Who would’ve ever thought TMS would go gun-shopping, but that’s exactly what I did today.  Right after we took the grandgirls back to their parents this morning, RT and I headed to a skeet range where we had shooting lessons.  I’ve shot skeet before, and it really is fun - along with being a challenge.  I did okay, too - I probably was about 50% - hitting as many as I missed.   At one point, the instructor said that he liked working with women because they generally haven’t shot enough to need to un-learn incorrect ways of shooting.  He then jokingly said that the worst students are guys like RT - “Old guys with bad habits.”  I loved it!  Now anytime RT does something not quite up to par (i.e. leaving his dirty clothes on the floor, not putting away his dishes), I can just remind him that he’s an OGWBH. 

After the shooting lesson, we had a quick lunch, and then it was off to the gun store to buy a gun for me.  Lord have mercy!  Have you ever been in a gun store.? First of all, it was a huge place.  Second, it was crowded.  Lots of people were looking to buy guns.  I ended up buying a “youth” 20-gauge shotgun because my arms aren’t long enough to handle even the smaller adult shotguns.  The salesman called me “petite” which is a word I’ve never heard to describe me.  I guess my hands and arms are on the short side, though. The shotgun we bought felt good in my hands and against my shoulder.  I think it’ll be easier and more accurate to shoot than the instructor’s gun I used during the lesson this morning.

I had to fill out all kinds of information in order to buy the gun - fill out a questionnaire (which seemed silly because would an illegal alien check that he was indeed an illegal alien? Or a person who has had a restraining order against him, admit it?)  I had to give them two thumbprints - and they had to call and do a quick background check on me.  I passed all the checks, and left with a new shotgun, shotgun case and a shell holder to put on my belt.  This afternoon RT and I will practice skeet shooting again.

All in all an enjoyable morning.

This is a day that RT and I have been looking forward to for a long, long time.  The grandgirls are sleeping over tonight.  Their room and bathroom were the first rooms we completely decorated.  The walls are a pale, pale pink, there’s a little pink chandelier, a pink princess nightlight, and there are pink and white striped towels in their bathroom.  There is a beautiful quilt - white with light pink and rose crocheted flowers - for their bed.

Their mom (our daughter) and dad brought them over this afternoon, and we will take them back home tomorrow morning.  It has been such fun!  At the supper table, we took turns telling what we’re thankful for.  Then we had chicken fingers (homemade) and rolls (Sister Schubert) - and lots of cinnamon apples for dessert.  No vegetables in there, I know - but I just didn’t get any vegetables cooked.  They were STARVING (or so they said - repeatedly) so I just got the chicken and rolls on the table and let ‘em eat.

After dinner we made some videos using my new web camera.  I guess I need to open a YouTube account so I can post some of my videos.  I wouldn’t post one of the girls, of course.  I never post pictures of them online. The girls loved making the videos and became quite dramatic.  I never realized they were such hams!

Then it was bathtime.  They wanted to use the shower (Sweet Stuff) and the jacuzzi (Sunshine) in the master bath rather than the tub in their bathroom.  So I sat on my vanity stool while they took their merry time with their shower/bath.  They just chatted away and were in such a good mood.

Then it was bedtime prayers and I tucked them into bed.  They wanted the TV on while they fell asleep.  Terrible habit for children to get into - and I wish their mom and dad didn’t let them do that.  However, both my children have spouses who have to have the TV on in order to fall asleep.  Is that a common thing?  A TV keeps me awake rather than puts me to sleep. 

The grandgirls are asleep now, though, and the TV is off.  My only concern is that in this house, the guest room is on one side of the house, and the master bedroom is on the other.  I’ve lit the way with night lights, and I’ve left the doors open.  Before they went to sleep, we went over what they should do if they need us during the night (i.e. Come to our room and wake us up).  I’m just afraid I won’t hear them if they call for me.  The guest room was immediately across the hall from the master bedroom at the cabin.  So that was never an issue.  I’m sure everything will be all right - just first night worries, I guess.

