Snakes on the property

My weeknights usually consist of coming home from work, cooking or ordering dinner, and hanging out with Jerry while watching some prime time shows. I used to have weekly margarita nights with the girls at "our" Mexican restaurant but we all have significant others now and getting together isn't always the first things on our minds. We still go out on the weekends every now and then so it's okay that dinners get skipped sometimes.

The other night I decided to crash my friend's weekly ritual with her mom to do some bargain shopping. 

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Because Goodwill is the place to find bargains.

Being the shop-aholic that I am, I knew I didn't need to buy any clothes so I figured I could just browse the houseware section and find something cute for the house. I ended up finding some really cute picture frames after walking down the next aisle. I got four for $4.

My bestie, Lauren, her mom, and two sisters showed up by then so I browsed the clothes with them. Wednesdays are 99 cent days so there were bound to be some good bargains somewhere. I found a cute Miley Cyrus tank but the rest of my clothes that I tried on did NOT look good on me. I always try to find the retro-kind of out of style-but I know I could make it work with a tank, jewelry,and heels-outfit but nothing looked good. I decided to go back to the houseware section. And guess what?! I lucked upon a spoon rest or whatever the heck those things are called that you sit on the stove while stirring things in pots. It was super cute and only 45 cents so I had to buy it.

I continued to walk down a couple of more aisles in the back of the store and I lucked upon some more things. I found two large brown-colored planters, a green one that was a little smaller, and three small ceramic pots. The three big ones I'll use for the back patio and the three small ceramic pots I will put on the steps walking up to the front porch. They were all super cheap too.

It was getting around 7:30 pm and Goodwill closes at 8 so I decided to go ahead and check out. As I was standing in line, this little girl was rocking in this wicker chair. And let me tell you, it was pretty gosh darn adorable. It had rounded legs and looked like it would rock pretty far back. It was only $25 so I decided to buy it. I decided before purchasing these things that I'm going to spray paint it white to brighten it up. I'm going to have one busy weekend! Since Lauren and her mom and sisters were in the fitting rooms, I had to ask if one of the workers could help me out to the car because I couldn't really carry the rocking chair and my other bags by myself. They got some boy to help me to my car and getting it inside to make sure it would fit and as we were heading back, he tries to ask me out.

Boy: "So what do I get for helping you to your car?"
Me: ".........."
Boy: "I mean, do I get a cup of coffee or something?"
Me: "..........No.........."
Boy: "Well we could meet up with other people too if you want."
Me: Obviously flashing my ring at him, "I don't think so."
Boy: "Maaaan. Well I guess that's okay. I've been shot down more times than I can count on my hands."
Me: ".........."

Then I just walk back in and wait for the others to finish shopping. Luckily I didn't see him any other time otherwise it might have been awkward.

So I drive back home all pumped about the rocking chair. Our driveway is pretty steep so I had planned to pull in the garage about halfway so I had room to open the door behind the passenger side all the way to get it out without being slammed by the door. As I opened the door, I heard this rustling noise. I closed it back because I thought I maybe had hit the overgrowing bushes next to the sidewalk but then I see a SNAKE. He hesitates a little then moves like an inch, hesitates again, moves, and then squirms inside our garage. Thankfully he didn't go directly straight inside. He wiggles his way in the corner next to the sensor for the garage behind some board we had propped up that the previous owners had left behind. So I leave my door open to the car and dash inside. I had flip flops on so I wasn't about to let my curiosity out.

I begged Jerry to just shoot the thing but considering our garage has a concrete floor, it probably would have ricocheted and hit us on accident. Jerry looked up pictures of snakes from my description of "it looks almost like a cheetah print" and found that it might be a copperhead. 

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And they are poisonous. Fun!! One article told us that if the head of the snake was round, that it was not a killer but if it was diamond shaped at all that we needed to call for help because their venom can be deadly.

I wasn't sure it was still there when we went back out. I banged our broom on the board. No movement. I banged it in several spots and still nothing. I put some boots on while I was inside so I got brave and decided to try and move the board. As soon as it began to angle away from the corner, I heard rustling. So our snake friend was definitely still there. There weren't any exterminators open at 11 pm so we pretty much had to wing it. Rather than trying to get it out ourselves, we decided to just move both cars in the driveway and leave the garage door open just a few inches and pray it likes the wild better than our garage. After we moved our cars though, Jerry could see its' head with a flashlight and it was rounded so that was somewhat of a relief. But I was still a load of nerves. I didn't want to leave it for fear it would get in our house somehow. But what else were we to do? We later found out that it was just a harmless rat snake. See how similar they look?

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In the morning, Jerry checked all over the garage and their were no signs. We figured he was lurking around our mole holes in the yard. We bought some mole repellant to get them to leave our yard without killing them so maybe the snakes will follow. I heard moth balls and egg shells help keep them away so maybe we'll give that a shot.