Last Week

Well last week Brad went back to work. He went back on Wednesday, and now we're back to reality. He also had signed up to have the duty truck (trouble truck) the day that he went back. And this entails him going to work his normal hours and then bringing home a trouble truck and basically being on-call from the time he gets off of his normal hours, until he starts the next morning. And this lasting for a week. A week you say? That doesn't seem so long? But oh man, it's been a long week - and it isn't even over yet. So far he has worked 40 hours of overtime alone in 5 days, plus his 24 hours of regular work - so 64 hours in 5 days! It probably wouldn't have been so bad - but we're going from him being home all of the time to him not being home at all. It's all or nothing with our family!

So Brad's mom came up to visit on Wednesday - which worked out perfect for the kids and for me. Brad did end up working a little late, and got home around 7pm. Well as he was outside cleaning up around the perimeter of the house, he started to hear a rattle - and lo and behold - our first rattlesnake. Brad had moved the garbage can to throw some stuff away that had blown into our yard, and as he was moving the garbage can back into place - he started hearing the rattling. He looked and saw that the snake had already coiled up and so he grabbed a shovel and took care of business. The snake had six rattles on it, so it was six years old. And our garbage cans are right up close to the house, right by the garage. I was pretty freaked out to say the least. It was very scary to have a rattlesnake up by the house, but was even more scary is that the kids and I had just been out there a hour or two earlier! We were waiting for Brad's mom to come back to our house, so we were right by where the snake was. Ugh, I can't even think about it. So needless to say - I've been having nightmares about rattlesnakes!