Adjusting to Life

We returned home safe and sound late Saturday night. What a great trip. We're still trying to get everything put away and get back into the routine. For some reason, when we got back to work, each of us had an easy first day back. That never happens, especially when I was at Sparrow! I think the fact that we had a lot of down time (at the pool.....taking naps....) meant we weren't so tired coming home, and that helped.

Here's a few more pictures of our final days on the road.....

Randy decided to try the low country boil. He LOVED it but boy was that ever a mess. We had to take him out and hose him down after that meal.

What remained of the best coconut cake I have EVER tasted.

Our last night in Charleston, we found this beautiful, huge park right on the waterfront. We walked all around it, enjoying the beautiful evening and sunset.

My dream house (Charleston, right across from the park/river).

Before we left Charleston, I took this picture from our balcony. We had a great view of the Charleston Yacht Club and the river, and directly below our room was a very nice patio and pool area.

Mom planned a surprise for Randy on the way home. We stopped in Mt. Airy, NC, which is where Andy Griffith is from. This is the place that Mayberry is based on. In his mind, Randy lives in Mayberry, so this was the absolute BEST surprise for him. We had lunch at Snappy's Lunch, which was full of Mayberry pictures and things.

Next door was Floyd's Barber Shop.

Can I just tell you that even on our wedding day Randy didn't smile THIS big??!?!

So we have tons of memories, about 1,000 pictures, a smaller bank account.....but it was worth it. We had a blast. Yes, I will be scrapbooking the trip. It will probably take a few years since I'm a few years behind, but I'll get to it someday.

On To Charleston

Yesterday we ate lunch at the Lady & Sons restaurant, Paula Deen's restaurant. It was sooooo good. It was a very pretty place, and it was very, very clean and had great service. We had the buffet and walked away feeling like we had just had Thanksgiving dinner. Her food was amazing.

We left town after lunch and headed towards Charleston. We quickly checked in to the hotel and got right over to the park where they had an aircraft carrier, a destroyer, a submarine, and a coast guard ship. We were so glad we went there. When do you ever get a chance to go on ships like that? It was amazing. It wore us out walking up and down all of those stairs and from one end to the other on every level.

This morning we got up early and went to a couple of plantations. The first was Middleton, which is owned by the girlfriend of Prince William. What an enormous place! We walked for miles and saw everything. Then we went pretty much next door (about 6 miles away!) to Drayton House, another plantation. They were very different places, so I'm glad we saw them both.

After that, it was back to downtown Charleston to see some of the beautiful homes down there. What history! And the gardens.....wow. We finally about fell over with exhaustion and just went back to the hotel for an early evening. We're so tired!

This has really turned into a great trip,. I think we're wearing out "the old people" as we call my parents, but they're hanging in there. As I write this, I'm sitting looking out our sliding glass door which leads to our balcony. We overlook the patio and pool and then just beyond that is the marina and river. It's so beautiful. Tomorrow we're sleeping in and then it's back to downtown to visit the open market. Did I mention we found a place that has the BEST coconut cake? I just love vacation!!!

Savannah - Day 3

Today we were up and at 'em pretty early to get downtown for the Paula Deen tour. We had a great tour guide who showed us all sorts of things related to Paula, such as her first restaurant location......

Where she and Michael got married in Bethesda......

And our last stop was Uncle Bubba's for lunch. Bubba is Paula Deen's brother. The food was good, but it was kind of a disappointment. It was a buffet that had just four things on it, and we were crammed into the smallest tables you've ever seen. Randy and I were on the end of the long row of tables, and my plate actually hung off the edge of the table. There were tons and tons of empty tables, so I don't understand why we were crammed in like that. Bubba came out as we were finishing up, and he invited us to take pictures with him. He seems like a very nice man. I grabbed his butt while we were taking the picture, and he didn't seem to mind at all.

After a trip back to the hotel for a short rest, we headed out to Tybee Island to spend some time at the beach. What a beautiful place. We could have spent a day there.

Then we went back to River Street. We found the the Waving Lady statue that we couldn't seem to find the other day. It's a very famous landmark in Savannah.

