Friends in low places

It seems the deceased mouse indeed has a friend. I learned about him today when I opened the silverware drawer to get a fork and found some mouse poo on it.

Can you say YUCK?! I swear I puked a little in my mouth!

SO...we emptied out the silverware drawer (which had a LOT of droppings in it...droppings that were NOT there yesterday when I emptied the dishwasher, by the way) and put everything in the dishwasher on high heat! We cleaned out the drawer and now the silverware is sitting on the counter top. I am waiting to see if there are signs of Mr. Mouse again in the drawer. I need to put the trap in there.

What bothers me most, though, is that the silverware drawer is above the tupperware cabinet. Guess what has to be cleaned out next?

Again, I don't mind having the random mouse now and again, but ONE per year is all I can handle. I would prefer this little guy go next door!!

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Hahaha! Now you are all singing that song. It's stuck in my head and I shouldn't be the only one!

Before our house was built, this area was a field. It was a rotating field of corn and soybeans. I know this because across the street, behind the houses, is the rest of the field and those are the two rotating crops. With a field comes field mice.

This house is about five years old. That means that for as long back as anyone can remember up until about five years ago, there were field mice EVERYWHERE. When we first moved in, we expected mice. We had quite a few, but they have since been...um...taken care of. Now, we get one or two mice every year.

Two days ago, I noticed remnants of said mouse under the kitchen sink. Last night, I cleaned out the cabinet and set my trusty trap. Now many people think the sticky stuff is more humane than the snap-traps. I beg to differ. The snap-trap is a swift and almost instant kill. The sticky stuff is slow and painful. The green blocks the exterminator uses sometimes work, but we still get the stray mouse here and there.

This afternoon, I decided to check the trap. Sure enough, the little field mouse was dead under the sink. Then it was a matter of "who wants to get rid of the mouse?" It was just like the Little Red Hen. All I heard was variations of "not I..." So, I grabbed my plastic grocery bag and used it as a glove to dispose of our now dead critter.

I set another trap just in case our friend was not acting alone...but I'm guessing he might have been as there were not signs of him anywhere else besides the sink.

I'll keep you posted.

Interior Design...sort of!

The Girl is not particularly happy with her bedroom. I can't blame her. While it is plenty large enough, it doesn't work. It has far too many obstacles and no good bed placement options. She has, in her room, 3 doors, all of which open in. Additionally, she has a large window that is roughly 75" long and *not* centered on the wall. Setting up this room is a nightmare at best.

The other day, I was browsing one of my new favorite sites, Pinterest. There, I found a cool website on which you can design your room. It is called The Make Room and it is from Icovia. I went to the site and set to work designing The Girl's room. I went upstairs and took meticulous measurements to ensure all would fit. Here is what I designed:The Girl really likes the design, although we've already modified it some. We have decided *not* to put a desk between the closet doors because it is too crowded. Also, her dresser is not as large as the one pictured, but that is because she needs a new, larger one. At this point, there is no chair in the corner yet. Again, we don't have one, but she definitely knows what she wants.

The "rug" in the middle of the floor is a cool shaggy blanket. The color is the same bright green as on her bedding, shown below.

We are, for the most part, pleased with how it all came together. The bed is pretty close to the door when it is opened, but there isn't much we can do about that. One closet door does not open all the way, but The Girl doesn't really use that side much and, without putting a desk in, she will be able to access it with no trouble.

Next up...The Boy's room!

Happy Father's Day!

It's Father's Day, and in true family spirit in our home, that means another unadulterated WORKDAY! We used to refer to these as "family fun days" but the children have since lost interest in working around the house, so they were scarce today!

Our first project was to battle our Japanese Beetles. I've written about them before and we were definitely making headway, but they are fierce this year and you can't dust certain trees, so it was off for the liquid backup:

This poor tree looks more like fine lace than a tree. I sprayed the heck out of it, and then did the ones out back for good measure!





After the trees were taken care of, it was time to dig out the pressure washer. This is one gadget EVERYONE should own. They're magic!

Since The Husband had just mowed the lawn and cleaned the mower, we had to get the pressure washer out to clean the driveway. While we were at it, we decided to do some much needed maintenance as well.

We grabbed a bottle of house cleaner and got busy.



We've owned this house for over four years and we've done our share of maintenance; however, we rented the house out for two years, during which time NO maintenance was done. Even still, we thought the discoloration of the shutters was due to fading, as our house gets a significant amount of direct sun every day.





You would not believe how shocked we were to find that the shutters were not faded, but rather dirty! Above is the before shot and below, the after. Amazing!




