knittingqueen: People have been shot doing this...

Yesterday was a crazy day. There was a big storm predicted for the Seattle area, but I had plans to go to Venue, so to Venue I went. I had a bag of new hats, including this Viking Hat. When I showed it to Diane, the owner, she squealed. Literally, squealed. Then ran to the back room to show Caitlin. Diane said they're going to place bets on how fast it sells. And I need to make sure I make plenty for Viking Days. Viking Days--I forgot all about Viking Days! Isn't this hat just a scream?!

Eric and I went back home and hung out, waiting for the storm to really kick into high gear. Which it did around 2:30. Our neighborhood lost power and we didn't get it back until 3:00 am. I know that is when it finally came back on because everything came back on. Lights, tv, washing machine (which had been in the middle of a cycle when the power went out)--so I had to walk around the house at 3:00 in the morning and turn everything off. This was about an hour after Eric woke us up shrieking because the little battery powered touch-light we gave him burned out. We all then woke up around 7:30, which is pretty late if your 7 year old has a bus to catch at 8:00. Needless to say, I was very tired this morning, and had quite a bit to do, since I had been without power for 13 hours.

So after dropping Eric off at preschool, I came back home to tidy up and get some laundry done. I decided to take a couple of minutes to check my email in the office when I heard a sound. In the house. I am suppose to be alone in the house and I am hearing noises coming from inside the house. I heard the sound of footsteps, clicking on the hardwood floor. The last time I heard that sound, it was a squirrel in my house. Only the more I listened, I decided they were human footsteps. There was another human in my house. Or a squirrel. Or a human. Or a squirrel. I was really starting to panic when I realized it was the sound of a human wearing size 10 1/2 dress shoes. Attached to the soon-to-be-deceased father of my children.

Mike had come home at 10:00 in the morning. Without calling or warning me. And I didn't hear him come through the door because, well, we have door issues right now. Really, we have house issues right now, as in our house has many many many issues. One of them being our doors. Our front door is always locked and it has a safety lock on the inside to keep Eric from opening the front door. So when we come home we can't use the front door. We've always used the garage door opener, but our garage door needs to be replaced--it's falling apart and the opener won't work. It opens it, but can't close it. Or the other way around. Whatever--it's broken. We can open it manually, but it's heavy and a pain. So we've been using our mudroom door to get in and out of the house. Problem with that is, that door is broken too. It's as ancient as the garage door and desperately needs to be replaced. The locks don't work from the outside and the only way to make sure it is truly shut is to deadbolt it, but the key won't work in the deadbolt, so you can only deadbolt it from the inside. During the day we leave it unlocked and use that door to go in and out. Yes, what I am saying is we have 2 broken unlocked doors, just begging for someone to break in. Only if someone broke in, they would be so frightened and disappointed by what they saw, they would immediately leave and look for better prospects.

Don't get me wrong--I don't take the door issue lightly. But it is what it is and we need about $2500 worth of doors, locks, and openers to fix this problem. This is how we're making due. Only with the windstorm yesterday, we had to deadbolt the mudroom door because it kept blowing open, and use the heavy, broken garage door to get in and out of the house. And this is how Mike got in. He pushed up the garage door, walked in through the garage, and quietly walked into the house. I didn't hear any of this. I just heard an intruder in my dining room. Or another squirrel.

When I realized it was Mike, all I could do was start yelling at him. "What are you DOING? WHY are you HERE? You nearly gave me a HEART ATTACK! You couldn't have called?!" And all the yelling made Mike start to laugh because apparently it never occurred to him that his little surprise visit might startle me. And when I told him I thought it might be another squirrel (and honestly, I'm not sure which I was more concerned about--another squirrel or an intruder), he responds with "Why would you think there was a squirrel in the house?" like it would be totally inconceivable that we would have a 3rd squirrel in the house. Those first 2 made sense, but a 3rd? Please. The more I yelled, the more he laughed. Apparently he had been in the neighborhood and needed to print out something for a client and decided to do it at home rather than find a Kinkos. Not once did he think it necessary to warn me he was coming home at a time that I expect NO ONE to be at home.

And then, just like a man, Mike started to hint...we're alone....YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I'M STILL RECOVERING FROM A STROKE HERE AND YOU WANT TO KNOW IF I'M IN THE MOOD?! And he honestly gave me a look like I was the one being completely unreasonable. At that point I was actually sorry it had not been a squirrel. Or an intruder. Or that I didn't have a baseball bat in my hands.

When Mike returned home this afternoon he shouted "IT'S ME, MIKE. I'M HOME!" from the kitchen doorway.

I really need to find that baseball bat.