Last night

Last night I had one of those heart-stopping "god I wish I wasn't single" moments. I was woken up at 3 AM with a loud bang, followed by various stealthy, sliding noises. Lying on my back it was hard to tell where the noises were coming from; but I could have sworn it was coming from right outside my bedroom window and upstairs in the playroom. I flashed back to earlier yesterday when I took a rare trip to my back yard (I don't spend much time out there in the winter) to fill the chickens' water container and noticed the workers had left a tall ladder leaning up against the back of the house, just in the right spot for anyone who really wanted to to climb into the playroom windows, the only windows as yet without bars on. So when I heard a bunch of bumping and sliding all I could think was someone had figured this out and was breaking in to the upstairs.

I immediately went into the hall and switched on the hallway light which would signal to anyone upstairs that I was aware of their presence. No scurrying sounds followed; but I could still hear scraping sounds from outside. So I switched on the exterior lights, and stuck my head out of my bedroom window, only to see a raccoon having a meal out of my tipped- over garbage can. Good times.

It took forever to go back to sleep with adrenaline pumping through my veins. I've been broken into twice in my life, but both during the day when I was out, and not in this house, and most recently nineteen years ago. I like to think this place is a bit of a fortress, between the bars on the windows, burglar alarm that I always use, and general inaccessibility. But, I had to break into this place once when my keys were stolen, and it was shockingly easy, and my stupid alarm didn't even go off (probably because I ducked under where I know the motion sensor is). The fact is if anyone really wanted to, they could get in here. We all just hope we'll make our place unappealing enough that any common crook will pass us over for an easier target. And twelve years unmolested in this house says so far, so good.

Still it never sits well with me that people know I'm a woman living alone here. I don't know if having a baby makes me more or less of a target. But I've had these heart-stopping "someone's breaking in moments" all my life, and they suck. Thankfully they've never amounted to more than a raccoon, a rat, or my imagination. So you want to be a single parent, huh?

Here are some pics of me & B in vintage garb today, or as I like to call it, my natural habitat: