The end of an era

What a week it's been.

So, we went ahead with the whole garage sale thing after all. Spent pretty much every night last week poking through the house pulling out all the crap that we no longer wanted or needed. It's incredible just how long all of that takes, so that would explain my absence from here for a while. We made the decision Wednesday morning, then it was off to the races.

In purging through things I decided to attack the pursery. Yes, it was time to let go of a good number of bags that had piled up over time and deserved to be loved. I think I mentioned this in my last post....it all overlaps now...

So Wednesday night was looking, cleaning and sorting stuff out. Thursday night we went to my sister's place to watch her (sleeping) kids while they went to see a movie. Since we were having the sale at her place, we looked at it as the perfect opportunity to take a bunch of crap over there and price it since we weren't at home.

We did great! Priced it all, got all the purses up on Facebook for the pre-garage sale sale, and were able to sit back and watch the two hour season finale of Grey's. Then it was home to bed, just so we could do it all over again.

Friday morning was uneventful, then in the afternoon I had to go for yet another fertility related test. This one involves a catheter and some saline to see how my tubes and uterine cavity look.

Hells yeah, we know how to have good times on a Friday afternoon.

The whole thing went reasonably well and took very little time. My tubes are nice and open (yay me) and all looked good from that perspective. Back to work I went.

A few hours later, I was in agony. Yep, cramping like crazy! I hoofed it out of work, caught an early train, popped some Advil and went to bed for an hour. Heaven.

The remainder of the evening saw Hubs, DeeDee and I tackling the garage and spare room closet (the repository for all sorts of junk). I wasn't able to lift anything so it took a bit more time than we'd hoped, but we did manage to get the final pieces together and assembled in the living room.

By midnight, we tumbled into bed, alarm set for 6:20a.m. Blech.

Around 6:10a.m., I awoke to a clatter. Sounded like the cats were running around or playing in the laundry room or something like that. It was short lived, but it did wake me up. Figuring it was simply the cats at play, I enjoyed my last ten minutes in bed before the alarm went off.

That ten minutes passed disgustingly quickly, then I was up and in the shower. Hubs left to go and give Maxx his shot and put the food back down for the boys.

He came back a few moments later with a very serious look on his face.

He'd found our cat Baylee dead on the laundry room floor.

I'm still in shock. It happened Saturday morning and I still can't believe it's true...he was with me for 11 years and was a huge part of the family. And now poof - he's gone.

I have no idea what happened. I don't know if that commotion I heard was him falling and breaking his little orange neck or what. Maybe his heart just gave out. I have no clue. And it haunts me, especially since I heard the noise and did nothing. :(

We had to go to the garage sale. A friend of mine was joining us, and since she and my sister didn't know each other at all, I felt I needed to be there. I was numb, in complete shock, and having something to do actually helped get my mind off of the tragedy at home.

Hubs took care of everything. I just couldn't do it. He was amazing...I can't imagine how much worse it would have been without him.

Now whenever I'm home I expect to see him everywhere. Friday night as I was going through all of our stuff I pulled out a picture of him with Pekoe, the little guy we had to put down a few weeks ago. Now they're both gone...

Poor Maxx, the last (and oldest - weird) of the three, is looking for him, too. When Hubs got home to take Baylee to the vet (they didn't open until 9) Maxx was sitting in front of the closed laundry room door. Hubs picked up Baylee and let Maxx see him...he rubbed his head against him, almost like he was saying goodbye. Ugh. Breaks my heart just thinking about it.

It's been three full days and I am still in denial. It hits me every once in a while, then I forget. Then I feel bad for forgetting. I walk through the house and find little tufts of his orange fur on our beige carpet. I've tucked some of it behind the picture of him and Pekoe that I don't have the strength to put out yet. Just to hold on to a piece of him before every last trace of him is gone from our home.

Kinda creepy? Sure. Sentimental? Hells yeah. I never got to say goodbye...this is all I have.

So yes, this past week has been the end of a number of eras. On the silly side, it's the first time I've gotten rid of one purse (let alone the 33 that I sold) in...uh, forever. But on a much more serious side, we're back to being a one cat home. Maxx is all by his lonesome. And that makes me even more sad than I thought I could be.

I decided to get Maxx a buddy six months into having him since I was away at school all the time and he needed some companionship. That was Baylee, and he was an awesome buddy for Maxx and little furbaby to me. For eleven years. And now, here he is, alone again.

It's pretty quiet around here. It's strange. I don't like it.

I really miss him.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doin'?