Uh, oh, here we go again!

Well, things have been a little crazy around here the past few days. My darling husband, hereafter known as the dh, has decided to move the whole blooming crew to New York. Quite a change from Texas. He was very considerate this time: every other move has been on short notice (2 weeks or less), I've been pregnant, or receiving life-changing medical diagnosis on a child. Why New York, you may ask? I am convinced it's because he grew up in the mountains of Colorado and misses the snow. Snow is a rare commodity in Texas for some reason. I am frantically trying to find down coats and snow boots for three growing children in a climate that hasn't seen snow since the ice age. I am sure excited about this move.

On the bright side, at least we don't have to worry about moving or finding homes for pets this time. When we moved to Texas from Idaho, we had over 65 Peruvian guinea pigs to find homes for. Most people don't really need 65 guinea pigs, but I had two home school kids who decided to make their 4-H guinea pig project my life's work. Actually, half of them were mine, because baby Peruvians are the cutest things going. Any idea how much it costs to feed, house, and clothe 65 guinea pigs? Not to mention vet bills, because we were the bleeding heart breeders who couldn't bear to let anyone go without a fight. Which is how we got Junior Barnes, the $100.00 baby. I got up every two hours every night for two weeks to hand feed that baby, because he was so big he almost killed his mother being born and she was too tired to care for him. And we had to take them both to the vet (the only one in Idaho who even had a clue about caring for guinea pigs), pay for kitten milk replacer, syringes; we stopped keeping track after the first $100.00. I sold him when he got big and strong for $10.00. Not the best investment I ever made, except that he was such a cute little rascal, and awfully sweet. We had some of the best show pigs in Idaho, thanks to the great advice from knowledgeable friends. You didn't know there were guinea pig shows? Neither did I, until I went down the street and viewed the caviary (thats guinea pig facility in fancy show-talk, because guinea pigs are called cavies) and fell in love with the ones that had such long hair you couldn't tell which end was which.

One little guinea pig was what I bought my son for his eigth birthday. Sweet, cute little Amaro, who 4 1/2 years later is still going strong. Only one. Until 5 year old sister wanted one, too, so we got a girl, because the babies are so cute. And then we went to our first guinea pig show, and brought home a couple more for 4-H. And Amaro was a daddy not too long after that, producing our first grand champion (yes, there are guinea pig grand champions). By the time we were at full tilt, we had tortoise shell and white, black and white, roan, blue, dilute, and almost every other color of Peruvian guinea pig, with at least 10 that had to have there hair done every two days. Show Peruvians have coats that are conservatively at least 10 inches long or more, and if you don't keep their hair rolled up and tidy, they chew, pee, and poop on those beautiful coats hourly. If not more. I have to admit, I loved playing guinea pig beautician, like having one of those oversize Stylin' Barbie head sets or something only cuter.

Of course, when we moved it was a herculean task to place all those pigs, and if it wasn't for a dear friend who housed and cared for about 30 of them until their new owners could pick them up or arrange delivery, I would still be paying "pig support" back in Idaho. Since they were such good quality show cavies, it wasn't hard to find people to buy them, but they still traveled to places like Oregon, Utah, and Arizona, so it was time consuming to make all the travel arrangements, etc.

This move all I have to worry about is the service dog for my 5 year old son. Remember the "life changing medical diagnosis" comment a few paragraphs back? My youngest is autistic, diagnosed formally the day the packers arrived in Idaho, allergic to everything, and has a service dog now, named Willis. And today is the day I received notice that he tested positive for celiac disease. Not only do I have to get a house ready to sell while the dh goes on ahead and leaves me to single parent, but I have to radically change the diet of an autistic child at the same time I am moving him. I just know God has a sense of humor. If I wasn't so panicked, this would be really funny. I mean, this kind of thing just doesn't happen to real people, does it? At least I'm not pregnant. When we moved from Maryland to Idaho, I was seven months pregnant. That was really horrible. And great for another story; the airplane ride to Idaho will go down in annals of truly terrible, horrible, really bad days.

Well, I'm out of whine time for now.