Crawling in with the groundhog... and things that go bump in the night...

This morning I feel like I need to go back to bed. Yes, like the groundhog, I would like to crawl back into my nest. The longer I am up, the more tired I feel. Bring me coffee, lots of strong coffee.

Last fall we upgraded our Dish Network to a DVR. We love the thing. This winter we rarely stay up past 10:00 PM - all thanks to being able to watch whatever shows we want to when we want to.

So last night at 10:00 we had just settled into a nice warm preheated bed when we had to get back out again. We have the dishwasher that has two drawers. Tramp 1 had started the bottom one before we went to bed. It was making a very unusual sound - something really ugly was going on. So we had to check it out. That meant moving all the dishes out, taking out the rack and removing some other parts. We didn't find anything but turned it off to deal with in the morning. But when we shut the drawer, it started up again - and it was making a very loud sort of grinding sound. These dish drawers are usually whisper quiet. Not good, not good at all. So we shut it off again and left it open. We will be checking it all out at a later date...

We headed back to bed and were just drifting off, me with my radio headphones on, when we heard a low rumble. Even I heard it with my radio on. We live way out in the country, last house on a dead end road - you just don't hear much around here at night - or at any other time. I said I would get up to check and Tramp 1 said he would do it. I said again that I would be glad to do it and he said we could both go check. So he, being passive, went into another room to peek outside and I, being aggressive, headed straight out the front door. He didn't see anything - probably didn't even have his glasses on... I didn't step out the door very far as it was really chilling out there but I did still hear the low rumble. We went back to bed, agreed that we could both hear it and proceeded to drift off again.

Then Tramp 1 heard a noise - he never hears things first so I knew it had to be very real. He said it was a thump or something like that. He thought it was out in the living room. So up we both fly, out of bed and into action. I grab my robe and creep out behind him. Nothing out there. Now he is peering blindly out the window (again) and I head straight for all the flood lights that have switches in the family room and the area around the house is lit up like a prison yard escape scene. Nothing out there but dogs are going off down the road. So Tramp 1 pulls on some clothes, grabs his gun and a flashlight to do a perimeter check of the house and the shop. I hand him the clicker for the shop bay door and the key fob for the car with instructions to push the panic button if anything happens. And then I wait, and wait and pace, wondering what he is finding... or not finding out there.

When he did come back in, he said everything was okay - he did not find anything. We saw tracks the other day by our deck that looked like cougar and thought it might have come back and that could have been the thump he heard. So we turned off all the lights and went back to bed. I said that this time I wasn't getting up again - that I was old and tired - let'm come and get me! And we were lulled to sleep by the low rumble that was still going on somewhere out there in the dark of night.

Now I am going to pour another cup of hot coffee and pop a few chocolate espresso beans with it for a little extra power. Can't wait to see what tonight brings for us!