Calgon Take Me Away

I am using the picture of a stressed out cat driving a car again, because that is the perfect symbol to what has been going on here in the last few days.   Some of my stress yesterday was caused by one curious cat!    As you all know, my mother, step dad and several family members were in the Joplin tornado.  Thankfully they are all fine, but it has still been a difficult  couple of days. I can't stop watching the news coverage of the place I have visited numerous times in the last 20+ years.  I have driven down Rangeline hundreds of times, but now many  businesses are no longer standing.  Neighborhoods I have driven through, also gone.    While I feel there is nothing I can do 800 miles away, I have been heartened to hear that they have so many volunteers and donations coming in, that they are overwhelmed with people who want to help.  Back on the homefront, things have been stressful too, but at a much smaller scale.   Last night my son's cat Milo, pushed opened the screen door and went outside.  It was already dark outside when we noticed what he had done.   Reeses our Tortie, had gone outside too, but she was near the front porch and was quickly brought inside.   Milo went on a little adventure for about 4 hours.    We searched for quite awhile.  The kids were so worried and Kara was in tears.  Finally we had to stop because it was extremely late and a school night.   During the night, I could not sleep.   I decided to go do a door check around 2:30 am.  I was so grateful to see Milo standing at the back door waiting to come back in.    He got a big hug and a talking to!  I don't know what he did on his adventure, but hopefully he does not go on one again.  Now when we open the back door, the screen door needs to be LOCKED!  I was finally able to fall asleep around 3 am.  Another stressful thing on my mind was my son's band concert tonight.   He is on the Autism spectrum and the last 2 band concerts have been difficult for him.   The March concert was so difficult for him that he had a major meltdown in the middle of the concert in front of at least 200 people in the audience.   The band teacher and I have been discussing what to do now that the final concert of the year is here.  This time there will be even more parents and grandparents because two grades would be playing.    The concert was to be so big, they were changing the venue to the high school.  The band teacher and I have decided that my son might not be able to handle all of the changes, so we are excusing him from this concert.  While I would have liked to hear them play,  I am grateful for an evening with a lot less anxiety.  

So in a few hours, our final countdown is 6 1/'2 days.   We still have one field day,  the talent show and two practices,  a mom to mom sale, an end of the year party and an intermediate school graduation.   I think that is plenty to do. Don't you?