Eeeeeek! There's a Mouse in the House!

Well, it finally happened. Those telltale signs of the sneaky little varmint finally appeared in my house. I have been chasing and trapping and repelling mice in my garage since it first started to get cold. I trapped two in a glue trap, and tried to seal up all the gaps I could see in the garage. I also put out peppermint pouches since peppermint is supposed to be repulsive to mice. Things in the garage seemed to be better. No more little black mouse pellets. No more chewed cardboard. No more mice. Well, duh! The brothers of the two I trapped decided to move into the house where food is plentiful and it is much warmer. Thanks to my Jack Russell Terrier, I was able to find out where the mouse (mice?) came in. The only problem is, how do I get the stinker out? Jack Russell Terriers are really good at chasing down and capturing little critters; that is what they are bred for, but chasing down and capturing a mouse in a house with slippery wooden floors is a different game altogether. Poor little pup is going to pace herself into the ground until the pest is eradicated. For now, I have filled in the gap behind the refrigerator and set out a couple of glue traps at the entrance/exit of the mouse's route. Hopefully, with a little luck, quick Jack Russell feet, and some super sticky glue, the creature will be outta here before everyone returns home this evening!

I'm Thankful for What????

I generally like this time of year. I almost enjoy Thanksgiving more than any other holiday, but this year was different. Last Sunday, we dropped my husband off at the airport so he could fly out to his new job 600 miles away. My job for the next week was supposed to be spent getting our house ready to put up for sale(stop laughing). We delayed putting our house on the market because the home prices are falling so far so fast around here that we weren't sure what to do. My husband was going to call our mortgage company on Monday. Well, he did, and they were pretty much no help. It looks like we may be joining the ranks of those who are said to be "underwater" in their mortgages, even though we put 20% down on our house and have been making the monthly payments in a timely fashion, we have nothing (or less than nothing) to show for it. So, that is how the week started out. The kids only had two days of school last week, so that was something to look forward to, I guess. On Wednesday, I finally went to get an overdue mammogram, and was greeted by two ogres at the front desk who ignored me and allowed me to sit for 30 minutes without even asking for my paperwork. When I finally decided to ask one of the ogres what was going on, she was extremely rude to me, even though she was the one who made the mistake. The next day, of course was Thanksgiving. My husband was spending the long weekend with his side of the family, and they sounded like they were having a pretty good time. The girls and I made the traditional dinner and enjoyed it, but it was still weird. We called my family, but they pretty much blew us off because their party was breaking up when we called and they needed to say their goodbyes. The next thing that happened was that some sort of large dog-like creature (wolf, coyote, etc.) decided to rip its fur out by the roots right in my front yard. That creeped our dog out as well as the girls and I. We cleaned up the fur and tissue and went on about the rest of the day, which turned out to be the pinnacle of the holiday. My youngest daughter had just washed her hair and I was looking at it, and saw a bunch of little white dots in her hair. . . you guessed it! Her head was infested with lice. I spent the rest of the day putting LiceMD and olive oil on our hair and picking out nits, vacuuming the furniture, and putting everything I could in the dryer on high to kill the little buggers (or at least make myself feel better). Then, last night as I was laying peacefully on my newly changed sheets with my damp, olive-scented hair, I hear what sounded like an abnormally huge mouse/rat???? crawling around the other side of my bedroom wall! Oy! Someone must be trying to tell me something. Or maybe my life is just supposed to play out like a Dr. Suess story (lice, mice, etc.) or some sort of modern-day bible-like story of Job. At any rate, I still have much to be thankful for, not the least of which are my children and my husband's new job. We are doing well, have food to eat, clothes to wear and , for now, a roof over our heads. What else could a person ask for?