The Rest of the Story

Coco:

(Back story here and here and here. Oh, my.)

Here's a photo of Coco last moments with our family, before she found "a new home". (AHEM. Please do not blow my cover with the girls, brick-n-mortar peeps.) (Yeah, yeah, I'm likely to do that ALL BY MYSELF, I know.)

It took Joan and I a frustrating and sweaty amount of time just to catch the little wench to put her in her pet taxi. By then end of the ordeal, I was sweating and bleeding (from claw AND teeth scratches), and feeling rather DONE with this animal, as you can imagine. But then Kate (oh, Kate) got all sentimental and wanted a photo with her.

Well, I'll be DAMNED if we're removing her hissing self from that pet taxi, so this was the best we could do:

She was hissing as I snapped this, in fact.

I'm so sorry, Coco, that you were so miserable and that we failed you. And thanks for throwing me a bone with your rotten behavior.... it really did make things a teensy bit easier.

Land line:

Our cordless phone system is dying a slow, one-phone-at-a-time death, and rather than cough up money for more phones, we decided to cancel our land line. It was costing us $40/month, plus long distance. Since both David and I have cell phones, we decided it was unnecessary to pay for three phones every month.

Still, I was worried about what to do if the girls needed to make a phone call. David, boy-wizard, solved that problem by allowing the phone system at his office to have an extension ring in our home. We'll use our land line less now, and we'll still have the dying-cordless-phone issue, but at least our kids can call out if needed. He's so smart. (And it's free.)

The Tired and The Crazy:

Last winter I wrote a lot about being tired all the time and my decision of going off zoloft. (Here and here, for example.)

The tired has been much MUCH better since the seasons changed. I really need to consider SAD and how that's affecting my moods and energy. I still sliiiiightly anemic, but that's improved too. All around? I feel so much more "normal".

My decision to go off of zoloft was absolutely the right one for me. I feel fine, emotionally, for the most part. If I ever need to go back on something like that, I'm absolutely open to it, but for now I'm enjoying being med-free.

Anxious Kate:

Remember that trying little season we had with our darling Kate last spring? Well, this summer she has been fantastic. She's completely back to her old self, anxious-free, relaxed, happy. She's easy to get along with and cuddly. She talks about 2nd grade and school starting easily, without any worry in her voice.

I was so damn relieved for the school year to be over and for my daughter to be back to normal.

HOWEVER.

(There's always a however, isn't there?)

I got the letter in the mail today of class assignments, and Kate had a DIFFERENT TEACHER than the one she met last spring and has been planning on.

Needless to say, I have a brief hour of panic while I waited for the school to sort it out. We have a new principal this year, and he was very nice, and I explained that Kate already met her teacher and that she wasn't a child that could switch gears easily, and Kate is back in her original class.

CRISIS AVERTED.

(Oh, thank god.)

Finally, our friends are moving:

Yes, that's right. Our dear friends are still moving out of state. Tomorrow.

I can offer up one small tidbit of advice: if you are blue about your friends leaving, making them a photo book of memories of your families together will be hard. And sad. And somewhat therapeutic, yes.

We have photos of our kids dating back to 2004, and I've spent hours upon hours going through them all, uploading them, and making that damned book. I ordered one for our kids too.

We took this photo this morning, as I needed something for the back cover of the book.

I do miss them already.