Uniquely and adorably you

Because of our problem with mice, I have been charged with rearranging the kitchen so that anything that could possibly be gotten into by mice is in the upper cabinets where it's much harder for them to get to. I've pulled about a million things out of the upper cabinets and the pantry and the lower cabinets and have clogged every free bit of counter space with everything from canned pineapple to bread to baking supplies.... which leads to my story. I came across the butterscotch chips that I recently bought which reminded me that I still haven't made the butterscotch peanut butter rice crispy treats that I bugged my high school friend Susan, who's now in Australia (I love Facebook) for the recipe for recently. I immediately decided I needed to make them right now. Susan's mom used to make them and then for years later I would make them but then totally forgot how. So instead of just googling it, I waited until I connected with Susan on FB and asked her and.... then she googled it.... yeah well.. what can I say to that. Anyway, I've got butterscotch chips and peanut butter melting on the stove as I'm alternately moving glasses from one cabinet to another and stirring the mixture when Brad walks in.


He stops and takes in the scene for a minute and then says "This is so uniquely and adorably you. Only you would pick now when there's literally no counter space at all - not one shred of horizontal space available to you... only you would pick this moment to decide to make something. Some day we'll be on a talk show and they'll ask me why I love you.... you better remember this, 'cause this is going to be my answer."

I love my husband,
Camela

Can we talk about mice

There is a large neon sign somewhere outside of our house that is only visible to mice, but it is apparently visible to all mice - because every single mouse in our town has taken up residence in our home.

Our neighborhood is surrounded by woods and our house backs up to them so it's not surprising that each winter a couple of Mickey's friends want to seek refuge inside with us where it's warm. Each year we've been able to set a few traps ... one thing leads to another... and bada bing, bada boom, problem solved..... And then this winter happened. We got our two or so little friends and put out the traps and.... that didn't work so well, so we put out a couple more then one or two after that and then..... finally it worked...... well for a couple of months. Then as we later learned, Brad moved their outdoor home while he was cleaning the garage and they decided to figuratively flip him the bird (and me too) by hanging out their "vacant" sign and inviting all their friends to come and join in the party at our home. And really who can blame them? It's warm, we've got a dog and two sloppy kids so there's always food on the floor (ususally just for the dog - but I wasn't kidding about the sloppy kids).

We find remnants of comfy homes they are making; little bits of torn up paper which creates a path leading directly behind the refrigerator. Brad decides to move the fridge to put some traps back there. He pulls it out; easy on its wheels. And what do we find? Yup, a mouse, just hanging out - clearly annoyed that we are bothering him. Picture the scene with me... Bandit, the Jack Russell terrier, barking non stop while trying to eat it, Jackson is trying to pet it, Teddy is trying to bring all the neighbor kids into the house to look at it... all the while Brad is trying to manage the chaos. Brad suggested I go upstairs to avoid having to see Bandit tear apart the mouse or maybe it was just because he couldn't handle one more human in the room at the moment- I'm really not sure, but was happy as a clam to be away from the craziness. Now I'm happily upstairs doing nothing in particular when about 45 minutes later Brad calls me downstairs to help him. I get down to find out that he's pushed the fridge sideways out of the way so he could walk back behind it to clean and set traps. (Word to the wise - the wheels on your fridge are only designed to go forwards and backwards - just thought I should mention it).

Anyway, he wants me to help him push it back. (our island is in the way so he couldn't just keep pushing the fridge straight out) We push, it won't move, we push harder and still nothing. He suggests this and then that and then this other thing until finally it starts to move a centimeter at a time. Finally we get it back in front of where it belongs and now we just need to push it straight back.... Jackson points out that the floor is "pushing up like a wave"... great. We push the fridge back and... yup there are 2 pizza shaped wedges that we managed to gouge into our floor - actually damaging the sub floor as well. Did I mention we were hosting a party 6 days later... I'm thinking new rug... Brad was thinking handyman. Brad hired a handyman and the floor looks like new - I think getting the floor fixed was very important to Brad on the Brad vs. mice scale.

So out came the traps again... but somewhere along the way these mice got smart and vindictive. Brad would bait the traps with peanut butter and the next morning we'd find all of the peanut butter gone but the traps were still set. In case you've not seen one of those little spring traps they are super sensitive - if you breathe on them hard they will trip, yet we would find them not tripped... clearly we had malfunctioning traps, this explained everything. We got new traps (okay that was Brad) and tried again. So we look the next morning and... no more peanut butter... traps still set. Darn. Okay now Brad tries a peanut which he embeds on the little spikey things designed for just that and we wait... uh yeah... Peanut gone. Trap still set. Double darn. (that's not really what we said). I suggested that we call in the professionals but Brad will not be beaten by these mice. Out comes the Elmer's glue - the peanut is glued to the trap and smugly we wait. Well.... um... yeah okay... no peanut, trap still set. Come on!!! Really? Okay let's pull out the big guns - superglue. Lots of peanuts, lots of glue.... and we wait, completely confident this time. Do you sense a theme here. And you'd be right... no peanuts and traps still set. They are laughing at us. We are providing all their entertainment.

So, I'm IMing with my friend Sue. I'm standing at the island in the middle of the kitchen typing away and something catches my eye, I look up and there is a mouse sauntering slowly across my kitchen towards the hallway. I'm immediately pissed off. I start screaming at the mouse "ARE YOU KIDDING ME???" and pounding the counter. He runs and hides. I go back to Sue and tell her of our brazen mice. About 10 minutes later something new catches my eye, that damn mouse (yes I am 100% confident it was the exact same mouse - I could tell cuz he was giving me the finger) was walking slowly towards my stove which is.... Right. Behind. Me. Oh you've got to be kidding. We've past the point of no return.

When Brad gets home a few hours later I greet him with that scary calm tone you can get.... We need to call the exterminator and we need to call them now, I can't take it any more. Luckily Brad was in full agreement. So now the exterminator has come - he's our new best friend. Many traps have been set, lots of poison has been laid and we are diligently working on our homework of doing our best to mouseproof our home..... luckily it's not too cold outside.

Camela