Getting back into a routine

Yes, I'm writing and posting this in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. In fact, I was almost asleep when Ryan came in the room and told me that something was wrong with my kitty Shadow. I go in the other room where she is and, yes, something is definitely wrong. It looked like she had eaten part of a magazine and she was breathing really fast and wheezing and meowing like something awful. In the process of getting her away from the magazines, she bit my hand several times, but I'll be fine. I called our vet cuz I thought they had 24 hour emergency services. Well, they have an answering service (kind of like a pet 911) and the nearest 24-hour vet is in Tucson. It's almost $700 for a animal ambulance transport from Sierra Vista to Tucson, so Ryan took Shadow in the van. As I write this, he should be about 20 minutes out from the vet, and I'm not going to be able to sleep until I know my kitty is going to be taken care of and hopefully ok. So I figured I might as well write a blog post while I'm waiting.

My second week back to work went pretty well. I'm starting to get into the swing of things of getting Thomas and myself ready for daycare and work, getting him to daycare and then me to work on time. Work has been pretty laid back since the band is getting ready for our Holiday Concert and I'm not playing. I'll be Mrs. Claus, and there really isn't any rehearsal necessary for that. So I've been taking care of supply stuff and the few purchases that need to be made and practicing my trombone a little bit. Of course, it didn't help that I ended up with a sinus something-or-other and I was stuffed up and miserable for a couple of days – that made it REALLY hard to play. When your head already feels like it's going to explode and then you try and play a trombone, that's not a good combination. But at least I still remember how to play (it's been since the middle of July)!

Sierra Vista's Holiday Parade was Saturday evening and I was one of the 3 drivers for that. After we dropped the band off at the parade start point, we headed to the finish area and after I parked, I walked to where Ryan was with the boys (they walked about 1/2 mile since I had the van) and hung out with them until the band got to us. The Grand Marshal for the parade was all the Fire Departments in the area that helped with the big fire in the mountains back in June. That was really cool with all the fire trucks with them honking their horns and doing their sirens and stuff. A few tears escaped from my eyes. Thomas did really well with the fire trucks and the noise. He did wake up but he didn't cry at all. Once the band got to us, I headed back to the parking lot and once everyone was loaded up, we headed back to post. After I got the vehicle turned in, I headed home and saw that the guys weren't home yet so I went and parked at our church and walked back to where they were. I got back there just in time to see Santa Claus at the end of the parade. Ryan was thankful that I was there as he didn't have to walk all the way back home with his bad knees.

This morning was church and we were planning on going to the early service as that's when the choir was singing. But when my alarm went off, I realized that wasn't happening. You see, I had my alarm set for 0730 for Saturday and I kind of forgot to change the time. So when my alarm went off at 0730 this morning, there definitely wasn't enough time for me to get ready and to church by 0730 for choir warm ups. Oops! But I did get Robert to Sunday School for 0930 – they're rehearsing for their Christmas program – and then we went to the 1100 service. After church we went to our local Mexican place for lunch and then out to the commissary for some grocery shopping for the week. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching football (YAY for my Packers being 12-0!!!) and I even cross stitched for a little while during one of Thomas' naps. I made my weekly phone call home to Mom & Dad and then we had chef salads for dinner. It was a good day, until Ryan came and woke me up for Shadow.