What a weekend! The best part of being unemployed, is that I don’t have “re-entry” into the workforce the day after a long weekend! I have NEVER been good at that – I always told my staff -just give me some time to adjust to being back to the work routine…. But alas, not my problem this holiday weekend!

Where I am located, we are living in “monsoon” type weather – way too much rain at one time. It seems to be feast or famine – right now the sun is shining and I feel like I can actually see my grass growing as it attempts to dry out. Thankfully, the water in my basement has dried up, with the aid of our shop vac! The water was running in so fast that I just set the hose at the “spot” and left the vac on to suck it up as it came in!!

The bad news about an unemployed, task oriented wife, is always for the working husband. I am a list maker and my poor hubby comes home to relax on the weekend and I have a monstrous list for us to work on. Thankfully, I am through most of that list… emphasis on the most……This weekend it was the basement and garage so we can have a garage sale and further de-clutter. Today – price all that stuff and hopefully this weekend, get rid of most of it one way or the other!

In other news this weekend – we had some changes in our family. Several weeks ago, when we returned from our “granddaughter trip”, my husband discovered that a wren had made a nest in one of his storage containers on the wall in the garage. He was able to see eggs in the nest. Being at home, I watched to see if the mamma and pappa wren were coming into the nest to sit on it and didn’t ever see them. I announced that the eggs had been abandoned – frightened away but the increased activity in the garage. Not true! a couple of weeks ago it became apparent that the wrens were flying into the garage and eventually were carrying in food. Hubby climbed up to see baby birds! Very soon, it was very inconvenient for mamma wren when we were on the patio near the door or in the garage near the nest and she wasted no time telling us to “get away from my nest”! There were times we changed jobs, so that she could get in and feed her little ones. Well, Sunday was graduation day for her 4 babies. One after the other, they came out and hopped and flapped their way around the garage shelves, ladders, boxes out to the back patio. All without mamma doing anything EXCEPT LOUDLY calling to them Wrens have a number of calls, and she just continued and continued to use the same chip to get her little ones out and into the concealing leaves of the flowers beds. The sad thing about wrens, is that after they clean out the nest, they seem to disappear – at least we don’t see or hear them anymore.

In NC, there was no scooting of babies out of the nest, but rather an adoption of a little one taking place. Our daughter began the process of adding a puppy to her life on Sunday. The little guy sure is cute and she is in a foster to adopt situation. She was able to spend a couple of days with him prior to going back to work today – and needless to say she is a bit nervous about leaving him in his crate while she is at work. I am excited for her as she adds a fur baby to her household – she loved her dogs growing up and this little guy (name to be determined)
is one lucky fellow! He will have the best belly rugs known to dogs and be so loved. The question will always be: “who rescued who?”

Well that leaves roommates – and yes the hubby and I have a summer roommate with us. Our youngest is here for the summer working at the water park in our town. We have been empty nesters with a routine for 10 months and now we need to remember what it is like to have someone else living with us. It is funny how quickly you settle into a pattern when there is no one else to think about. So we had the roommate conversation – laundry, noise, schedule – you name it. So far, so good – its more like he lives one schedule and we live another and sometimes pass each other. That;s probably ok!

So whether you are pushing someone/something from your nest, or gathering someone/something into your nest – at the very least pay attention to what is going on around you. Watch the birds fly, or the puppies trained or the empty nest unsettled for a bit and hope that on all fronts, everyone is successful in the venture that is being pursued. Enjoy your return to the “real world” today – find something to giggle at (I already have) and find something to make a difference…. in while staying in your own lane.

PS Double click the bird pictures to enlarge!