The one where Spring Break did not go according to the plan

 The Chaos Factor strikes again.

We had plans. While I knew I had to work for part of our vacation, we tried to make the best of it. We planned to go to northwest Arkansas to visit David and Emma.

Wednesday morning, I signed on for a 2-hour training session at work. We were going to head to Fayetteville as soon as I finished, but tragedy struck. Our little Moko died.

Heartbroken doesn’t even begin to describe how we feel. He was the cutest little goofball and we loved interacting with him. We canceled our trip because we didn’t want Meli to be alone (Jack was going to come over twice a day to feed the boys). 

And, still concerned for Meli, Hubs immediately went in search of another parakeet for Meli’s sake. After looking at both of the big box pet stores nearby, he came home and started calling all of the others in the area. Then I started calling as soon as I finished training. 

In the middle of the calls, my sister called for a chat. I told her what happened and explained that we were on the edge of desperation in search of another parakeet. She was in her car and told me that Petco was around the corner. Once she was there, she FaceTimed with us to show the parakeets available. Hubs wanted two. We put Meli in the travel cage and drove up to Memphis and picked them up that afternoon and drove back home with Meli, Moko Tu and Malaki:

In the car and ready to go home

Meli on the left; Moko Tu and Malaki on the right.

They are bonding. We are watching closely because we are thinking we may need to get a fourth parakeet. 

What is amazing to us is that in 4 days they are all coming to us, using millet sprays as our aid. Meli has always been a bit on the skittish side; Hubs observed when he bought him that the handler used his hand instead of a net to capture him. A net was used when we purchased Moko and he wasn’t nearly as skittish as Meli. I have been able to coax Meli to my hand, but only if millet was on my hand. But Sunday night as I was sitting in my recliner next to the cage, Meli flew to the arm of my chair and talked to me. That was huge. We leave the cage door open during the day; we close the door to the room when we leave it so they can roam around the room. Each time we opened the door on Monday, they were running up to us to greet us.

The rest of our time was spent piddling around the apartment, and I got a little bit of quilting done. Yesterday was my regular day off from work and the best day. Hubs and I moved things around in the studio and I am so much happier with the layout. I stitched for a few minutes on my hula man class project and made the mistake of adding details to the lips that were unnecessary. I also worked on posterizing photos for the additional patterns for the class. Feedback from instructors: “Remove the pasted on lips; they’re not needed.” Ah, if I had only pasted them on. Seam Ripper and I have a date tonight. It’s all part of the learning process.

Hula Man before the "pasted-on" lips

And today I return to work. There’s a little rumble in my stomach about it. I’d rather be in my studio cutting out the baby quilt and watching my birds. That won’t happen until Saturday.

Have a great week—go make!