Poor 'ol Jeff ;)

     If I had to describe Jeff Lewis in one word, it would be patient.  He has been forced to live with three very opinionated and outspoken women for a very long time.  I can't tell you how many times I've seen my dad look up into the sky and say "Lord, how much does a man have to take?"  So, In honor of Father's Day, I have a collection of Jeff stories!  Enjoy!

     My dad is pretty handy at fixing things around the house, but sometimes he has to enlist one of us to help.  It used to be Helen, but now it is ALWAYS me or Tara.  I could get this wrong, because it was when Helen and dad were newly married, but they were remodeling the house.  We have, well had, beautiful hardwood floors that Helen wanted to "help" dad stain.  Well, before they even got started, Helen knocked the bucket of stain over and ruined the floor.  Still, to this day we have carpet in that room.

     Helen also tried to help him snake the toilet once.  He told her to hold on to the end while he went under the house into the crawl space.  I'm not exactly sure how she misunderstood her part, but she let go of her end.  Dad was under the house talking to her, and he said "okay, now pull the handle," and Helen said, "What handle?"  Dad got very quiet, and then he calmly said, "Helen, I'm coming out from under the house, and it would be a good idea if you weren't here when I get in there."

     Helen is also not allowed to paint anymore.  They were doing some remodeling their bathroom, and Helen wanted to do the painting.  Dad told her specifically, and I was witness to this, "Do not touch the paint.  I will be home in one hour, and I will do it."  Well, we all know that you can't tell Helen what to do.  So she went outside and got a plastic lawn chair and took it into bathtub to stand on while she painted.  I told her that it was a terrible idea, but she can't listen.  She hadn't even covered one wall before the back legs of the chair bent forward, sending it right out from under her!  Her paintbrush flew up into the air and she hit that bathtub so hard that I swear the whole house shook!  I turned around to find her laying in the bathtub with the broken chair underneath her, covered in paint, and the rest of the bucket of paint was running down the drain.  Helen is pretty good at covering her tracks, and she can really think on her feet.  (I get it from her.)  When dad came home she greeted him with "You have to go back to Home Depot, that wasn't the right color."  This wasn't dads first rodeo, so he said "Well Helen, how would you know that?"  Of course I couldn't let this story slide, and I had to reenact the whole scene for him.  Poor dad reluctantly "horsed" back over to the Home Depot to get the right color for Helen.  I'm telling you, a patient man indeed.

     Really, I am the only one who hasn't interrupted dad during a remodeling project.  Probably because I want no part in assisting whatsoever. 

When Tara was a baby, and dad was building on to our house, Tara (who couldn't pronounce her "R"s) would go outside EVERY SINGLE DAY to ask "Whatca doin, Daddy?" and every single day dad would respond, "building a room, Tara."  To which Tara would reply, "Gotchu Hammaw?" and dad would say, "yep, got my hammer."  I only know from home videos, but she was cute.  Not as cute as me, but still cute. ;)  She obviously h

ad dad wrapped around her little finger, since he would stay up ALL NIGHT on Christmas Eve to put together the 5,000 piece Barbie dream home so it would look like Santa brought it already put together.  He wasn't game for that by the time I came around!

     Now, it may seem like he has a lot of patience with us, but we also have a lot of patience with him!  Dad is VERY neat, and I have diagnosed him with OCD.  We always had chore lists to do before he came home from football practice at noon, but since Tara and I usually liked to wake up at noon, it was always a race to beat the clock.  Dad actually gathered all three of us once to give us a lesson on how to properly load the dishwasher.

     Stanley Steamer was coming to clean our carpets, and he told us to vacuum our bedrooms before they came.  Tara and I were confused on why we would sweep when they were coming to sweep?  So we just kind of ran it around the rooms and went on about our business.  Our dad actually went in and re-swept our bedrooms, dumped out what he swept up in our rooms into plastic Kroger bags, and put it on our beds! SO GROSS.

     Another OCD thing dad does, is he reads the serving sizes on the backs of the food bags, and only makes that much.  So, say the serving size was 4 chicken nuggets and 8 french fries, he would count out 16 chicken nuggets, and 36 french fries.  Everyone got exactly their serving, no more, no less.  That absolutely drove Helen crazy!

     He also went through a phase in the summer when Tara and I were only allowed to watch 2 hours of TV, and we had to do these worksheets with him to keep our brains from going dead in the summer.  Tara and I strategically picked shows that we both liked so that we could have 4 hours of TV.  Really that only lasted a few weeks before Helen rescued us, as she always did! :)

So, while we are all annoyed with each other at times, they always make for pretty good blog stories!  Happy Father's Day "Heffe"!! We love you!! :)