My Husband is Never Going Away Again for the Weekend! What are the Odds it Would Snow??

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

My husband is out of town for the weekend. He is being a good uncle and went to see our nephew (his godson) play football in one of his last games as a senior in high school.  I actually was happy that he got a chance to go and Thursday when he left, I was even counting down the minutes until he departed for the airport.  It wasn’t that I wouldn’t miss him, but all morning on Thursday, he was in my way. I went in the kitchen to make my oatmeal and there he sat on MY seat sipping that darn coffee. Next, I tried to get in the bathroom twice to take my shower and both times he was still in there, which can mean a couple of things and neither of them is good. Either I am going to need the Industrial strength Glade Tough Odor Solutions Spray or the heat he is generating in the shower, by using all of the hot water, has caused him to lapse into a relaxed state where time has no meaning.

 

My husband rarely travels, but when he does, I consider it sort of a mini vacation. I don’t have to think about cooking dinner, although he will tell you “think” is mostly what I do when it comes to cooking. I think about how to get out of doing it, but even that gets old after a while.  I can read in bed until all hours of the night or at least until 11:00 pm when I usually start dozing off.   If I want to take up his half of the bed with my books, magazines, the phone, my purse, or the remote control, no one comes to bed and says, “would you mind clearing your desk off, so I can get under the covers?’ right when I am in the middle of something good.

 

What almost always happens during my “mini vacations” is something goes wrong in a BIG way.  I consider myself a very independent woman and would have no problem driving cross-country, by myself, in a reliable car, but ask me to open a bottle of medicine with a child safety lock and we have a problem.  I have recently resorted to buying my Advil with the new Arthritis caps because they just unscrew. When I hang a picture, I use the old eyeball technique. My method results in more holes in the wall, but I find it is faster than watching a man with a level, stud finder, pencil, and ruler trying to find the exact location to put the nail. Pound the nail already is what I say! I mow the grass, but if the mower runs out of gas, I cannot figure out to make the gas can work. In the old days, you just poured it right into the mower, but my husband has a new one that you have to push something and pull something and unlock something and by the time I figure it out I have gas running down my pant legs into my shoes. I would say a prayer and light a candle, but I am afraid that would be the end of me.

 

We moved into our house in 2004 and the thermostat is so complicated, you have to have a PhD in Air Conditioning and Heating systems to figure it out. Even the last technician we had come to the house asked to see the manual.  What this means is that my husband is the only one who knows how to operate our temperature settings.  He has tried to show me, but usually I hear the word “Programmable” and his voice gets fuzzy. He has come home from work to find me in my bra and underwear fanning myself vigorously with the latest edition of his Velo News and he knows instantly to turn the thermostat down, unless he wants me to walk around like that all night. All this can work in his favor too, because he can avoid some repairs by convincing me it is not that serious. For years, any time we had a leak anywhere, he would tell me it was condensation, until one time I had the condensation up to my ankles and told him that did not seem right.

 

Because my husband knows all this about me, naturally he is the first one I blame when he is gone and something goes wrong. This time two things happened. Our weather has gotten much colder. Earlier this month, when it was warmer, I had been walking the dogs up at the park. The last time we went I pulled twelve ticks off of Vern and we stopped going.  I have come a long way with ticks from the first time I discovered one under my daughter’s arm and screamed hysterically for quite awhile until someone had to slap me to bring me back to my senses. Not really, but I certainly did not send my daughter the message that everything would be fine and mommy had it all under control, when I was shrieking, “YOU HAVE A TICK. WHAT DO I DO?” over and over again.  I decided yesterday since the temperatures had dropped so dramatically that the ticks had all probably left to winter in Florida and it was safe to go back to the park. Unfortunately, my reasoning proved incorrect and my daughter, known around these parts as Doomsday Dana (what DD really stands for in my blogs), did all but ring a bell each and every time she spotted a tick on Vern or Fudge.  I kept telling her I preferred the “Don’t Look, Don’t Tell” policy regarding ticks and that way I could sleep easier in a total, peaceful state of denial, but she continued to call for me to help.