Despite the ridiculous heat, The Husband and I spent the bulk of the day outside (wearing sunscreen) working on the house. We are now cooling off and relaxing and, I suppose I'll cook him a nice dinner!

Top 'o the mornin'...er...um...afternoon...to ya!

I'm working really hard at getting back in the swing of posting. Two days in a row. Amazing! And...a fun color today, to boot!

I'm enjoying an extremely rare moment of peace and quiet IN MY HOUSE right now. I am home from work but the kids are not yet home from school; they will be late today. The Husband, of course, is not home yet either. The only sounds I hear (aside from my typing) are The Dog sighing as she settles in for yet another nap, and the ticking of the clock on the wall.

Such heaven it is to be home alone! It's so rare, I am procrastinating a much needed trip to the store because I want to enjoy every moment of peace. It won't last; it never does.

Last night, The Boy had a baseball game. They won 5-3. The boy did have one error, but played well and even scored one of the five runs. Tonight is an off night, but there is another game tomorrow, and, as I said, a double-header Friday night. At least the weather is supposed to be nice.

Have a nice and safe St. Patty's Day!

The post in which I explain how NOT to mow the lawn

Sunday afternoon, I was home alone and I had to mow the lawn. It'd been over a week since it'd been mowed and it was pretty long. I slathered myself in sunscreen (I was taking those antibiotics on which one should avoid exposure to the sun) and hopped on the mower. Except, it didn't start. Great. I'd seen The Husband put the mower on the charger before so I thought "How hard can this be?"

I plugged in the charger and went to put the leads on the mower. Except there is no black/red on the mower battery. The leads were black and red, but how was I supposed to know which lead went on which terminal. I swear there was no writing. I took a deep breath thinking the worst that could happen is that I blow up my house, and attached the leads. Nothing happened. I was so happy. Then, I turned the charger on. The light went on and the needles did their thing. Well, I was already slathered in sunscreen and didn't want to wait hours for the charger so I figured I could flip the switch and jump start the mower. Again...worst case scenario is that I blow up the house. Yeah, the kids would miss me, but I'm kind of impatient when I decide to do something!

I got on the mower and started it. It started, but then I was stuck. If I got off the mower, the engine would cut off. Safety feature. Except at that moment, it sucked. I decided to carefully reach up and unhook the leads. Then, I had to put them down...except I knew they shouldn't touch each other; the charger was still plugged into the wall and turned on...and I couldn't reach it from the seat of the mower. I carefully threw the leads down and backed out of the garage.

So far, so good! Off I go to mow the yard.

Remember the fence the renters put up? I'd link to it but I can't find where I posted and it's not under the label 'stupidity' although it should be! Anyway, they set the fence posts in cement, which was stupid. When The Husband pulled the posts, he learned of the cement. Needless to say there are large holes in our yard. The Husband had warned me to be careful mowing and NOT to drive the mower into a hole.

Guess who drove the mower into a hole? Yep! BUT…I was able to drive out of it after a tiny bit of coaxing back and forth. PHEW!

Feeling really good about myself, I attacked the rest of the yard. I was doing a great job, too. Then, I decided that the grass under the trailer behind the shed was entirely too long and should be mowed as well. I hopped off the mower and proceeded to move the trailer. It is light, so not a big deal to move. Except if you maneuver it into one of those holes. One of the deepest holes in the yard.

By now, my dad is at the house. I get him to help me move the trailer. OK – I get him to help me TRY to move the trailer. No dice. Then, we get The Boy to help. Still, nothing. Someone gets the brilliant idea to get the floor jack, lift the trailer, and push it out of the hole. Except for the fact that the trailer pivots on the wheels, it’d have been a great idea. We jacked the front of the trailer up but it only pushed the back further down. DUH!

Finally, we managed to put the jack right under the axle (and not in the hole) and we lifted the trailer just enough to slide a piece of wood under the wheel covering the hole. It worked! We moved the trailer out of the way and I finished mowing. I went to put the trailer back but couldn’t even move it. Why? Because I’m 40 and I was exhausted! I got my dad to help and we put the trailer back (but left plenty of room for the mower all around it).

Luckily, the rest of the job mowing was uneventful. I don’t think I could have taken any more excitement!

Building the gym...Part 1

I forgot to take a photo of the beginning of this project, but here we are in the beginning phases of building the gym in our garage. We have very tall ceilings in the garage, which is good for a Crossfit-type gym.

We began with the lifting platform. That was easy. We used 4 3/4" sheets of plywood for the base, and then one sheet of 3/4" oak for the top. We bought horse stall mats for the outer parts. Cutting the mats proved to be an issue; the proper way would have been to use a retractable knife, but that proved way too slow and arduous. Instead, we opted for the retractable saw! Much easier to cut, but it vibrates like all get-out!