It has been a wonderful evening.  In the morning I’ll make them pancakes - in the shape of their initials, and in the shape of a girl or a bear - or whatever shape they tell me they’d like.  We’ll have a good time together, and then we’ll take them home.  Our pastor, Pastor Tom, is in the hospital for surgery, and the girls want to draw him a picture before they leave in the morning.  So we’ll make time for that.

Life is good.

All during the building of our house, RT had a favorite saying that he repeated often.  And I DO mean often.   I HAVE to put this down for posterity because I’ve heard RT say this literally hundreds, if not thousands, of times.   It became a standing joke for our entire family (except for the grandgirls - our daughter wouldn’t let him say it in front of them - and he wouldn’t have anyway).

 RT was the general contractor for our house, and thanks to his careful supervision and management, we ended up with a superbly built home.  As he would leave the house each day - or any time that he was talking to us about the various sub-contractors on the job - he would say the following:

Each sub brings to the workplace their skills, their  shortcuts, and their bullshit.

It is the job of the general contractor to sharpen their skills, eliminate their shortcuts, and outdo their bullshit.

We would always laugh, and my favorite rejoinder was: “And YOU are the man for the job!”

I’ve read other Thursday Thirteens in which the writer describes differences and similarities between herself and her spouse.  So this week’s T13 is a list for RT and Me.

(1) RT is an early-to-bed-early-to-rise person, but  I’m a night owl.  I very rarely can go to sleep before 10:30 or 11:00.  RT usually goes to bed each night around 8:30 or 9:00 - sometimes even earlier.  If I go to bed then, I just lie there tossing and turning.  If I wait till around 11:00, I go right to sleep and sleep great.  I think I simply don’t need as much sleep as RT.  It is what it is.

(2) We both love an all-vegetable meal (with cornbread, of course).

(3) Our choice of vegetables is different though.  RT likes some of the same vegetables I like (tomatoes, creamed corn, okra, new potatoes, broccoli, field peas) but he also likes turnip greens, green beans, rutabagas - and I definitely don’t care for those particular veggies.

(4) RT is incredibly strong physically.  I don’t think there is any physical task he can’t do.  I’m fairly strong for a woman but not exceptionally so.

(5) RT works harder than any person I know.   It’s part of his do-or-die personality.  I work hard, but I take breaks.  I don’t have the endurance to work nonstop for hours like RT does.

(6) While we’ve been building our new house, we’ve been amazed at how similar our tastes are in just about every area - from the floor plan to paint colors to granite to flooring.    We’ve agreed on virtually everything.

(7)  RT enjoys having a pet.  I’m just not a pet person.  I don’t dislike animals, I just don’t particularly enjoy having a pet.

(8) RT can do anything — well, almost.  If there is something to be made or something that has to be done, he’ll figure out how to do it and do it.  Installing shelves, doing electrical or plumbing work - he jumps right in and does it.  He has an amazing repertoire of skills and knowledge.

(9)  I love to blog.  RT just doesn’t “get” why someone would want to blog.

(10)  RT has incredible willpower.  He can decide to do something, and he sticks to it - however long it takes.  I sometimes give up too quickly or easily.

(11) RT travels with his job.  I almost never travel with my job.  Occasionally I might have a teacher conference or workshop that involves an overnight stay elsewhere, but 99.9% of my job time is spent right here in town.  RT has to spend several nights out of town a couple times a month.  I’m looking forward to retiring and being able to go with him on those trips.

(12)  RT likes to play the CD player in his car on HIGH.  When I say “high” I don’t mean loud.  I mean he plays it at a car-shaking blast.  I listen to either talk radio or I turn off the radio altogether. 

(13) RT would do anything in the world for me, and I would do anything in the world for him.

I’m a night owl - always have been.  Occasionally I will go to bed early if I’m really tired, but usually it’s hard for me to settle down and sleep until at least 11:00 PM or later.  When I lived by myself, it was much much later.  I regularly stayed up till one, two or three in the morning.  I’d take a nap here and there to make up the sleep.Now that I’m married, I try to get to bed by 10:30 or 11:00.  RT is a morning person.  He could go to bed by 8:00 every single night and be happy.  I think he just needs more sleep than I do.  He gets up earlier, but not that much earlier than I do.

