Down on the ranch

Since none of you has asked me a question for my Why Don’t We? series, I will have to resort to one of my former (albeit short-lived)series called SC Weekly (SC an acronym for stream of consciousness).  For this series, I basically just sat down at the computer and wrote whatever was on my mind, which I guess isn’t really too different from any of my normal posts, except maybe a little more mundane.  Here goes…

Tess and I have been home all spring break by ourselves since the boys of the fam decided to ditch us and go backpacking in the deserts of southern Texas and Shay is off frolicking on band tour in Disney World, Florida.  So if you are a pillager and/or a plunderer, and you are reading this post right now, do not plan a raid on my house because my 120 pound, very mean dog with sharp teeth, and my very scary father will declare war on your sorry selves and you will pillage and plunder no longer.  Don’t believe my Dad is scary?  Read this.  So, as I was saying, there have only been two of us at the ranch for the last several days and it has been absolutely splendid.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my normal life and all the flurry that goes with my children and family, but the temporary freedom that the lack of this has created, has been absolutely divine.  And I am so enjoying it because it is new and different, but I wouldn’t want it like this for always.  Here are the things I have been loving:  Tess and I cleaned the house on Monday and it is still clean!  I really really like my house clean and we have been trying not to move around very much in it—or even cook very much—so that it stays in this pristine state.  We have eaten lunch out of the house every day and today we even snuck our own little picnic into Movies 12 at 11:25 a.m.for a matinee (really?  who goes to a movie in the morning?!), but we ate it very quietly, crunching our chips oh so softly, so that the other two people in the theater would not report us for violating the rules cause it would be a big bummer if Tess and I got thrown in the slammer when the boys were out of cell range.  Tonight, I actually did cook for the first time all break.  But I buffed up the stainless real nice when I was done so it looked like no one had even used it. I made grilled cheese sandwiches and we finished up 2 week old chili which I hope doesn’t send either of us to the hospital for food poisoning.  I’m feeling pretty good right now. We also got to run together this morning and talk about Cain and Abel and who Cain would have married after he murdered his brother because it says that Cain was the father of Enoch and ummm… since Cain’s parents were the only couple on earth at the time, he would have had to marry a sister…oooooh.  And this afternoon, we sat on the porch in the warm sunshine and she read and I wrote and it felt like summer. Tonight, while Tess was at work, I took the dog for a walk in the dark.  I really didn’t want to walk him in the dark, but we agreed to walk him daily since he is getting fat (still very ferocious, though), and I hadn’t walked him yet.  So while I was walking him in the pitch darkness on our lonely road, two cars came at me, and I had to make sure they didn’t hit me or the dog or the cat who was following me, so I ran and picked up the cat hoping not to get killed and while this was all happening and my life was being endangered, Shay called me from Florida to say hi but that she couldn’t talk long because her band teachers were going to be bungee jumping right outside the hotel pretty soon. What?  She seemed to be a having a fabulous time. 

So, that about sums it up; my simple life on the ranch, in a nutshell. a big nutshell. maybe like a brazil nut.