You gotta love grandchildren...
Alex: 'Grandma, I love my Todd so much!'
Grandma: 'Yes, he's the best cousin ever.'
Alex: 'My Todd loves me so much he wants to marry me when we grow up.'
Grandma: 'Eeewwww! You can't marry Todd. He's your cousin. Cousins can't get married.'
Alex: 'Graaaaandma! I can't get married. I have to get a job. I have to do something!'
Silly Grandma - I thought it was because they were cousins!
Jacob: 'You're the BEST Grandma ever!'
Grandma: 'You're goofy.'
Alex: 'No, YOU'RE goofy.'
Grandma: 'No - you're goofy.'
Alex: 'No, YOU'RE goofy.'
Grandma: No, you're goofy.'
Alex: 'Well, you're Pluto!'
To be continued....
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Of Mice and Men
So - Stuart Little aside...I just have to say that I think mice are nasty little disease carrying vermin. They are not cute. They are not lovable. They are pests. They are destructive. They are dirty. And when your home is infested with them - they are just plain creepy!
Last week we noticed we had mice when we found droppings under the sink in the kitchen. Well, the first hint we had was when our old Sheltie, Autumn, started camping out in the kitchen - staring at the cupboard door. She hates the kitchen - unless we are cooking and she thinks we might drop something edible. Any other time she avoids it because of the Pergo flooring. She's an old dog and has great difficulty getting traction on the slick surface.
So we opened said door and discovered the mouse droppings. Being the total antithesis of calm and reasonable I flipped out and demanded that my husband set a mouse trap in the cupboard. Which, of course, he did. He pretty much would do anything to keep me from going into full nag mode.
The next morning we got up and were a trifle irritated to find that all the peanut butter was gone off the trap - but it had not been set off. My husband was especially irritated when he opened the door to check and the mouse was sitting there looking at him while it cleaned it's whiskers. So he put more peanut butter on the trap, reset it and closed the cupboard door again.
Autumn again took up vigil in the kitchen and this time we actually caught a mouse. My husband tried to convince me that we only had the one mouse and that we didn't have to do anything else. But since Autumn wouldn't leave the kitchen and was fixated on that cupboard, I convinced him to put out another trap. He won't re-use a mouse trap - he throws them away with the mice. This time when he checked there were two mice sitting there looking at him - and all the peanut butter was cleaned off the trap.
He took that as a challenge and decided he was going to catch the pesky little vermin. He set out five traps in a circle so that they couldn't get to the peanut butter without setting at least one of them off - he thought. They again cleaned off all the peanut butter and when he opened the cupboard door not only where they staring at him - they were actually sitting on the traps! At this point I think he was on the verge of wild-eyed crazy. So he went out and bought a different brand of mousetrap and placed them in the cupboard along with more of my all natural, organic peanut butter. That was certainly successful - he figured out that he could drop the traps on the floor and not have them go off!. But we did manage to catch one more mouse. However, Autumn still insisted on camping out in the kitchen guarding the cupboard.
I think it was at this point that I started thinking an exterminator might be warranted. But by now my husband was not going to admit defeat. Back to the store he went, and returned with some sticky glue traps. He set five of the wooden traps and a glue trap in the cupboard and managed to catch three of them all at once. He decided at that point that he had fixed the problem - after all he had caught five mice. I gave him 'The Look' and he decided that it would be a good idea to set more traps rather than have me go into full nag mode.
By now we are into day three of the 'War on Mice' and they are winning. But my husband is nothing if not stubborn - I mean determined. He continued to put out various combinations of traps - even went back to the store and bought a couple that look like giant binder clips. The mice continued to eat all of my organic peanut butter and then go back to tell all their friends where they could get a free meal. Autumn continued to be a speed bump in the doorway of my kitchen. But we slowly but surely gained ground in the battle. Through perserverence and sheer number of traps set in the cupboard we have managed to catch 13 mice so far. Have we won the war? Or are they only regrouping for another coup d'etat? I fear the latter - there are still mouse droppings in the cupboard. Autumn still haunts the kitchen. Peanut butter continues to disappear.
Mouse traps are the only thing I will let him use. My daughter's dog got into the Decon in her garage several years ago and had to be put down. With three dogs of my own I'm not willing to take the risk that they may get into any kind of poison - so we continue to set traps and keep a scoreboard.
And I am sure my mother continues to look down on me and laugh. She is so way past smiling - she is rolling on the clouds, can't catch her breath, tears running down her cheeks - laughing! She thinks it's the perfect revenge for me bringing home the white mice from biology lab when I was a freshman in high school - and then leaving for the summer. But that's another story - for another day.
