Tubs and Trix

9:30pm last night, Randy semi-jumps up and says, "Will you come outside and help me with something?"  Tucked in tight with two blankets (imagine burrito on the couch), in thermals, sweats, and triple layer socks, I whine, "What?  You want me to go out in the cold?"  Randy, mind made up (I saw that look in his eye, and knew this was going to happen), "I want to see if we can move the hot tub."

Randy and I have not used the hot tub that came with this house more than 10 times.  Honestly, when we were moving in, I was almost startled to see it in the backyard, I'd forgotten about it.  They may have considered it a selling point, but it pales in comparison to what the actual house had to offer me.  If it was housed in a sauna-type outbuilding, I'd appreciate it more.  I love hot, lobster skin-making baths!  But if there is wind or the possibility of chill, either while I am in the hot tub or getting out, it's a deal breaker for me.  It is a rare night that I wanted to get out of my warm clothes and into a swimsuit, walk in the outdoors to open the heavy cover, only to get warm, have to get out and cover up before air touches my water-droplet skin, put the heavy cover back on, and then walk back in the house to peel off my wet suit and dry off.  It just wasn't worth it to me.  What should be a relaxing thing felt anything but.

*Disclaimer: I will miss it when the Wilsterman's come over.  The kids used it a bunch when we'd come home from the pool.  They endearingly called it the "Hot Pool."  Seeing as they only come over a week or two in the summer, it was used maybe 10 times in a year between kids, and Randy and I every year.  The electricity, water, chemicals, and time Randy took to keep everything in check for it, simply to be ready, was just not worth it at all.*

Randy took some quick pictures and posted it on Facebook.  It was basically sold in less than an hour.  Randy, being Randy, started to regret offering it for that price.  "I was hoping to get $1,000 so I listed it at $1,500.  Now I wish I would have asked for more since it went so fast."  I would have paid someone to take it away...

So while I'm adding more layers, inwardly grumbling until I can outwardly grumble in his presence, Randy grabbed the tools that he wants/needs for two people to move an 8-person, 1,000-pound hot tub.  "He is coming tomorrow with 3 friends.  I just want to do most of the thinking of how we're going to move this tonight before they get here tomorrow."  Randy's "thinking" always involves "doing."  Remember that one time where he asked me to help him push the piano over to the door, to "see" if there was a possibility it would fit through the door directly onto a trailer he'd backed up to said door, and we ended up moving an entire piano from one house to the other all by ourselves?!  Well, imagine the two of us, lit by a single bulb in the dark of night, Randy with a moving dolly lifting with his body weight as I quickly placed furniture dollies under two sides, then him putting the moving dolly a third side as I pushed with all of my strength.  The exertion sounds, the grunts and breathes, could put any bodybuilding competition to shame, so loud were we was I.  Awesome.

Eighteen inches.  We moved a 1,000-pound hot tub-- all by ourselves-- eighteen inches.  We would have moved it more, but the wiring needed to be accessed and cut.  Granted, I make it sound like it took hours when it only took about 10- minutes, but it felt like hours as I froze and grunted and grumbled.  My mind was screaming, "What do I care if this guy gets here with his three friends and has a hard time moving this thing?  If we break it as we lift one side and then the other, then we're the ones that end up hauling this thing to the dump instead of selling it.  I don't want to be out here, at this time of night, freezing, so that four grown men have less time working on it tomorrow."  I'm telling you, I know that I am a petulant child when coerced (he never forces me to do it, but I know he's just crazy enough to do it himself, so I always help) to do something I don't really want to do, but it was cold, and I was sick of being cold after and entire day of chill.  Hence the thermals and sweats and two blankets wrapped tightly around me just 15 minutes before this nut-job idea came into Randy's head.

"Honey, thank you for doing that with me tonight.  I'll sleep better knowing I have a plan to help them tomorrow."  And just like that, I was done being annoyed.  "If you would have lead off with that, that it would help you sleep better, I would have done it willingly and without annoyance.  I'll always do stuff if it helps you."  I LOVE helping others, being someone people can count on for help, options, or knowledge, going out of my way to make others comfortable, but I do have my limits.  And that limit is getting cold apparently, which is the very reason that we're getting rid of this hot tub....

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I can't remember exactly how the conversation got to this point:

Tyson: "What?!  Trix has sugar?"

He may be able to do 7th grade math quicker than Brennon and Shelby (without ever being formally taught the principles and steps), but he doesn't know that Trix cereal contains sugar.  Interesting.

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 Notice the furniture dollies near the men's feet.  Randy's idea that they all commented helped out a bunch get get it in place. 

 Notice the lone man in the back, pushing that hot tub onto that trailer and out of his life.

I was ninja snapping my pictures from the warmth and cover of my closet window.  It was super windy, so there was no way I was going to get chilled taking my pictures.  It's nice to have it gone, nice to see the space, nice to not have the feelings attached, just nice.