hostage Archives - Chaos at its Finest

The sun came out today. But we, sadly, did not. We stayed put. Like were obligated to do.

But you know who isn’t staying put? This freaking cardinal that decided to nest in the tree right outside my bathroom window.

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Now, I’ve got nothing against birds, per say. But this one is making a play for numero Uno on my hit list. This little red jerk wad thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to spend every morning from the moment the sun comes up ‘til at least 2 in the afternoon, sitting on the ledge of my window to just peck and peck and peck at the window.

This window, by the way, is frosted. He cannot see anything inside at all. Why this blasted beast has chosen to come after my bathroom window is a curiosity indeed. But I got to hand it to the dumb little thing, he is resilient. I’ve smacked that glass more times than I care to count trying to finally scare him away and yet he returns minutes later to continue his incessant pecking.

Please dear reader, keep in mind I’ve actually known about this bird and his insane tendency for over two months. But it never bothered me before. However, it’s bothering me now!

Because now I’m stuck home, trying to find ways to fill my day and keep my kids active without getting in trouble. I’m stuck here, able to hear that tap, tap, tapping happening over and over again. I’m stuck here with very little to distract me from that tapping. He just keeps going. All. Flipping. Day.

So today we were tackling the shameful “craft room” which is located 9 feet from that frosted glass window. The girls were enjoying this bird’s crazy antics but me… oh heck no.

I would turn my back to take something out of the closet and like magic the bird would land, tap three times in rapid succession, and then just when I turn around to smack the window, he would fly off. Oh, how my darling daughters would laugh at this. What a fun game mommy was playing with the little red bird outside.

Truly, I am an animal lover. I like all animals. But this guy, he’s not your average bird. He’s clearly possessed and needs to be taken care of. Anyone know of a decent BB gun that could take this red rascal out? Heck, at this point I’m willing to put up with my cat allergy and getting one of those to take care of this.

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On the plus side, I was able to clean out and organize that craft room/closet space. I can now open the door all the way and walk fully into the room. My girls now think it’s going to be the best hiding spot for our next game of hide and seek and my boys can now get all their model projects out of there and actually put them together. So it was a win all around.

Except for the dang bird. He is going to lose after this day!

Also great news is that brilliant husband of mine discovered the issue with the car and was able to get all the parts today. I can see the end in sight people! I will be free again soon!

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On Sunday my car started acting funny. We were 14 minutes from home when a red light came on saying the transmission was overheating. So we pulled over and Eric checked it out.

Sure enough the car was leaking transmission fluid like a sieve. Now Eric knows quite a bit about cars. In fact, back in the fall he had to take the transmission out to fix the flywheel (you don’t have to know what that is, but it’s important for the car to go vroom vroom). So he tells me were just going to have to pray really hard that we can get it home and in the garage while it drives the whole way in first gear.

Prayer was key here, because I certainly didn’t think this was going to happen. It didn’t work last fall when the transmission busted, and boy let me tell you, that led to the world’s biggest headache I have ever personally experienced. But what should have taken 10 minutes to drive ended up taking us almost 30 minutes. We were, thankfully, able to get it all the way home and in the garage.

Now comes the verdict. Husband climbs under that giant hunk of metal to check out what we are dealing with. And sure enough, comes back out to tell me it’s not a quick fix. He’s going to have to take the whole front end of the car out again to get the transmission out and then take the transmission apart to see which of those gaskets doesn’t want to hold up its end of the bargain here, so we can replace it.

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I looked to him with fear in my eyes… “How long do you think this will take? Can I drive to get the boys from school tomorrow?” I asked him, ever so hopeful.

Now my husband is a great man. He understands his wife better than I know myself. He knows that without my car I’m stuck in my house with my children with no chance of a furlough. And he know that’s not good for anybody involved. But, sadly, sometimes things are out of his control. So he has to tell me the terrible truth. I’m going to be car-less for at least the week.

A WEEK!

But not just any week. Nope it’s the week where my boys have Thursday and Friday off school. It the start of spring break for them. I was already promising trips to gymnastics, and the zoo, and all different parks. And now were all basically grounded.

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I woke up this morning, day 1 of this hostage situation, and saw that even God was sad for our situation and wept with us, as it pours buckets of rain on us. It feels almost like the Almighty is saying, “see it’s no fun outside anyways, staying inside won’t be so bad”. But I know the rain can’t last the week. I know tomorrow the sun will come out and dry it all up and we will still be stuck here.

I’m trying to see this as a positive though. I like positives. So I’ve sat here all afternoon and made myself a little weekly schedule during my captivity.

It’s not quite spring but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a jump start on the cleaning. I plan on cleaning out all the things that don’t get cleaned very often. Like the fridge, the catch-all cabinet, and under the sinks. I hope to organize my kitchen cabinets and maybe make them more user friendly. Hopefully I can organize my “craft room”, which is really, currently, just my fancy name for this large closet that we keep throwing stuff we don’t know what else to do with or where else to put it.