Monday, October 3, 2011

The house goes quiet.

Living the graveyard life.


Website for this image

Graveyard Secrets Part Two
gemmamawdsley.wordpress.com

If you have been following along, you know that the man
recently got a job at a company he has wanted to work for a long time.
He now works the graveyard shift.

Acclimating our selves to this shift is a challenge.
I've worked graveyard myself in the past
and have no trouble with it.
I am a night person.

The man is not really.
He's been a 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM guy for a long time.
A day worker and a napper.
His body wants to be awake if its light...
or to sleep in short bursts.

There were concerns...
when to eat what meal, when to take medications,
when to do the banking and bill paying, etc.
Everything we do needed to be tweeked.

I think we've got it now.
He goes to work... I go to bed.
I get up... he comes home.
We have a brief interlude of time where I 
serve him diner and a drink.
He chews and sips, grunts out short responses
to the questions that I have.

I am careful to have the house calm when he gets home.
I close off all the light that I can so that inside,
it is dusky.
It doesn't take long for him to nod off...
when I encourage him to go to bed.

Roxy and I have things down.
The man leaves and we secure the house.
Roxy does a quick yard patrol and probably her business
then comes back inside to lay on the floor at my feet
until I start to get sleepy.

I go to my bed... she goes to hers.
The house goes quiet.
In the morning, I hop up and make his diner.
Roxy checks out the yard and does her thing.
When the man pulls up...
we are both waiting and wiggly,
happy that he has come home.
Roxy wiggles more... I'm still drinking coffee.

Its not ideal.
I could have altered my schedule to match his.
But I am job hunting and that is a daytime endeavor.
I can do the shopping, billy paying, etc.
And really, when he's done for the day,
he needs sleep more than me.

 So far it seems to work well.
He eventually wakes up in the early evening.
We have time then to visit and enjoy each others company,
watch a game or whatever. 

But it is different.
I have a lot of time alone with Roxy.
We say good-night to him in the morning
and remove ourselves to the shop or outside...
so that the house can again go quiet.

BTW...
We did hunt yesterday for half a day.
Neither the man or I even got a shot off.
One of the guys in our party
got a small deer... a very young one.
He is handicapped and the rules for him are different.
The same guy also got some grouses...
however you spell it.
I didn't know that you don't pluck them...
you skin them.
Interesting.


But we'll go again next weekend...
and so on until the season ends.
Hopefully we can make the freezer fat.
That is the point.
Its the same reason we feed the freezer fish.

I'd love to say that we save tons of money.
With fishing we do.
Not so with hunting... which is expensive.
Did I enjoy myself?
As much as anyone could standing in the forest
getting wet from the drizzle.
I'm hoping it won't rain next time. 



9 comments:

  1. why is hunting expensive? iin what way?

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  2. NoRegrets- Its all the fees. Together, our licenses to fish and hunt deer cost $150.00. On top of that we have to buy tags... another $50.00 total. Then there was my rifle, and I don't even want to say what that cost. Ammo for him is fairly cheap, but mine costs about $27.00 a box and it took me two boxes to get my scope sighted in correctly, so we bought two more. Another $20.00 to use the range to sight the scope. Not to mention gas to get there and batteries for the radios we already own to communicate with each other so we don't shoot each other. Ha.

    However, having said all that, I will not have to buy another rifle and the man can load my bullets once he has the right caliber casings, so we will reuse my casings from now on. Its a matter of getting the whole set up, then its not so bad.

    It sure would have been cheaper to buy half of a cow for the freezer. But not nearly as much fun. Besides, nothing tastes like venison. Elk is close to beef.

    There is a saying here that "tag soup" doesn't taste very good... meaning you have to get a deer out of it, or it's pretty sorry eating.

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  3. Hmmmmm. I worked graveyard a few times, as a security guard, and it wasn't too easy for me to get used to sleeping as much as I needed to during daylight hours. Some adjust more easily than others, of course, and you seem to be helping as much as MY WIFE did, which is (was) a lot. Best of luck!

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  4. Suldog- Thanks! We'll give it our best shot. Last night the man asked if there was a chance he would be kept on after Jan. His boss slyly said
    "Don't piss me off and you'll be fine." So that was a relief. I told the man that I'll bake goodies for the crew. Everybody likes the guy who brings goodies.
    As for sleep, yeah, he's having a hard time with it.

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  5. It's tough to combine two different schedules like that. I hope it's only temporary.

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  6. Sorry to hear about the graveyard shift, but it's better than no job. Your hubby is lucky he's getting so much help from you in adjusting to his new hours. If it were me, I'd get no help at all.

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  7. Sounds tough. Hope you guys can keep the romance alive at least a little.

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  8. secret agent woman- It is hard, but we are managing okay. The weirdest thing is making diner for him at 9:00 AM.

    Cube- You have that right! On both counts. I think its because we are women and we are supposed to be the adapters. Why is that?

    3GirlKnight- I really do love your blog name. Its not too bad. As for romance... I'll find a way. =;]

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  9. I don't know, I guess it's because I'm the one that's supposed to make everything happen... you know the clean dishes, the folded laundry, the floors magically clean... if they were to see me sleeping during the day, I know there would be a lot of dropped things and noisy events. No way would they tiptoe around my sleeping habits. They never have in the past, why should they start now?

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