crazy days, missing cats, pushing 30!

Well, it's been a busy and slightly crazy few weeks around our house. I am back to work, so all that extra time I had to clean, sew, run errands, blog, etc. is gone. This lack of time is really showing up around my house. I clean the bathrooms without fail every weekend, but the other stuff.....sweeping, mopping, straightening and putting stuff where it belongs; has come to a screeching halt. I have actually been back to work for nearly a month, but I think I was in denial. I've been doing my best to get home around 3:30, spend the next hour loving on Audrey and putting things away. Starting dinner around 4:30, and doing my best to fix something yummy and healthy, while involving Audrey in the process some, pulling out activities, like playdoh and puzzles, for her to do when what I am making cannot involve her (hello raw chicken, boiling water, etc.) and hoping that it will entertain her long enough for me to finish before she is clinging to my leg with another need or want. Then we eat, clean up and try to spend some time as a family of three, doing something fun, before bathtime and bedtime begin. After I get our girlie in bed, I prepare her bag/lunch/outfit/etc. for the next day, before crashing to the sofa to fold clothes, read, watch tv, or actually talk to my husband.
It's kind of exhausting. But totally worth it. Funny how all that can be enjoyable. I am blessed to have what I have and who I have in my life. I'm not complaining....just writing it down....it's validating, somehow.

In the midst of the busy weekend we just had, this little furball disappeared! After 7 hairy years inside, she wanted out, so we let her out a little at a time, and she became comfortable and happy going in and out as she pleased, always coming home throughout the day and at night. Then friday afternoon we let her out and she vanished for three and a half days, with no trace and nobody having seen her. We spent a few days walking the neighborhood, talking to everybody we could, calling shelters, and posting online ads about her. It just wasn't like her to go further than across the street and for more than a couple hours. Then Monday night, around 11 (we would normally not be up so late, but we got into the new shows that were premiering!), she showed up on the porch, looking perfect! Clean, healthy and not starving. We think someone must have let her in. Audrey was ecstatic to see her when she got up this morning and gave her hugs.

We visited my Memaw in the rehab facility last night, where she is recovering from, yet another stroke. She looked good and Audrey totally showed off for her, with a few sweet "Hi Memaw!"'s yelled in her direction. I think Memaw heard her, I hope she heard Audrey's sweet voice say it. She doesn't hear well at ALL, and often reads lips.
We also went to Dairy Queen:)

Today is my 29th birthday. Pushing 30! Patrick asked me if I was excited about my birthday...not really, I AM excited to get to eat at Outback tonight, get my new shoes Mom ordered me (gold Toms!), and get my car detailed (Patrick's gift to me).

In Audrey news.....she cracks us up how she has this amazing memory of.....like......every book she owns! She can recite so many of them word for word, missing nothing! Last night she sat with Patrick and read him The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate The Wash. The whole book, every line, stored in her brain. She knows the titles of the nursery rhymes by seeing the picture on the page and will say "no, I not want to read Little Bo Peep" while stopping, looking at it, then saying, "I read Pop Goes Weasel"....finding it, pointing and moving my thumbs to the very edges of the pages so that I don't cover any of the illustrations on the page.