Last week we noticed we had mice when we found droppings under the sink in the kitchen. Well, the first hint we had was when our old Sheltie, Autumn, started camping out in the kitchen - staring at the cupboard door. She hates the kitchen - unless we are cooking and she thinks we might drop something edible. Any other time she avoids it because of the Pergo flooring. She's an old dog and has great difficulty getting traction on the slick surface.
So we opened said door and discovered the mouse droppings. Being the total antithesis of calm and reasonable I flipped out and demanded that my husband set a mouse trap in the cupboard. Which, of course, he did. He pretty much would do anything to keep me from going into full nag mode.
The next morning we got up and were a trifle irritated to find that all the peanut butter was gone off the trap - but it had not been set off. My husband was especially irritated when he opened the door to check and the mouse was sitting there looking at him while it cleaned it's whiskers. So he put more peanut butter on the trap, reset it and closed the cupboard door again.
Autumn again took up vigil in the kitchen and this time we actually caught a mouse. My husband tried to convince me that we only had the one mouse and that we didn't have to do anything else. But since Autumn wouldn't leave the kitchen and was fixated on that cupboard, I convinced him to put out another trap. He won't re-use a mouse trap - he throws them away with the mice. This time when he checked there were two mice sitting there looking at him - and all the peanut butter was cleaned off the trap.
He took that as a challenge and decided he was going to catch the pesky little vermin. He set out five traps in a circle so that they couldn't get to the peanut butter without setting at least one of them off - he thought. They again cleaned off all the peanut butter and when he opened the cupboard door not only where they staring at him - they were actually sitting on the traps! At this point I think he was on the verge of wild-eyed crazy. So he went out and bought a different brand of mousetrap and placed them in the cupboard along with more of my all natural, organic peanut butter. That was certainly successful - he figured out that he could drop the traps on the floor and not have them go off!. But we did manage to catch one more mouse. However, Autumn still insisted on camping out in the kitchen guarding the cupboard.
I think it was at this point that I started thinking an exterminator might be warranted. But by now my husband was not going to admit defeat. Back to the store he went, and returned with some sticky glue traps. He set five of the wooden traps and a glue trap in the cupboard and managed to catch three of them all at once. He decided at that point that he had fixed the problem - after all he had caught five mice. I gave him 'The Look' and he decided that it would be a good idea to set more traps rather than have me go into full nag mode.
By now we are into day three of the 'War on Mice' and they are winning. But my husband is nothing if not stubborn - I mean determined. He continued to put out various combinations of traps - even went back to the store and bought a couple that look like giant binder clips. The mice continued to eat all of my organic peanut butter and then go back to tell all their friends where they could get a free meal. Autumn continued to be a speed bump in the doorway of my kitchen. But we slowly but surely gained ground in the battle. Through perserverence and sheer number of traps set in the cupboard we have managed to catch 13 mice so far. Have we won the war? Or are they only regrouping for another coup d'etat? I fear the latter - there are still mouse droppings in the cupboard. Autumn still haunts the kitchen. Peanut butter continues to disappear.
Mouse traps are the only thing I will let him use. My daughter's dog got into the Decon in her garage several years ago and had to be put down. With three dogs of my own I'm not willing to take the risk that they may get into any kind of poison - so we continue to set traps and keep a scoreboard.
And I am sure my mother continues to look down on me and laugh. She is so way past smiling - she is rolling on the clouds, can't catch her breath, tears running down her cheeks - laughing! She thinks it's the perfect revenge for me bringing home the white mice from biology lab when I was a freshman in high school - and then leaving for the summer. But that's another story - for another day.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Day One - One More Time
Well here we go - Day 1...again. I've decided to try blogging again. Tried a couple of years ago and couldn't get the hang of it. Not sure why - probably the logging in and adding something new each day confused me.
I'm naturally blonde - or was at one point in my life. Now my boss says I change hair color more often than I change clothes. He doesn't even look surprised when I leave the office one day as a blonde and return the next as a redhead. To his credit he didn't even bat an eye the day I showed up with DayGlo Royal Purple hair. That was not planned - it just happened. Fortunately it was just before Halloween.
