Getting a Head Start on Superstition?

You may notice a little more blog bling at my sidebar. I was nominated by Jesse for a Rockin' Girl Blogger award, which is totally flattering. Also totally embarrassing since she nominated me over a week ago, at the same time that the "BIG MOVE" began, and I just realized it. I didn't read or post or even set foot in the Internet for a good solid week. Since returning to Internet Land, I am limping along with an air card that wants to disconnect me every 10 minutes or else swimming totally against the current with dial up. Being at least two weeks behind in my work, I've had to forget about catching up on lost time with my regular blog reads and pick up at real time rather than where I left off. I still don't have time to do any regular reading. I've been spending precious little leisure time on the computer, and yet I am still swamped and trying to catch up on work.

It's really hard to get any real "work at home" done if the job description doesn't include changing a certain 18 month old's diapers, providing undivided attention to both the Bambinos, fixing breakfast, cleaning up breakfast, fixing lunch, cleaning up lunch, going to the park (unfortunately NOT for my own leisure time), making phone calls related to work in between the demands of the smallest people who live in this house, sending a work-related fax here and there, putting the wee-est one down for a nap while desperately coveting my own nap, fixing dinner, cleaning up dinner, unpacking a box here and there, washing the wee ones, getting the wee ones to bed before racing to catch up on my work and working until I can't keep my eyes open, and then crashing to sleep for not long enough before getting up in time to shower and pull myself together before the wee ones wake up and we do it all over again. Sound like fun?

Tonight was actually my night for change of pace. I got to go lead three back to back therapy sessions with troubled adolescent girls, in the midst of which I had to do a crisis intervention and recommend hospitalization for one girl (whom I wasn't even scheduled to see tonight), then lead an anger management group comprised of about eight aggressive adolescents, followed by another crisis intervention that resulted in confiscating all razors and sharp objects to assist in the prevention of self-mutilation. Does THIS sound like fun? I felt like TODAY was Friday the 13th, but I'm still 50 minutes away from it. Fortunately I'm not on the job tomorrow, though I fully expect to get at least one crisis call. I even have adult clients that I see in my office wigging out right now. There is definitely SOMETHING in the air! Even if it's not the scent of massive poop piles this time.

Daughter commented today, "Isn't it peaceful being away from our neighbors?" Followed by, "Isn't it nice that our neighbors can't let their dog leave poop piles all over our yard anymore?" Yes, yes, yes. However, I'll have to find some new blog fodder. The only poop we're finding in our yard now is that of the unrecognizable sort, assumed to be left by some wild animal that meandered up from the woods long enough to have a dump near our house.

As far as wild animals go, I was thrilled to see my first live armadillo the other night. I lived in this area for four years before moving away. I've now been back for another seven years. In all that time the only armadillos I saw were the ones squished by moving vehicles. Obviously, if they were being hit by cars so frequently, SOMEBODY was seeing them alive (if only momentarily). I was really excited to finally see one that was its intended size and shape and not flattened and being carted off in chunks and pieces by vultures. Two of those fugly birds were working on one in the middle of the road the first day we started moving into our new home. First thing in the morning I saw the big ugly birds fighting over it, and by dark it was picked clean except for a discolored spot on the road. Yum!

I also saw a very large unidentifiable bird in my backyard this morning. At first I thought it was an ostrich. Then I remembered that we don't have those around here. Too big for a pheasant. Didn't look like the right shape for a wild turkey. I highly doubt it is responsible for the big gamey-looking poop pile near the house.

Other bizarreness includes the circling helicopter this afternoon that kept looping over the woods by our house. It was black and white with a large number on the top. It looked very official, and it was flying about 100 feet above the tree line. It went around several times before it moved slightly south and began the circling again. I thought of the decaying carcass smell we we've been getting faint whiffs of when we are in the backyard. I thought of the dead woman's body that sweltered in the heat of a parked car for several days before it was finally found in the parking lot at a local Wal-Mart (Peeeee-yewwwww!). I am now theorizing that some criminal has stashed a body in our woods and the officials are searching for it. The dead armadillo has been picked clean for too long for us to still be smelling it. Besides, it was a mile or so up the road.

If this is all just a warm up, I think I better just pack it all up and go to bed before Friday the 13th hits. I wish I had the option to just hide in under the covers all day tomorrow, like Snoopy did in the old "Peanuts" comic strips when he was waiting for the world to end.

I think I'm supposed to nominate some more Rokin' Girl Bloggers. I'll do it later. I'm too tired tonight.