I think being a night owl or a morning person is something you’re born with.  My six-year old grandgirl, Sweet Stuff, is definitely a night owl.  I identify with her struggles to get up and ready for school early each morning, and her reluctance to settle down and go to sleep each evening.  Sunshine, my four-year-old grandgirl is a morning person.  If she’s not in bed early each night, she has a meltdown.  But then she’s up bright and early each morning - a smile on her face and an eagerness to start the day.  It’s always interesting when they spend the night with us.  Around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, Sunshine wakes up and crawls into bed with me and cuddles - but only for a few minutes.  She’s ready for breakfast RIGHT THEN!  No delay.  Sweet Stuff will sleep till 8 or 9 - and then wants to take a little time to wake up before she eats anything.

I love Saturday and Sunday mornings.  They’re the days of the week that I can usually wake up the way I like to wake up.  I get up, pad around the house in my pajamas and slippers, sip a cup of coffee, fix a luxurious breakfast and just enjoy a slow awakening to the day.  I’m already looking forward to tomorrow morning.

I’ve learned over the years to appreciate these differences more.  RT has a different body clock than I do - and that’s fine.  Each person is simply doing what their body tells them to do.

I’ve found that moving can make one’s world quite small.  Things are disconnected at the old house, and we must wait for them to be re-connected at the new house.  The DirecTV folks won’t be at the new house until later today.  That makes almost two week’s we’ve gone without watching TV.  Quite honestly, I haven’t missed it much.  It has made me realize how much of a habit it is to watch certain shows.  It’s not that the shows are so enormously entertaining.  It’s just that we were accustomed to eating dinner and then watching TV - whatever was on.  A similar thing happened with the Internet.   We had DSL problems at the old house that left me internet-less at home for over two months.  I was starting a new job.  So I sure wasn’t going to blog from work.  Now at the new house, we have a high-speed connection again, but I don’t have my computer yet.  So I borrow RT’s when I need to.  Last night, for the first time in months,  I spent about 5 hours working on a project online - and it was nice.  I read blogs that I would normally not read, and I had a blast.  The only negative was that I didn’t get to bed until after 1:30 this morning.  Once in awhile that’s okay.

So without TV and with no Internet for so long, I feel that my world has grown small.  RT and I have been doing more reading.  We’ve taken more walks.  We’ve worked on the house.  I haven’t been able to easily keep up with what’s going on in the world well enough to know of anything beyond my small world to blog about.  I’ve yearned to blog, but my topics of interest have been narrowed down to things related to our moving.

TV will be restored by this evening.  My new wireless computer will arrive later this week, and by the weekend we will once more be connected to the rest of the world.  For now, though, it’s comforting to remain small for a few hours longer.

As soon as church was over today, RT and I headed over to the new house to put in the shoe molding. Ha!  I thought that MAYBE we’d spend the better part of the afternoon taking care of that chore.  I was wrong.  It is now 10:00 p.m., and we just got back from working on it all afternoon and evening - and we probably have about 1/3 of it finished.  There could NOT be anything more tedious than putting up shoe molding. 

Each piece must be cut precisely.  I did most of the measuring, and RT did the cutting.  Even with measuring as precisely as possible, we still had to re-cut many pieces because of the various angles.  The bay window was a nightmare. 

So first thing in the morning, guess what we’ll be doing.  The sad thing is that we’re putting in the closet shelves ourselves, too.  I’m afraid that might be another long and extended project.  Thank goodness I’m on fall break Monday and Tuesday.  Maybe we can get it all done.

Sweet Stuff and PawPaw are walking around outside the new house.  PawPaw belches.  Sweet Stuff looks up at him - shocked.

“Say ‘excuse me,’ PawPaw,” she chides.

“Excuse me,” replies PawPaw.

