Wednesday, September 29, 2010

FOUND!

After a couple of days of waiting for Little Mouse to return on her own with no results, I decided it was time to go looking for her.

How do you find a small mouse in a large house? I didn't know so I Googled it. eHow said to make a trap with a bucket, food and books as stairs. Ideally the hamster smells the food, climbs the "stairs", and falls into the bucket and is trapped. Wow, easy enough. I decided to set one up in the bonus room. This was, after all, the place we found her last time she escaped. As I was finishing some of the details I saw a little fuzzy nose and whiskers poke out from under the *printer. Ah-HA! I made a trail of treats to lead her all the way out in the open and then I grabbed her!

I put her into the bucket (cauldron) and brought her downstairs. I was going to put her back into her cage when I realized how dirty it was. No wonder she made a run for it. While I washed out her cage (no small task) I kept her in the bucket. She had stuffed all the food she could into her cheeks and tried like mad to escape.

She almost succeeded.

She is now locked in her cage with food, water, and bedding. She'll get out again I'm sure but let's hope she waits awhile.

*for those of you wondering why I didn't just move the printer.... this is our printer.
Think small refrigerator.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Mouse Musings

When we got our hamsters we could not come together on what their names should be. When we realized that one was mean and would bite and scratch the other we named them "Mean Mouse" and "Little Mouse".

Mean Mouse died shortly after the naming. We were not that sad, he deserved what he got. Mouse Karma, who knew? (I have always spelled it Kharma, but Wiki says it should be spelled without the h)

Little Mouse was the sweetest little thing, climbing, gnawing, jumping, eating, and escaping.

She is quite a sneaky little hamster. We haven't been able to figure out how, but she can open up multiple pods in her "house" to escape. We have found her in the cabinet under where her house sits, hidden behind an old picture frame. Evan came across her in the bonus room peeking out from under the printer. We didn't even know she was missing and it nearly gave Evan a heart attack. Most recently, one night last week, I was sitting in the iJoy chair hoping a massage would make me sleepy when I saw something move on the floor beside me (in the dark). I jumped up and turned on the light to find our sneaky little hamster doing what looked like the army crawl.

She is gone again. We don't know when she left or where on earth she could be. Well, we have a pretty good idea that she is still in the house BUT we have a rather large house compared to a hamster. We have left her house open in hopes she will return when hungry or thirsty.

Now that we know how good she is at escaping we are clear on what her name should have been...

Hairy Houdini.

We'll keep you posted.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Another way Axe body spray lingers

Noah's 5th grade teacher has a great hands on teaching method. He is young and fresh and is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our kids. In case you don't believe me you can check it out on his website;

http://web.me.com/schoolingwithmra/schoolingwithmra.com/Welcome.html


My reason for this post is not to talk about Mr A, but to tell you what he's done for my son Noah.

Noah came home a couple of weeks ago with the assignment of writing a commercial. To say he was gung-ho about it is an understatement. Writing is not one of Noah's strong suits, but what he lacks in that area, he makes up for in creativity and ingenuity. He decided to make a commercial advertising Bare-A-Cuda man spray (similar to Axe). He and his friend Christopher worked for days on a script and a video. This is what he turned in, early!
(I don't get the tag line "It IS the man" but he's 10. It made sense to him!)


Embarrassing Moments

I must say I don't remember many "God, please let the earth open up and swallow me" type embarrassing moments. I have been involved in some embarrassing situations but have a bad memory so I tend not to remember them.

This is the only time when having a bad memory is a good thing.

So here is an embarrassing moment I can remember.

As many of you know I don't have much of a filter. I tend to say things as I see them, honestly, good or bad. K, here we go.

I was a missionary in my first area in Oak Harbor, Washington. My companion and I went to a member's house for some reason, possibly a dinner appointment. This member was a terrific woman. She was very crafty, and a great cook. In fact, she ran a catering business (mostly cakes) out of her home. She was the mother of 3 children the oldest of which was 12. She was busy. When we got to her home she apologized for the mess (laundry piled on the couch in the living room).

k, let me explain a little about my childhood. I am the oldest of 6 children. My mother was a very busy woman and there was always laundry either on the couch or in a basket or both. With that said, I will continue.

I said to this sister, "Don't worry about it, my mom is a bad housekeeper too!"

Yes, I did.

What I meant to say is "Don't worry, we have laundry at my house too" or maybe I should have just said 'no problem".

This BEST part of this story is that I didn't even realize I said it. I was oblivious!
My companion told me later on how I embarrassed her.

How's that? I have another one to share but I'll save that one for later!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

What do you want to know?

Okay, I am desperate for a blog post. I can't make you keep looking at Zurg and reading about September 11th.

I have been here for minutes (it seems a lot longer than that) trying to come up with something to blog about. There hasn't been too much happening here. We go to work, school, to school to volunteer, come home, eat dinner, sometimes back out again for scouts or something. But that is it. we are just living our lives here people. Pretty boring stuff if you ask me.

We have celebrated two birthdays this month but have no photos to document. I know, I know!

While I am thinking about what to post about go to the comments and tell me what you'd like to know about. I'll choose one and blog about it.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Never Forget


Nine years ago today my son Evan turned four years old.
Bryant was scheduled to teach a class at the business college in the evening so we celebrated his birthday at breakfast. We had birthday muffins (instead of cupcakes) and there was a candle in his. We sang happy birthday and he blew (spit) out his candle. He opened his miniature "Toy Story" action figures (complete with Zurg, his favorite). Then we kissed dad goodbye for the day, sent Garrett off to school and went on with our morning routine.
That is as "normal" as the day would be. I turned on the televison to watch Good Morning America a little before 9am to find a LIVE report of a fire/explosion in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Diane Sawyer was reporting in the studio that the cause of the explosion was unconfirmed but there were witnesses that said a plane flew into the building.

The North Tower

I was curious and continued watching. At 9:03am I watched LIVE as a plane flew into the South Tower. I was shocked, confused, and sick. I immediately called Bryant who was working for a large defense contractor in the Washington DC area. He let me know that there wasn't much work being done in the office he was in as they were all watching the news via their computers but, he was safe. At 9:37am a plane flew into the Pentagon which was no more than 6 miles from my husband's office building and just over the 20 miles from our home. I was no longer a spectator, I was a victim. Of course I had been a victim all along but at hearing the news of the crash at the Pentagon my perspective changed. I knew this was no longer an accident, this was an attack. Bryant called on his way out of his office to let me know he was on his way home. He was one of the first to leave the area so he missed the traffic and he was home in record time. I remember my concern for my sister-in-law and my uncle who both worked in Manhattan. I remember the way I felt; violated, stunned, shocked at the chaos, unsure of the future, sad. The day is a blur except that I remember watching as the video of what I saw LIVE was replayed over and over and over again until I finally turned of the TV. Little good it did, I could still see it in my head. My sister-in-law had nightmares due to what she saw and heard. I still remember vividly the sick pit in my stomach and the vulnerability I felt that day.
I don't know where you were on September 11, 2001 but I know that I will NEVER FORGET.