Two More Weeks as a Single Mom

We have sold our house...don't ask how much money we lost. I keep telling Mike that AT LEAST we sold our house and AT LEAST we'll be able to pay it off and AT LEAST we'll have money to buy another house and AT LEAST we aren't living in our car and AT LEAST we can buy groceries. These are all positive things but when you're dealing with men who deal in cold, hard facts, the only idea that keeps popping up is that we've lost a boatload of money. As you know, I was willing to give the house away or at least arrange with another poor seller a Two-for-One deal; buy one house get another free. But fortunately we sold the house and Mike is on his way to Oregon in about two weeks.

Ian and I are living in our apartment which we've come to call the "Japanese Feng-Shui" mode of living. Very spare, so much so that nothing gets in the way of the Chi in our place. As soon as Mike gets here we'll have our two dogs, one cat and a few pieces of furniture that we'll keep out of storage. All of this in 700 square feet located between two major roads in Redmond.

Our two dogs are not used to city living. Mike has to buy leashes before he comes this way since we don't even own leashes and most of the time Senorita Mona is missing her collar and tags. Our Collie, Bodie, is afraid of linoleum, tile and carpet.  Senorita Mona would like to be inside but she has a problem with flatulence. Our cat Bob is a barn cat, which means he's half wild. Mike's idea is to capture him, put him in an old chicken cage and transport him 1,000 miles. If he doesn't die of the stress and if he doesn't claw Mike to death in the whole capturing thing, he might be okay. I don't think Bob knows what a litter box is and he may destroy the walls in this apartment trying to escape, but Mike is determined to bring him.

There is a dog park one block from our apartment and I think we'll all have to take shifts with the dogs at the park. We may be down there enough so that more legitimate dog owners will call the city police to complain. I haven't yet informed Mike that we're going to have to pick up our dog "messes" in plastic bags that you can find on most of the street corners. We have big dogs. I am afraid this will mean big messes.

I'm hoping that the deal on our house closes quickly so we can buy the property we have our eye on and bring our animals there during the day and lock them in the barn at night. Most of the time our dogs figure out their boundaries quickly, although they still think Skip's 200 acres are part of their property. I'm hoping that the fences that surround the property will be enough to keep them contained. If not we'll all have to do the shift thing at this place until February, when, if things go according to Plan A, we'll have our house built. I hope so since I don't have a Plan B.