided my hair.  My dad has maintained family cars, mowed the lawn, and listened to my rants about his other children.  I think I can take a few hours out of my Memorial Day weekend to haul some damn mulch.

Pro tip: if you have lazy siblings, like I do, you can feel all haughty when you're helping out and your brother and sister are inside doing nothing.  MAJOR kid points, guys.  I'm just sayin'.

Haulingly yours,

Maggie

Maggie Muds: Tough Mudder

It seems appropriate to describe a BIG GIANT VERB for my first post. This past Sunday, I completed Tough Mudder.

In a nutshell, Tough Mudder is is a 10-12 mile foot race with 25+ military style obstacles. The race itself is designed by British Special Forces and is hosted all over the world in various locations. I raced on May 20th in Somerset, WI, near the Twin Cities, which is the land I call home.

To be 100% honest, signing up was kind of an impulse move after a rough-ish breakup. Granted, that was over seven months ago and ceased being my motivation long, long ago, but I still thank that guy a little (little little little) bit in my head for sorta prompting me to do this. Not much, though. SORRY, BUDDY.

I signed up with a few buddies from college, pictured here (Maggie, Kaleb, Megan, Kari).  We graduated from Augustana College the day before the race and decided to make a show of it. The alumni network will be utterly delighted with the pictures!

After months of hard training, including a triathlon and many, many days of walking like a gimp, it was time.  We carbo-loaded the night before, got up at 5:00 a.m., and drove out to Somerset for our suicide mission.  At 8:00 a.m., we hit the ground running.

We scaled vertical walls.  We belly-crawled under barbed wire and again under LIVE wire.  We jumped into ice pits.  We dove twenty feet into dyed water.  We tottered across two-by-fours suspended over dyed water.  We shimmied through underwater pipes.  We slogged through ankle-deep mud.  We swung across monkey bars.  We sprinted through live wires and got zapped the whole way through.  We hauled lumber.  And we had so much damn fun.


Every muscle in my body was exhausted and shaking by the time we crossed that finish line, eleven and a half miles later. I was in pain for two days afterward.  And it was worth every minute.

Tough Mudder inspires a kind of camaraderie that can't really be explained.  On every obstacle, people helped each other.  Men I didn't know hoisted me up over the vertical wall and dragged me up and over the halfpipe.  I caught women I didn't know as they dropped over the other side and cheered strangers through the live wire.  No one cared about speed.  We were a team, all of us.

It was, without doubt, the coolest thing I've ever done.  I've never felt so accomplished in my life.  That orange headband? Greatest trophy ever.  I may wear it at my wedding.

I've also turned into an utter junkie.  I'm signing up for Go Commando and the Warrior Dash with friends this summer, both 5K versions of Tough Mudder.

I can't wait.

Verbingly yours,
Maggie