“Thank you.”

They continue their walk.

This past Saturday morning RT and I flew in his small Bonanza down to Destin, FL for a few days of R&R with our children.  Our son and his wife left Friday night - drove part way and finished the drive on Saturday.  Our daughter, her husband and the two grandgirls did the same.  We all arrived at the condo within ten minutes of each other.

It was beautiful.  That’s an understatement.  The condo was perfect for our little family.   The kids are staying through Saturday.  RT and I had to come home Monday because there was just too much going on with the new house and school starting next week for us to be gone all week.

So it is strange not having our children in town.   Today RT flew to Indiana on business.  And I’m here in TN without any other family around.  Usually when he’s out of town, our daughter and son are just a few minutes away at their respective homes.  This week, though, they’re still in Florida enjoying the beach.  Strange feeling to have them so far away.

One quick cute story.  No, make that three.  On Sunday morning, Sunshine woke up early and RT asked her if she wanted to go to church.  She looked at him as though he was crazy.  RT said something about God being everywhere, and she replied, “No he’s not.  He’s at church in Nashville, Tennessee!”  Four year olds are very literal.

Later, she was sitting next to RT on the sofa, and she felt his stomach and proceeded to ask him if he was expecting a baby.  When he replied that he wasn’t, she answered as she rubbed his stomach, “Yes, you are.  I can feel the head.”  I hasten to add that while RT might have a little bit of a stomach, he is not overweight at all. 

Third story.  Hmmm - all three stories are about Sunshine!  We visited a shopping area along the beach that had a “Bears on the Beach” store - which is a make-your-own-teddy-bear place (Like “Build A Bear Workshop”).  I let both girls select and dress a teddy bear to keep.  They each named their bears.  Sweet Stuff named hers Gabriella - from “High School Musical.”  Sunshine named her Sarah Grandma Carol.  To her “Grandma” is just part of my name, and she was honoring me.  Such sweetness!

A week or so ago RT was using his bulldozer to clean up some of the large rocks between our house and the barn.  When he moved one rock, he found six white eggs under it.  We looked at the eggs - they were just a tad smaller than a hen’s egg - and figured they were probably turtle eggs.  In retrospect, I don’t know how a turtle would have dug underneath an enormous rock to lay the eggs, but who knows?

So RT put some dirt in a bucket, placed the eggs in there and then put more dirt on top.   Then he set the bucket next to the barn where it wouldn’t be disturbed.  We then promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to Saturday.  The guys doing some trimwork in the house asked me, “Why do you have a bucket of snakes by the barn?”  (Now WHY they were snooping around by the barn is another matter.)

“A bucket of snakes?  What do you mean?”

They showed me, and it dawned on me what had happened.  We had helped a half dozen snakes hatch!  They had triangular patterns on their backs - and they were aggressive!  Of course we were using a stick to move them around to try to count how many there were.  So maybe they were just irritated about being poked.

I voted for killing them all.  But RT insisted on setting them free.  When he reached for the bucket, one of the snakes sprang up - trying to strike at him.  I mean it literally sprang straight upward.  Now these are BABY snakes - maybe 10 inches long.  However, they weren’t the least bit passive about being disturbed.

Over my protests, RT took the bucket and dumped it out over to the side of the barn.  One of the snakes coiled up, and I SWEAR its tail was vibrating up in the air like a rattler.  The tail was a blur from vibrating so fast.  Of course it was too young to have any rattles, BUT it sure looked like a rattler rattling its tail.   That, plus the one who sprang up at RT convinced me that we had just released six rattlesnakes in our yard.

Now RT says anytime we find a snake on the property, I’ll blame him.   Even without the 6 baby snakes, there would still be the mama and papa snake around.  I still say he should have killed them all.  I don’t know for sure, but what if they really ARE rattlers?  The eggs were found under a rock - and that’s the type of habitat for rattlers.

I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture of the bucket of snakes before RT set them free.  But just the ideas of so many venomous snakes roaming around my new yard.  YIKES!