Closing a Chapter

Today we said goodbye to Mom's faithful little Lynx.

She had given it to Heather several months ago, but due to old age, engine problems, major oil leak etc, the car ended up on our front lawn. (major money was needed to fix it, if it could have been fixed) Heather had abandoned it to us.

So, we were looking into how to rid ourselves of the lawn art, when a guy came asking about it. For the cost of getting the title out of Mom's name and towing it away, we basically gave it to the guy.

He will most likely know a place that will pay him lots of $$ for scrap metal, but since we don't know a place or have a way to get the car there, we let it go...

Mom watched as the guy put the car up on a trailer and drive off. Needless to say, she was very sad, crying even. Letting go of a lifestyle is hard. I don't know if Mom had a thought that there could be a way for her to return to Alexandria, but with the letting go of the car that "bubble" was burst.

Then we got an email from Joe with a joke that made us all laugh, and emotions were once again under control.

SNAKE!!!

Ok, we live in a city! Our neighborhood has trees and large backyards. We have dogs. There are lots of kids in the neighborhood. There is lots of noise. WE LIVE IN THE CITY!!

Yet....today I came into the kitchen and found a snake in the middle of the floor!!! Need I say how I reacted?

YELLING for Harry to come see, I grabbed up Kara and put her in the living room and ran around the house to the other side of the kitchen picking up a weapon as I went. (an unopened box of mini blinds!) Harry wanted to know what I planned on doing with a box? I said I was going to smash that snake's head into the floor! And so I did.

Then I stepped on the box. Harry had brought in a shovel and I wanted it to beat the snake on the head. He said the snake was dead. I said it's tongue was still moving. He said I was squishing the tongue out of it's head by standing on it's neck. I didn't believe him. I took the shovel and used it to completely put that snake out of my misery! Harry was pretty sure it was dead when blood was oozing out onto the floor.

Harry took the snake outside and dropped it into a bucket to save to show the girls when they got home.

At the time of spotting the snake, I was on the phone with Stephanie and she heard me YELLING to Harry before I said "gotta go!"

So she was driving home worried about the well being of Kara.

Then, when Melissa got home we showed her the snake and told her it had come out of her room. Oh my goodness! Did we get a good response out of her.

This happened around 3pm this afternoon. Needless to say, I was on an adrenalin rush! Harry asked me if I had taken my blood pressure pills.

It is now 8:30pm and I am still quivering in my shoes. Just because it turned out to be a garter snake doesn't mean it didn't deserve to DIE!

When I walk around the house now, my head is down with my eyes going to and fro looking... Every loose wire, every cord sticking out from behind a chair or the sofa causes me to stop and look...I have my trusty "mini blind" box strapped to my hip!

I am ready to put the "For Sale" sign out on the front lawn.

This will be the topic of conversation for a while.