Resting Comfortably

Pet me, please.

Phil Takes a Holiday

It's getting longer between visits. It has been so long this time that I couldn't log in without having to "look up" my password. I'm deciding if that speaks more poorly to my increasing forgetfulness or to my shameful failure to keep up with the blog.

I decided that maybe I better get back in the habit of posting here because, I think, we really are close to a referral. No, really. Stop laughing. Best case scenario is an early November referral, worst case January, most likely case--December referral. Yes, this December. December of 2007. As in 6 weeks from now! Wahoo!!!!!

I am still holding out a hope that they will get to us in November, only about 2.5 weeks from now. In the recent past (last 6-8 months) they have sent enough referrals for this to happen. But in the more recent past, (October) they were extremely stingy with referrals leading us to think it will be December for us. I can easily hold out patience-wise for the December referral but then life is complicated with nowhere for Mara to stay while we are gone and lost tax advantages. January referral would only happen if they slow down to 3 or 4 day batches instead of 5 or 6 days. (Last set of referrals got through Nov. 30, 2005 LID's. Our LID is Dec. 9, 2005.) If we get a November referral we could be traveling before or at Christmas, the big girls can stay with Mara and we get a big financial help with tax benefits this year instead of next. Katy has high hopes for November because a) we got Mara's referral in November of 2004 and that would be a nifty coincidence and b) Last time God worked out the travel to be the exact two weeks it needed for all of us to be able to go, so he will this time. I like her thinking!

We had a big scare this week, Phil (the cat) sneaked out on Sunday night and didn't come back. Since he always comes back within 24 hours we were starting to think something untoward had happened to him. (Neighbors have told us we have a big fox and a few coyotes in the area that are bold enough to walk right down our street.) Mara and I even made a trip to the Humane Society yesterday to see if someone had found him and dropped him off there. Last night--Friday--Katy came home for a weekend visit. When she went out on the deck to call him, we all heard a typical Phil "meoooooow" back at her. Every time she said his name he "hollered" back at her. We tracked the noise to our neighbors back yard but in the dark we couldn't see anything. Finally we asked the neighbor to take a look but it yielded nothing, even when they opened their shed which was where we thought the cries for help were coming from. About 2 hours later, Katy went out and did the same thing and got the same answer. But since it was 11 p.m. we felt it wasn't being neighborly to go into their yard for a search. This morning, Jeff, Mara and Katy went knocking to ask the neighbor if we could search in the daylight. Nobody home. Went in anyway. Phil was hiding behind a lawnmower and wheel barrow in the shed. Jeff had to move everything so Katy could pick him up. He seemed too frightened to move. WHEW!!!! He's been home for about three hours now and has yet to go down and eat a good meal. He snacked a touch and then came running for love instead. He is such a social little guy. And he is "little" I think he lost 5 pounds this week. We're very happy and relieved to have him home.

Well, we're off to the corn maze on this beautiful autumn afternoon. We tried it last weekend and got rained out. But now we have rain checks so we're determined to not allow them to go to waste.

Maybe I'll be back with pictures in a few short weeks. Pray for the CCAA to have pity on us.