Besides changing my hair color on a regular basis, I also do all kinds of needlework crafts, scrapbooking, grandkid tending and work full time. My needlework lately has consisted of going into my sewing room and turning on the sewing machine, going to my fabric stash to find a piece of fabric I want to make something out of and then realizing that the pattern I bought 5 years ago is not the correct dimensions for the body I have now. Turn off the sewing machine, put the fabric aside - and go watch trash TV (usually NCIS, Criminal Minds or Big Bang Theory). I think I may have to stick to making items that I do not have to starve myself for 4 weeks to actually zip or button. Like bags - I make absolutely terrific totes and bags. Some of my friends refer to me as the 'Bag Lady'.
I learned to sew by trial and error. My mother and my grandmother were both excellent seamstresses. Unfortunately, I was a terrible student and never wanted to sew when they wanted to teach me. But I must have soaked up some of their skills by osmosis. My first real attempt to make anything on a sewing machine was when I was in Home Ec in Junior High. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they actually had electric sewing machines and that I didn't have to use both feet to run them! I made a jumper that year - and wore it once. My teacher made me take the zipper out and re-do it so many times the fabric shredded. I didn't try to sew again for many years. I kept the stand from my mother's sewing machine and am in the process of restoring it. I gave the actual sewing machine to my sister-in-law and bought a replacement. I am sure Mom would be happy to know that we shared! We both wanted it and this way we both get part of Mom's legacy of sewing.
Then I got married and started having kids. I made shirts, pants, jackets, pajamas, quilts...I even made them sleeping bags one year for Christmas. My best friend and I used to make T-shirts assembly line style. We would set up our sewing machines on the opposite sides of the kitchen table and I would sew a seam on a shirt, throw it to her and pick up the next shirt. She would do the same - sew her seam, throw it back to me and pick up the next one. We now live too far away from each other to get together for sewing sessions - I miss her...lots.
Now I have grandkids - way more fun because when they behave like brats I can send them home. Oh - and I can spoil them while I have them so that they behave like brats when they go home - LOL. My mother always told me 'What goes around, comes around.' I never gave her a fraction of the grief my kids gave me...but I do get to sit back and smile now that they are grown and have their own children to deal with.
I'm naturally blonde - or was at one point in my life. Now my boss says I change hair color more often than I change clothes. He doesn't even look surprised when I leave the office one day as a blonde and return the next as a redhead. To his credit he didn't even bat an eye the day I showed up with DayGlo Royal Purple hair. That was not planned - it just happened. Fortunately it was just before Halloween.
Besides changing my hair color on a regular basis, I also do all kinds of needlework crafts, scrapbooking, grandkid tending and work full time. My needlework lately has consisted of going into my sewing room and turning on the sewing machine, going to my fabric stash to find a piece of fabric I want to make something out of and then realizing that the pattern I bought 5 years ago is not the correct dimensions for the body I have now. Turn off the sewing machine, put the fabric aside - and go watch trash TV (usually NCIS, Criminal Minds or Big Bang Theory). I think I may have to stick to making items that I do not have to starve myself for 4 weeks to actually zip or button. Like bags - I make absolutely terrific totes and bags. Some of my friends refer to me as the 'Bag Lady'.
I learned to sew by trial and error. My mother and my grandmother were both excellent seamstresses. Unfortunately, I was a terrible student and never wanted to sew when they wanted to teach me. But I must have soaked up some of their skills by osmosis. My first real attempt to make anything on a sewing machine was when I was in Home Ec in Junior High. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they actually had electric sewing machines and that I didn't have to use both feet to run them! I made a jumper that year - and wore it once. My teacher made me take the zipper out and re-do it so many times the fabric shredded. I didn't try to sew again for many years. I kept the stand from my mother's sewing machine and am in the process of restoring it. I gave the actual sewing machine to my sister-in-law and bought a replacement. I am sure Mom would be happy to know that we shared! We both wanted it and this way we both get part of Mom's legacy of sewing.
Then I got married and started having kids. I made shirts, pants, jackets, pajamas, quilts...I even made them sleeping bags one year for Christmas. My best friend and I used to make T-shirts assembly line style. We would set up our sewing machines on the opposite sides of the kitchen table and I would sew a seam on a shirt, throw it to her and pick up the next shirt. She would do the same - sew her seam, throw it back to me and pick up the next one. We now live too far away from each other to get together for sewing sessions - I miss her...lots.
Now I have grandkids - way more fun because when they behave like brats I can send them home. Oh - and I can spoil them while I have them so that they behave like brats when they go home - LOL. My mother always told me 'What goes around, comes around.' I never gave her a fraction of the grief my kids gave me...but I do get to sit back and smile now that they are grown and have their own children to deal with.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)