Sheepish Apologies

I've been absent forever!  My bad.  I never hired any help back in March when business was booming because along came April.  April was an unloading of crappy clients, and I no longer was cleaning 8 hours a day.  My dreams of expanding were temporarily squashed.  (I'd rather not even talk about May.)  But then came June when I got busy enough to re-examine my need for an employee.

I decided to write a job description and finally advertise that I was accepting resumes.  Out of about 35 applicants, only 2 didn't seem ghetto or sorry.  (Seriously, I asked for a resume and got several applications that said, "I no you asked for a resume but mine ain't been updated in along time, so you can just call me if your interested." Gag.)  So, I interviewed two people for the position.  One was young, ambitious, willing to learn, easy to get along with, etc.  The other met me in sweats, felt shoes were unnecessary, was already blessed with the knowledge of the whole world, and seemed quite pushy.  My decision was easy.

After a background check (formality only, but I wanted to start a precedent) and a formal letter to all my clients, my new employee began work.  I can't adequately describe how blessed I feel.  I just know that after all our wishes, hopes, dreams of the perfect employee, my husband and I couldn't have imagined anyone better.  So far she has worked two full days, and her attitude is great.  It's been awesome.

Also around March we began the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover.  I resisted at first, big time.  Numbers make my head hurt.  I pay my bills on time and in full, but other than that, I hate thinking about it.  It stresses me out to no end.  But, my husband felt strongly enough about it to convince me, and I'm so glad.  It took a couple of months to get into the swing of things.  When you're used to putting every purchase on your credit card and paying 6 weeks later, it's really difficult to begin a new month paying for everything now.  We essentially bought two months at once, which was a strain at first.  After that first month, though, what a difference!  Emergencies happened (a lot of them), and we had the money at the ready to cover it.  We've had an emergency fund for years now, of course, but now we contribute a planned, regular amount, and it has grown quite a bit.  In the past 2 months alone, we had extensive electrical work done to our truck, toilet repairs in our house, the main water line outside burst, flat tires, my car's air conditioner's failure, and other unexpected expenses I can't remember.  All in two months!  If we were on our old "plan" we'd be so far in debt right now.

About 2 weeks ago, we went outside to put Sam to bed (he still goes in his fence at night so he doesn't get into trouble in the gardens) and smelled that unmistakable smell - cat pee.  (Side note, my new tangerine hair conditioner smells like cat pee during hair drying... not before, not after, but when activated by heat - cat pee.  Gross.)  We thought that was strange, since we have a 100 pound dog in our yard, but didn't dwell on it.  A few minutes later, we saw a tiny calico slinking around our hydrangeas at the back fence.  Sam was already in his pen and he started jumping on the gate trying to get out.  He absolutely LOVES cats.  They are, understandably, quite scared of him, but he adores any cat he's ever met.  We went ahead and let Sam back out, knowing he'd just bark all night if we didn't let him investigate.  So, he ran around in excitement for a long time, scaring the cat pretty badly.  Finally, we re-put him to bed and tried to shoo the cat away.

The next morning, we went outside to let Sam out and saw the cat again.  In the light of day, her pregnant belly was obvious.  We knew we were in trouble.  We tried running her off again, but she was obviously starving, because she practically climbed our legs to get Sam's breakfast.  Sam, enamored, allowed her to eat dog kibbles to her heart's content, even though I'm sure he was hungry too.  We talked that day about taking her to the shelter, but that night, her belly was flat flat flat.  Oh boy.  The kittens were here and, we later guessed, under our storage building.  We're not monsters - of course the cat is staying until the kittens come out and are weaned, and THEN they can all go to the shelter (well, maybe one kitten can stay...)

Sam is so in love.  They nuzzle each other, eat all their meals together, she goes into his pen with him at night (she can go in and out as she pleases, of course), he follows her around and tries to play, she has tried to fetch, he rubs his head on our legs now.  The whole scenario is hilarious.  But, we never intended to have a cat, much less multiple cats (no idea how many kittens there are.)  We'll just have to see what happens.  I would like to keep a kitten, and I really believe that Sam would get sad and lonely if all the cats went away.