THE "CHARMED LIFE" STORY TO END ALL STORIES

I know I have posted several stories about my husband's "charmed life".  You may have believed me, but maybe some of you have just thought he was lucky a few times.  This story will make you a believer.

Some of you may know that we have been considering retirement.  Friday my husband told me that his boss had sent him an email and said he was going to call him that afternoon.  His boss had told him that he was going to try to talk him out of retiring, so I wondered if this was that phone call.  My husband is on a 2 month sabatical from work, and his boss lives in another state, so I wondered what was going on.  I had to go shopping that afternoon and got back about 4pm.  My husband came up to me and said, "Well.....do you...???" I said, "Do you want me to read your mind, because I can and I know you're talking about whether I want to know what your boss said, and yes, I do."  Then I said, "Wait, let me guess.  He wants you to continue to work here in town." (We think the job offer will be in another state.)  He said no.  I said, (and I was saying this as a joke), "He wants you to go ahead and retire and they're going to continue to pay you."  He said, "You're close."  I thought, "WHAT!?!"  I said, "Then I give up."  He said, "He was required to call me in person because our company just got a new policy for high-end managers.  He has to call every high-end manager in person to make sure they know this.  They just passed a new policy for high-end managers that when they retire they get a full year's extra salary."  I said, "Oh my gosh!!!  See, I told you you have a charmed life!!!!!" 

Now, we haven't decided yet if we are going to retire.  His boss is still going to come talk to him in July.  If he does, we'll listen to what he has to say.  If he never gives him an offer, or if we don't like the offer, then we'll go ahead and retire, and this new announcement will sure sweeten the pot! :0)

Now, are you a believer? :0)

CHARMED SOCKS

Ok, remember how I've been posting about my husband's "charmed life"?  Well, we just got all our boxes of stuff from Ireland on Tuesday  and have been trying to open a few everyday.  My first priority has been to get the clothes out and hang them up.  I had opened a few boxes, but you know, I can only make so many trips up the stairs every day, so I hadn't gotten to all of them.  Wednesday morning, my husband came downstairs and said, "I need some white work socks!"  I said to him, "Well, you're the one with the charmed life, go open one of those boxes, and I'm SURE you'll just pick the one with your socks in it."  He opened one box and sure enough, there were his socks. 

Need I say more?

TEXAS WEATHER

Last weekend when we went to visit my husband's mother, we drove in some horrible weather.  About 30 minutes after we left, it started raining.  Within an hour we were driving in some pretty hard rain.  It takes about 9 hours to drive to my mother-in-law's house, and we drove in rain all the way there.  Not just rain, hard rain. All. The. Way.  I have to be thankful, first that we had a big truck to drive in.  I would have hated to have driven that in a smaller car.  The other thing I was thankful for is that we never had to pull over because we couldn't see.  It did rain hard, really, really hard, but our wipers did well and we could see at least good enough to drive.  There were several times that we did slow down, and one time we were even in a long line of cars that were doing about 35 mph because the rain was so hard.  When we got to one of the bigger towns where we were going to eat lunch, the intersections were so flooded, the rain came up to our doors, and we have a big F150 Ford Crew Cab.  Once again, sure glad we were in that truck.  We did make it to my mother-in-law's ok without any incident, of which again I am thankful.