Savannah - Day 2

We were worn out from such a long travel day and then running all over yesterday, so today we decided to just take it easy. We slept in and then headed out for some exploring. Since both scrapbook stores in Savannah have recently closed, my family took pity on me and took me to JoAnn's and Michael's. The JoAnn's was teeny and dumpy, but the Michael's was all right. Bought a little bit of paper (like I need that), and that was about it.

On the way, though, we passed this cool place and decided to have lunch there. There was water coming down off the roof into a kind of moat around the place, full of oyster shells, tree limbs, and all sorts of nautical things. It was really a nice place, and the food was very good as well.

When we got back to the hotel, we decided a swim was in order.

Tonight we're either going to go on a River Dinner Cruise or sit in the room and think about my sister and her family, wishing they were here with us.

Savannah - Day 1

What a trip we're having! The weather has been just perfect, high 70's, low 80's. We had a long day getting down here, 16 hours total, but it was worth it to have just one day of driving. Today we got up and around and headed downtown. We jumped on a trolley car, one of those that is a tour but you can get off and on whenever you want.

Our first stop was this beautiful cathedral named for John the Baptist.

From there, we walked to Savannah's downtown graveyard, where they actually used to have duels. I guess that's one way to drum up business.

There was a lot to see, but this is what my Dad and my husband found most interesting.... a big stump.
From there, we jumped back on the trolley and headed to the waterfront. We shopped, we ate, and we walked and walked and walked and walked. We were tuckered at the end of it all. We got on the final trolley to go back to our car, and the driver asked us if we had a good day. My Dad yelled, "I didn't." The whole car cracked up. We weren't so sure if we should laugh, because I think he might have meant it. My Dad's not much of a shopper, so this wasn't his first choice of ways to spend the day. He did all right, though, and he was still making jokes at the end of the day, as tired as he was.

This was my favorite purchase. It's a rubber thing with weights on both sides. You lay it on top of an open book, with a weight on each page, and it keeps the book open so you can keep both hands free and still read. It's great for eating lunch. I'm so excited about this!

Dinner tonight was at the Pirate's House. I ate there about 15 years ago and had one of the best meals of my life. I went on and on about it so long that I was afraid I had built it up too much and my family wouldn't think it was that great. Well, the meals came, and everyone loved the food. Then my Mom said, "Well, that was about the worst meal I've ever had." So you see, my Dad isn't the only one in my family who makes wise cracks. Is it any wonder I'm the way I am?

We're Fighting

Mr. Love and I have the same fight several times each week. We break every rule about fighting when it comes to doing the dishes. We "right fight" as Dr. Phil says, meaning we are out to be right, not to resolve the issue. We talk over each other, we justify, beg, plead.....we even try to cut deals.

See, we don't have a dishwasher. Our dishwasher is the sink and a cloth, combined with elbow grease. Everyone hates to do dishes, right? Well, at our house we argue over who GETS to do the dishes.

I don't know how it all started, but I do believe it began right about the time I read "Proper Care and Feeding of a Husband" by Dr. Laura. I've now read it twice, and I can honestly say it changed me, and it changed my marriage.

Now, back to the dishes. We fight about it every single time there are dishes to do. One of us "calls it," and says, "I'm doing the dishes." Then the other person begins to argue. This goes on for a while until one of us runs for the kitchen. It's pretty much first person there gets to do it, and the other person sulks.

There have been twists along the way as well. Say we have a quick dinner and have to run out somewhere for the evening. We each have been known to sneak home and do the dishes to get ahead of the other person. This usually ends with one person coming through the door and announcing, "You're in big trouble!" And the other person plays dumb and acts like the dogs did the dishes while we were at work.

I'm so lucky to have my Mr. Love. What a great man who will fight with me over who "gets" to do the dishes. With the help of Dr. Laura, I just hope I can do as much for him.

Who Is Out of Touch?

I share with you tonight two stories. Randy says I make him look bad on the blog, so I'm going to share my own moment of idiocy so we have some equal time tonight.