 

The next bad thing to happen and I kept asking myself, “what are the odds?” is we had a winter storm in October.  I didn’t even get the 5000 leaves blown off of the driveway, because I can’t operate the leaf blower, and now my incompetence at operating the snow blower rears its ugly head. Of course, the first thing my daughter said when she got up was that they were calling for power outages which, for me, is the equivalent of announcing the world is coming to an end that day and automatically pushes my blood pressure to stroke level.  Plus, everyone knows, once you say it out loud it is going to happen. Looking around to see what we needed to get us through an outage, I realized we were out of bottled water and we decided to run to the store before the roads got much worse. Mind you, I was out the night before at the Hallmark store, but it never crossed my mind to stock up on supplies for a Nor’easter when I could buy Christmas wrapping paper and a cute picture frame for one of Fudge and Vern’s pictures instead. What happened next was one of the most harrowing moments in my life and the weekend only continued to get worse!

 

To find out what happened, stay tuned for part two.

 

Nothing says Halloween like snow:

Fudge and Vern Seem Very Upset About the Snow:

Don't Worry Guys! I'm Right Here!!

Look at the limbs bending on our tree!!

 

[Doris, Knox & Flash]

That untimely snow must have been CRAZY!  I don't know how I would have handled it, being that I'm kinda whimpy when Mother Nature throws me a curve ball, like she did you!  Really sorry that Fudge and Vern hated it so much...

 

Hope your DH gets home soon -- he OWES you BIG TIME!! haha

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Jennifer. You are right about the thermostat, except he never says anything about turning it up or down :) He has lived with a menopausal woman for awhile now and knows what is best for him...LOL!!!

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

Wow, the trees sure look pretyy (sorry)

You are right on with the picture hanging in our house it is a long process, first it has to sit around for 3 months and then he'll pop off the couch and decide to do it "real quick" (I threaten that I'm going to hang it myself)

You really need to figure that thermostat out-you cannot give him total control over that!!! Ours would never be on except fot the dogs they get heat, not me!

Vern looks wild and crazy in that snow. Sorry you got hit with that in October, love the pumpkin!!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Ricki, The pumpkin is history tomorrow :) I love all of your titles...much better than mine...LOL! DH is home and back on duty. Yippee!!

Pat, Thanks. I have vowed to find the old kind gas can at some antique store somewhere..LOL!! Either that or I am retiring from mowing the yard.

[Pat and Traveler]

Ah, Laurie!  I'm still laughing.  I tend not to trust anything programmable and once bought a new gas can, then carefully poured the gas back into the old one as the new one must have been manufactured by the same company that supplied you with yours.  The dogs look like they're having a marvelous time!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

I'm surprised the pumpkin in the first pic doesn't have a frowny face!! LOL! I guess pumpkins and doodles know how to have a good time REGARDLESS! Hope your DH is home by now and back on duty!  Can't wait to read part two of the continuing drama of... As the Doodles Turn or is it the Bold and the Doodleful?  The Imperfect Storm? LOL!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Lisa, I had no idea I would be braving it without my DH until it happened...LOL!! I guess we were just lucky!! The dogs were happy.

Karen, Thank you for the sympathy :) I will say the dogs were very tired every night from running wild in the snow. They were almost giddy when I opened the door in the morning. Power has finally been restored and so has my sanity, at least in my opinion. LOL

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

OMD, wondered about you and your location, had no idea you would be braving it without DH, I do find it very strange that this "winter" storm jumped over OH....however, I imagined getting the snow (much like F. imagines) and voila, no snow here.

Tell Fudge and Vern Daisy is really envious...ugh, I love the first snow but would not love it now.

Can't wait for part two!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I totally sympathize with you Laurie, as I also cannot work the snowblower, I request a non-safety cap on all pill bottles, and I have to ask my DD for help with anything that needs to be charged or updated. And if I saw a tick on any child or dog of mine I would probably run around in circles yelling "OMG, a tick! What do I do?? Who do I call??"

The suspense of waiting for Part 2 is killing me, as I don't see how things could get any worse. But at least the doodles seem to be enjoying themselves. Vern in particular looks like he is having the time of his life. So maybe it will all turn out okay?

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Nancy, You always feel my pain....LOL!! Yes, I am blaming the whole thing on him.