Coming home we didn't have any rain at all.  However, about 2 hours from home we ran into a hail storm!  I was driving and it was hailing so hard that I knew I had to pull over.  Think of the physics.  If you're driving 65-75 mph and the hail is the size of large marbles.... Another reason I knew I had to pull over is because all the truck drivers were pulling over.  And let me just tell you something right now - if the truck drivers pull over because of weather, you do the same.  They know what they're doing.  We sat there watching it hail and listening to the hail hit our brand new truck and we were just cringing, thinking of what it was doing to our truck.  We had several very large hailstones hit the top of the cab of the truck.  I told my husband to look out and see if he could see what size the large ones were.  They were golfball size.  Finally it stopped enough where we (and all the other cars pulled over) decided to start going again.  We had only gone about 1/2 a mile and we got into another (or maybe the same) hail storm!  This time it was hailing harder and the hailstones were literally covering the ground.  It looked like snow!  We had more golfball-size hailstones hit the top of the cab.  It was interesting that the bigger ones were only hitting the top of the cab and not the hood of the truck, but I was glad.  I figured if it left a dent, no one would really see it.  My husband was just freaking out!  I knew he was worrying about his truck.  Finally it let up a bit, but no one was moving.  I decided that since no one had parked in front of me (they were all behind me) that I would keep my flashers on and try driving on the shoulder.  I could see sunlight ahead and figured if I went another 1/2 mile or so I would drive out of it.  I think I only had to go about 1/4 mile and I finally got out of it so I could pull back onto the highway and speed back up.  I had to go slow at first, because the highway was literally covered with hailstones and you could tell it was slippery.  But after a couple minutes, we drove out of it.  When we got home, we checked the top of the cab.  My husband said he could see a very small dent in the top of the cab, but I was on the side he said it was on and I couldn't see it at all. Also no dents anywhere else on the truck. I told him that his "charmed life" was once again paying off. :0) (See "LIVING A CHARMED LIFE" - April 8th post.)

THE SMELL OF MONEY$$$

We went to Texas last weekend to visit my husband's mother.  We decided to take a short cut that Twist uses when he comes to my house.  I can't remember how much time he said it saved, but this day we were wanting to cut some time (I'll tell why in another post).  When you go the way that is Interstate all the way, you go through Amarillo and go past the stockyards.  The smell is pretty bad and usually I hurry and either turn off the a/c or change it to where it just circulates within the car.  When we took the shortcut, we found out that we have to pass several stockyards in the various small towns we go through. That plus all the oil wells we pass, provides a rather "smelly" ride.  I had to at least be glad that the cotton gins weren't running or that would have really topped things off.  Everytime we go past a stockyard, an oil well, or a running cotton gin and I have to hurry and change or turn off the a/c, I have to remind myself that what I am smelling is MONEY!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$  :0)

FINDING NEMO

Now that we're home from Ireland, my husband has started his "sabatical".  In the company he works for, every 7 years you get a 2 month paid vacation that they call a "sabatical."  The year that we went to Ireland my husband was due for his sabatical, and had originally planned on taking it in the fall.  Since he started traveling to Ireland in July- 2 weeks in Ireland, 2 weeks in the States (and so on) - he wasn't able to take his sabatical.  If you are on foreign assignment you are not allowed to take your sabatical until you are home, so we delayed our sabatical for 2 years.  He also decided that he would take his 2 month sabatical and his 3 weeks of vacation, so he will not have to go back to work until the 4th week in July.  We have a few trips planned to go see both of our parents and our daughter, but that's really all we have planned so far.  Mainly we are just enjoying being home.

I have heard complaints from lots of people who when they retire, they sort of get "sick" of each other because they spend so much time together. I think I may have the opposite problem. We have 2  detached garages - one on each side of our house.  One garage is my husband's wood shop and the other garage is the garage for our cars, my husband's workbench and tools, a riding lawn mower, and other storage items.  One day I went out to find him to tell him that I was going to go to the store.  I went to the wood shop but he wasn't there.  I started across the backyard to the other garage and then saw him coming out of it.  I told him he needed to wear a bell, so I'd know where he was.  :0)  Sometimes I have even just called him on his cell phone because I couldn't find him and had walked all over the front and backyard (he was at our neighbor's house - who is a retired real estate lawyer).  I have to make sure that at lunch time I go out and find him and ask him if he's ready for lunch or he'll forget to eat.  One day I went to lunch with some friends.  I came back at 1:45 and he was in the car garage.  I asked him if he had eaten lunch.  He hadn't.  (Ok, so part of the problem is he is helpless.)  I never know where he'll be, especially right now that he has so many projects and things he is trying to get done.  I had to remind him the other day that we actually have to sit down and make the plans for our trips, because other people are waiting on us to decide when we are going and how long we are staying for each one. 
Nope, I don't think I'll have to worry about him driving me crazy when he retires.  I think it's definitely time to get that intercom system installed between the house and the 2 garages though.