Adventures in singlemotherhooding it.

My text to Mike one fateful evening:
MIIIIIIIIKE!!!!!Bird trauma.Call ASAP.  

Here's the story.  I came home from work the other day and the house was a little chilly so I decided I should light a fire, cuz I'm super handy like that.  Audrey was at work, Goose was feeding her goats, Grant was out riding his bike and Elsie was downstairs with me.

I noticed there was already a lot of newspaper in the stove, but I didn't think much of it--I figured someone was going to light a fire earlier and decided not to.  I opened the stove and started to add kindling to the paper and then decided I should probably wad the paper back up tighter so I reached in and out flew a bird!!!
Right at my face.

Let us pause here for a moment and discuss my feelings towards birds.  Birds are fine.  Birds are beautiful and majestic.  I have absolutely no problem with birds...as long as they are not in or any where near MY SPACE.  I don't like birds swooping down near me.  I don't like birds fluttering by me.  Is that so wrong??
And let me be VERY clear here...my house is most definitely MY SPACE.
 
So, the bird is flying around the room, Elsie and I are both screaming and the cats (Gertie and Ethel) are trying to figure out what is going on.  The bird crashes into the window over by the freezer and Gertie jumps up and grabs it.  So now we have Elsie and I screaming Gertie with the flapping bird and Ethel still trying to figure out what is going on.  By this point Elsie had run into the bathroom for cover and was just peeking out the door, I was by the back door trying to decide if I should just leave the house all together and let the bird take over.

Gertie takes the flapping bird into Elsie and Grant's room.  I had gained enough composure to tell Elsie to go shut the bedroom door so at least then the bird and the cat would be trapped in a room and I could call someone for help.

She is telling me she can't and I am trying to convince her she can...after some frantic discussion between the two of us she takes a step or two out of the bathroom when suddenly the bird escapes from Gertie, flies out of the bedroom and starts flying around the family room again.

I opened the back door, not totally sure if it was for my freedom or the bird's, (alright fine! It was for me--but I decided not to abandon Elsie) so I had the door opened all the way and I was cowering behind it trying to decide what to do next when the bird must have seen the escape route and flew out.

WHEW!

After Elsie confirmed that it did indeed fly out I slammed the door shut and we hugged each other ....it was at this point that she told me,
"Oh yeah, Grant said there was a bird in the stove."

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?

This tidbit of information would have been good to know about five minutes prior.  Needless to say, I did not start a fire that night.  And my throat was sore for a few days from all the screaming I did.  And Mike could hardly stop laughing when I told him of the encounter.

It was traumatic, but I think I'll recover.  The bird, however, may never be the same and will regret the day it flew down our chimney for the rest of it's little bird life I'm sure. 

So....Here's some news.

A mere four days after I sent a tiny piece of my heart to Mexico a sent another piece of my heart to Boise.
Granted, the departure wasn't nearly as traumatic, but I did send Mike on his way to Boise.

Why???
Oh, just because after five loooonnnngggg years of under employment for my dear old Mikey he now has a FULL TIME JOB.
And we are happy about that.  We are so happy about that.  We are ecstatic about that.  We are delighted.  We are down right tickled about that.  It is a good good good thing.

This, in turn, means that the old farmgirl fam will be moving again.  This time to Idaho's capital city.  I hear it's pretty nice up there.  For an Idaho born and bread gal I can't say that I've spent much time in Boise, but I'm excited to discover all it has to offer.

Here's the crazy story of how this all came to be:
When I was offered a full time job, Mike and I decided that he would dial back the job search and focus more on helping out around the house until I was licensed and we had Adam off.  And then one day out of the clear blue sky he got a phone call from a friend that works for a lumber company (we actually worked for this company 16 years ago when we lived in Montana) telling us there was a position opening up in the sales department in the Boise branch and asked if Mike would be interested.  Less than a week later an offer was on the table and we took it.  Pretty crazy how things work out.

Funny that as soon as we stopped chasing after it, the perfect job landed right in our laps.  There is something to be said for just making the most of what the Good Lord hands you.  Do the best you can with what you've got, quit worrying about what you don't have and it all seems to work itself out in the end.

Soooo, Mike is in Boise and I am here.
With the children.
Working full time.
And being a single parent.
Until summer.
It's kind of a lot.  The weeks are super busy, I hardly have time to breathe let alone miss Mike.
The good news is I can do anything...for a while.