We are bad parents

We lost the cat. Well, truth be told, my mom inadvertently lost the cat. I should start from the beginning. As you know, Ms. Bailey Ann has had a taste of freedom the past couple of weekends when we've been doing work outside the house. We've let her explore the back yard and she's always stayed very close to one of us. She seems to enjoy the outdoors but never wanders far from home. Well this all changed yesterday.

Mom was at the house preparing my birthday present - she recovered a love seat and chair and made adorable window treatments for the sunroom (it is so cute and bright! You cannot help but smile when you walk in the room. Thanks mom!! Love you! I'll post some pix soon.). There is a door off the sunroom that mom opened and the cat darted outside and jumped over the porch running for the back of the house. This was at 9:30 in the morning. When I came home from work at 2:30pm, Bailey was nowhere to be found. When Mr. Cob came home at 5:30, Bailey was still no where to be found. We yelled out her name, searched the yard, walked the neighborhood and began to worry. You see, she has never been gone for more than a few minutes, so when she was gone for HOURS, we were worried. Would she come back? Did she know how to come back? What if she had gotten eaten by one of the many dogs in the neighborhood? We were imagining the worst....

Around 8 at night, still without a cat, Mr. Cob and I decided we needed to eat dinner (our new fridge did arrive (yay) but we still had no food...so we had to go out to eat). So we tried a little pub, The Grange, in downtown Decatur - it was one of the best restaurants we've ever eaten at. I think it will become a regular dining spot for us. Reasonably priced food and a great beer/wine list. We hurried through dinner since we both couldn't stop thinking about Bailey - at this point I was in tears and convinced I was never going to see her again. And to make matter worse, it began to rain. Hard.

We finally got back home and the rain was still coming down. Mr. Cob dropped me at the front door and he was off to search for her in the backyard again. So I went in the house and went to the back door in hopes she'd be waiting there. But no, she was not just sitting at the back door as I hoped. I opened the door and called her name - tears rolling down my face again, and all of the sudden I saw these two frightened eyes peering up at me from beneath the grill - BAILEY!!!!! I was never so excited to see our little girl! She came quickly running into the house and has not left our side since. Mr. Cob bought her a light blue collar with her name and number engraved in case she ever gets lost again - it also has a little bell, so now we always know where she is. We've now started calling her "Jingles."

I hope she enjoyed her joyride all day because now Jingles is grounded...indefinitely!