Where have I been, you ask?

Let me give you a rundown of the events of this past week......

Tuesday night, late, almost midnight, couldn't sleep. Kevin and Bailey are curled up in bed sound asleep and I am watching TV hoping for sleep. I think I hear some kind of bang so I mute the TV and then nothing. A while later I think I hear it again. Again, I mute the TV and then nothing. A third time I think I hear something....then our house alarm starts screeching!!! This is it, I think. We're done. Finished. Details of what happened to us will end being used in a Law & Order script "ripped from the headlines." Surely it is only a matter of time before the psychotic ax murderer makes it to our bedroom and hacks us up. It doesn't help that my husband and dog are so unfazed they continue to freaking sleep through the chaos!!! Never mind the fact that at this point I am out of bed screaming like a maniac. But does my husband and dog think to see what is going on? Noooooo!!! Oh, my next door neighbors though....yep, they heard me!!!  And started calling right away!!! 

OK, in all honesty, Kevin and Bailey were only asleep for a few seconds after this all started. It felt like forever, though!

So after we hosted three squad cars of our city's boys in blue we finally tried to settle back to sleep. The police did a very thorough check of every inch of the inside and outside of our house. There were no signs that anyone tried to break in. It was either a short circuit in one of the motion detectors or it could have been a mouse in the basement that tripped it. Not long after the police left it did go off again. This time we turned it off immediately so they wouldn't come again and went back to sleep.

Wednesday morning when I came downstairs to leave for work Bailey was not in his usual spot on the couch. He was in the dining room crouched down like he was hunting and staring intently in to the corner growling. Yep. That had to be it. There must be a mouse in the house. After trying unsuccessfully to find it (not like I have any clue what I would have done if I had found it) I decided to bring Bailey to my parent's house for the day to hang out with my Mom. I was already running super late from getting no sleep the night before and I had a screaming headache, but the only other option was to leave Bailey home and risk coming home to a nasty dead creature on my floor or a seriously agitated dog.

Around 3PM that afternoon while at work I started feeling really...queasy. And crampy, but not lady crampy, the other crampy. I will of course spare you the details but let's just say I left work over a 1/2 hour late because I couldn't get away from the bathroom....

I finally get home and shortly after Kevin gets home with Bailey....who proceeds to run straight in to the dining room again. And again we can't find the mouse.

Turns out we couldn't find the mouse, because......

WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A FREAKIN FLYING SQUIRREL!!!

(that is the nasty little creature on my china cabinet....he definitely didn't let me get that close...I was using zoom)

A squirrel!!! A #$&%*^$ squirrel. The nasty little bastard got in to our house through our attic (we didn't know this at the time, though we couldn't imagine how else...). Did I mention I was still pretty sick at this point? One time when my Dad was mowing the lawn he left the garage door open and a chipmunk got in. They got this humane trap at Home Depot that they used to get rid of it. So we got that but did he (and yes I believe the squirrel was a "he" because was annoying the crap out of me!!!) go anywhere near it?! Nooooo!!! We fought with this thing till well after midnight, and this was after getting no sleep the night before. AND I WAS STILL SICK!!! And getting crankier by the second. As it turned out, squirrel or no squirrel, I wouldn't have slept that night anyway because I was just not feeling well. Finally at 4:30AM I sent a text to one of my colleagues to let her know I wouldn't be in. 

Thursday morning we hoped to find the creature in the trap. Nope. That was it. I was done. Time to call a professional. So even though I was sick I had to have a wildlife trapper come over to get the thing out. Thank God the company I called came within an hour of me calling. The company is owned by the nicest older guy and they specialize in wildlife removal and wildlife proofing houses....which is what he will be back here to do this coming Friday to our attic! Before Kevin left for work he spotted the thing running in to our main floor bathroom so he closed the door right away to keep it in there. When the wildlife guy came he slipped in there with a bunch of rags and towels and 20 minutes and a lot of commotion later he came out with the squirrel wrapped in a bundled bunch of rags, ran outside and tossed it in to the woods!!! Halle-freakin-lujah!!! After that he inspected our attic and being an older home there are gaps and things here and there that could be a way for something like a squirrel to get in. So we are having our home wildlife-proofed this week!!!!!!

Here is one more shot of the furry pain in the ass!!!

When he left I went back to bed and stayed there till almost 5PM. When I woke up I finally felt human again!

Friday I went in to work because they were short staffed. It was an OK day but come 4PM I was more than ready to get out of there. I work pretty close to home and I am usually home by 4:15. So I am just about to pull on to the highway and cruise on home when I get rear-ended by the little teen twit behind me!!!!!! For real?!?!?! I was like, is this really happening to me right now?!?! Since we had no idea if there was damage we had to pull over but we couldn't stay on the exit ramp. So we pulled on to the highway to pull on the grassy strip at the side of the highway. This is an old two-lane highway and there is no break down lane. As I was getting out of my car I tripped and nearly fell in to oncoming traffic. I grabbed my door to steady myself just in time. There was no damage. She really just rolled in to me. She was only 17 and was freaking out that she had done that. It didn't help that I proceeded to lecture her like a mother. Even I couldn't believe how I sounded!!! :-) I had her so scared of me she started to call me "ma'am" which made me crazier because I was like, "I am too young to be a ma'am!!!" Obviously the stress and lack of sleep of the week had gotten to me. Yeah. That's it...

I finally softened a bit and assured her that everything was fine. I go back to my car to leave and....remember when I said I grabbed my door to steady myself when I almost fell? I probably hit my door lock because I was friggin lock out of my car. My car was running. The AC was on. My door wasn't closed completely tight because all of my interior lights were on. Oh yeah, and my purse with my cell phone in it was sitting on the seat.......

Not to worry. I made sure little miss thang wasn't going anywhere till I used her phone to make all the calls I needed to make. And I didn't even ask. I basically told her to give me her phone and she did! Called my husband...still in Boston. Called my parent's house...then remembered my Mom won't answer the phone when she doesn't recognize the number. Hoped and prayed my Dad wasn't home yet which means his work cell would still be on and maybe he would think the number was a customer. Third time was the charm! He answered. My poor Dad was almost home, though, and now he had to go to my house, get my spares and fight traffic to come let me in to my car.

The one thing I knew that would at least be a bright end to a crappy week is we were going to celebrate Kevin's 41st birthday with our family that night and that meant time with our nephew, which always makes us both so happy. When my Dad came to rescue me he told me that he and my Mom found out at the last minute that we wouldn't have our nephew that night. He was supposed to stay over my parent's house. Plans got changed on us at the last minute, which happens way too often for reasons I can't get in to. All I will say is it involves a lot of sneakiness and selfishness...

But here are a few pics of Kevin celebrating!!!

Isn't he cute?!

So, yeah, it was a crappy week. But it was a great fall weekend! Kevin and I had a fun day together on his birthday Saturday. We spent the morning today at the orchard (I haven't uploaded the pics yet) getting apples and pumpkins and mums and hot cider donuts fresh from the orchard kitchen! The Patriots won! I did some crafting (making ornaments!)! And now a new week is upon us and it is time to start fresh!!! :-)