Here's a picture of our house last Spring:

Here is a picture of our house tonight:

Do you see a difference? After living here 14 years, I honest to God pulled in the driveway and didn't notice the tree was gone. Now, in my defense, I was very busy gawking at the house directly across the street. The elderly lady that lived there forever passed away about three weeks ago, and already there's a for sale sign out front. I was looking at the sign and thinking how amazing it was that it was already on the market, and I just pulled in our driveway and went inside. Didn't notice that 20 foot tree missing in front.

I probably could have sold that story to my husband, but I made the mistake of stepping out on the porch and getting the mail. You guessed it, again the tree being gone escaped me.

You may wonder why we decided to remove the tree. It was such a selling point when I bought this house lo so many years ago. But, over the years, that tree just grew too big. It was dwarfing our front yard and porch, and so we decided it needed to go. Randy has plans for a "significant" landscape redo this year in our front yard, and, yes, there will be a new tree planted to take the place of the one we took down.

Now, on to Randy's situation. We watched "American Idol" taped from last night. Jason Castro did the Israel (unpronounceable/spellable last name) version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." This involved him playing the ukulele, and the song had quite an upbeat tempo. My Mr. Love didn't like it at all, and he said, "I never liked that song, not even when that fuzzy-haired guy sang it." It took me a minute, but I realized he was thinking of Tiny Tim singing "Tiptoe Through The Tulips." When I tried to explain to him that that was a different guy and a different song, he wouldn't believe me. So, I sang the original Judy Garland "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," and he INSISTED that that was NOT the song Jason Castro just sang, that Jason sang "Tiptoe Through The Tulips." By the end of this argument we were both about crying we were laughing so hard. Only my Mr. Love would confuse Judy Garland with Tiny Tim.

He's Back

My Mr. Love is home with me tonight. Yay! I asked him to go up to the attic to get a couple of things down for me. Here's our attic....

It's actually very big and open. Randy installed a pull-down ladder last fall, so we've now started using the space for extra storage. Of course, I took pictures and made a scrapbook layout of the whole thing.

So, returning to tonight. After he got up there, I said in what I thought was a pretty loud voice, "Everyone who sees my scrapbook is amazed at how much space we have up there."

To which my Mr. Love replied, "Now, who died?"

Gotta love my Mr. Love.

Nothing Much

Things have been quite quiet here at casa del Willett. Mr. Love has been gone every night this week, so here I sit alone.

I know I haven't been blogging much, but with my prime source of entertainment out running the roads, I have very little material.

So, on to other topics. I will tell you that I'm very happy with the developments on American Idol. It was about time Ramiele was gone. I couldn't believe she lasted that long. Bub-bye, Ramiele.

Next I predict Kristy will go. Not much of a leap with that prediction, since she's been in the bottom 3 just about every week.

Who do I like? Hmmmm....I like quite a few of them. That little David Archeleta is so stinkin' cute I'd like to just put him in my pocket. I hear his Dad is quite a handful.....let's hope he doesn't ruin the kid's career before it gets started.

Then there's the other David, David Cook. I couldn't stand him at first because he reminded me so much of my old boyfriend Brad. That hair. Yuk. Still don't like the hair, but that child can SING. Every week I like him more and more, and I hope he sticks around a while. He won't win, but I think he'll outlast some of the others.

I also am head over heels for Michael Johns. He even has a cool singer name....say it with me.....ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Michael Johns!! Nice voice and nice to look at....I think he's getting better all the time and could go to final 2.

I still miss Amanda. My favorites never win. Last year I loved, loved, loved Melinda Doolittle. She went far, but she's dropped off the face of the earth as far as I can tell. So, here's to my little losers, Amanda and Melinda....

I was just proofing the blog before I posted, and, after looking at those pictures in a row like that, with the little "American Idol" at the bottom of each picture, I think they look an awful lot like mug shots.

So, who are YOU hoping will win? Who do you want to see go next? Will Simon ever wear something the least bit interesting? Will Paula ever stop drinking during the whole show? Will Randy (please for the love of God) ever stop saying "Dawg?"

I leave you with one last AI thought. Last night when Dolly was on, she made a comment about working with Paula sometime in the past. She then said something about the two of them getting along so well because they're both such little people. Did you notice that Ryan is only about 2 inches taller than Dolly? I wonder if he caught that line.....Kind of gives credibility to the short jokes they make on the "Soup."