We measured the mats and ran a chalk line before cutting, but that proved to be not nearly as helpful as we'd have wished because The Husband could not actually see the chalk line when he was cutting!









We screwed the mats down in place...








and, voila! A lifting platform is born.






No good gym is complete without a stereo system. This is what we have set up. We have DirecTv, so we have XM through the TV. The Husband has some favorite lifting stations. No doubt, they are not my favorites! The workbench will, in time, be moved out of here and into the larger garage we plan to build out back.





Over here, we plan to build a loft. It will be about 7 or 8 feet high so there is easy access to both the circuit breakers and the water heater (until we get the tankless water heater we both want).




It will provide much needed storage as well as a perfect spot for the pull-up bars.

The weights have already been ordered and should be here early next week. The rings are somewhere and we already have many other components for the gym. It's just a matter of putting it all together and making it functional.

One of the goals of this gym, by the way, is for me to actually USE it. Mostly, it is for The Husband and The Kids, but I need to get off my bum and use it too!

I'll let you know how THAT works out...

It all started innocently enough

I've never been a good decorator. Truth be told, I suck. I know what looks good in other houses but I'm too scared to *pick* a color and go with it. I'm always afraid I'll hate it later, so instead, I do nothing. In the year + that we lived in this house the first time, I never put up a single curtain. We had sheers on every window, but not a single drapery.


Well, that's not true. There were some in the bedroom and master bath, but I put them up on tension bars because I was that undecided!


Now that we're back, I have to bite the bullet and decorate. We replaced all the sheers with mini blinds before we moved because we did not want tenants hanging and rehanging blinds. (We didn't know we'd be back so soon.) That being said, our tenants' kids pretty much destroyed the blinds. They planned on replacing them but I told them not to bother since I don't like them and intended to take them all down. Much to my chagrin, The Husband likes the blinds, so we will be replacing them. *sigh*


We get a LOT of sunlight at our house. It seems as though the sun shines in both the front and back windows equally in the morning. We needed something over the kitchen sink window because it was blinding to stand there in the mornings! I ended up with this.

I really like how it enhances the color of the cabinets and decided this was definitely the direction to go. It led me on a quest for drapes. Finally, I found these for the sliding-glass door.

We had to hang the tie-backs pretty high so we could go in and out the door.



I really liked the rod I chose but it was not a double rod, so I ended up sewing the valances to the panels. I also mistakenly purchased only two panels instead of four. This was not a problem for the door, but I definitely should have had four panels for this window, further down the wall.



Our kitchen and den span the entire back of the house, so I wanted to be able to tie the whole area together with draperies.

While I was on my quest for the perfect draperies, I ran across this coverlet and decided it was time to make a change in the bedroom too. I've had sage colored bedding for the last ten years or so and was ready for a change. I really wanted more blue.

It is hard to see, but this has blue, green, and a touch of brown as well. There is also some grey.



Once I had the coverlet, I needed draperies for the bedroom as well. This time, I went with the double rod and chose these.



Here is a closer look. They were not necessarily meant to go together, but the colors coordinate so well and I like the contrast. I thought The Husband would balk at the little fringe on the valance, but he didn't.



Here is the completed look. Notice I still need a new bed skirt and I'll probably go back and get some shams and throw pillows as well.

The only one *not* impressed with all the changes is The Dog, but that might be because her bed no longer coordinates as well as it once did!

Murphy's Law

One of the items on our list of things-to-do-once-we-finally-get-back-into-our-house was pressure washing and resealing the deck. Because it is summertime, this is much easier said than done. It rains here almost daily! We checked the weather and decided to get started on it Thursday night. We managed to get the whole deck pressure-washed. Our plan was to stain it Friday night.

Guess what happened Friday night! No, really. Guess.

Yep! It rained. And, not just regular rain. No. It poured like CRAZY!

We decided today would be a better day. The Girl went to a sleepover last night and stayed up ALL NIGHT, so we knew she was going to sleep all day. Knowing we could not go anywhere, we put her to bed and got busy on the deck.

Staining and sealing a deck is really not that bad, except for the spindles...those are a total pain. The Husband had started the job while I was at the grocery, but I soon jumped in and we made relatively short work of the job. That is, until the rain started! We were almost finished with the spindles when the first drops spit down. Luckily, there was no deluge, but it rained for good 10 - 15 minutes...all the while with the sun shining brightly! We had to stop our work.

The rain quickly ended and we waited for the deck to dry again. With heat indexes above 100, we knew it wouldn't be long. We managed to complete the job.

Unfortunately, I forgot to shoot any pix. Next time...