My office "visitor"

So here was my strange, disgusting, icky event today...Holly was lying on the floor behind my desk chair in my office sunning herself this morning when all of a sudden she got up and started going crazy by the window. I looked down at her (thinking "this cat has officially lost her mind!") when what did I notice she was eyeing RIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOW LOOKING IN AT ME?! A snake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He was curled up in the front bush looking right at me and flicking his disgusting tongue. He did not freak out when I started pounding on the glass at him either, and he kept staring at me like he wanted to eat me or something. Thank goodness I opted not to open my window today. I may never open up windows in the house again – ever! I should probably mention that my desk chair sits right in front of this window so when I say he was staring at me, I mean we had sustained eye contact for a long time!! I took these pictures while sitting in my desk chair, if that tells you how close he was to me.

He slithered through the bush off to somewhere new after about 10 minutes (and multiple attempted sneak attacks on Holly's part.) After he had gone I tried to reach down to pet Holly and she jumped about 3 feet in the air. It was hilarious! She is still on high alert and may have been traumatized by this because she kept coming in and out of the office today and was staring at the bushes. She is going to be my guard cat now because I tried to show the snake to the others and they did not even notice him. I kept thinking if I could get them all to fluff up and hiss at him through the glass he would take off. Alas, my cats are pretty much useless when it comes to protecting me from wildlife (with the notable exception of Holly - today she gets a gold star!)

This was so absolutely disgusting and who knows how long he was actually watching me, if he has friends, and where he’ll be waiting for me next. I may have to move…tonight! I am so over life in the country right now!!!!

Happy 4th Birthday, Holly!

Yesterday our little Holly celebrated her fourth birthday. (By celebrate, I mean I made some Rice Krispy treats and we gave her some Fancy Feast to eat.) Holly came into our lives right before Halloween three and a half years ago (hence her name - I kept calling her the Halloween cat since she is all black and somehow we shortened that to Holly) and she is by far our friendliest cat. (She's also the smallest, weighing in at just under 8 pounds!) She loves everybody and cracks my mom up the way she leads people over to the toy basket and pleads with her eyes for you to pick a toy with which to entertain her. We're convinced she's half dog, since she greets us at the door, plays fetch, and will also bring you toys in an effort to convince you to play with her. She had surgery a year and a half ago to remove 7 bladder stones, and we are so grateful that since the surgery she has been doing really well. I know it's silly to have a "birthday party" for a cat, but she's part of our family and we are so happy to have her fully recovered and celebrating another year of life with us.

Happy Easter!

I hope that you all had a blessed and enjoyable Easter. Unfortunately Patrick has to work on Easter Sunday, but after me throwing a pretty major fit a few years back about the importance of being in church on Easter Sunday Patrick has always managed to attend mass with me. After attending a pretty early (and packed!) service together, I went home and spent the afternoon and evening hanging out at the house. I think next year I might go back to my mom’s house to spend the day with my family, because it was a pretty lonely day overall. On a day of celebration I think you definitely need people around to celebrate with you!

On Saturday I received the best present ever – a beautiful mug that reads “Proud Godmother of Morgan Elisabeth.” I am so excited about this! I should probably mention that I drink hot tea every morning, so there is always a mug on my desk. Since its arrival, my new mug has already become a permanent fixture on my desk and I smile every time I see it. (I do take it to the kitchen to wash it at night though, so maybe it’s not a permanent fixture!) In any event, this totally made my day and so I wanted to share my happy surprise with all of you!

Weekend in DC

So last weekend my friend Lindsay and I decided to leave the husbands at home and drive up to DC for a much needed break. We've both had so much going on and so much stress lately that it was really nice to get away for a few days! I drove to Raleigh on Thursday to spend a little time with my mom and then on Friday we were off. Lindsay drove and I have to give her credit because once we hit DC the madness ensued - street names changed multiple times and the traffic was hectic. We only got honked at once, and that totally was not our fault...unless the car behind us actually wanted us to run over the pedestrians. Once we arrived at our hotel we safely deposited the car keys at the front desk and did not see the car again until we departed on Sunday. (We did wonder where they parked the cars though, because there was no parking lot anywhere near our hotel!)

We were total tourists all weekend and it was great! Friday afternoon and evening we walked around and took in some of the sites before grabbing some dinner. Had we known how crowded Saturday was going to be, we probably would have done more sight seeing that evening. We ate dinner at the Hard Rock and turned in early - a sure sign that we are definitely getting old!

We woke up early on Saturday and headed over to the Holocaust Museum. I'm really glad we got to go see everything there, even though some of it was pretty hard to take in. We tried to go to the street festival, but here is where the crowd part comes into play - it was packed! We herded around like cattle at every intersection and finally gave up on the street festival and just walked around DC. We did pretty well at not getting ourselves too turned around, and saw our tax dollars at work in all of the different government buildings. We did get turned around once, but discovered a beautiful garden along the way so it was a worthwhile detour. Lindsay is a pro with her professional style camera, and I'm trying to learn a little better about how to use my regular camera so it was a nice accidental discovery. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom and they are beautiful. I totally want to plant a tree in my yard now!

After the street festival and our walking tour of DC, we checked out more of the monuments that we didn't get a chance to see on Friday.

We had a fun time and I'm so glad that we got to get away and spend some quality time together. I wish we lived in the same city, but fortunately Raleigh and Charlotte aren't too far apart (and we both have family in each other's city!) Hope you enjoy some pics from our nation's capital!