Okay, the mouse isn't imaginary. I saw it on Sunday. It skurried from the utility room into the laundry/pantry/junk room then along the wall to behind the freezer then from the other side of the freezer to under the shelf we have for shoes.

So, yeah...there's at least one mouse in the house. Although, the traps are un-touched! Either this is one smart-assed mouse (ew mice?), or there's too much other stuff hidden to entice the mouse to eat of the death-trap peanut butter. Since I refuse to believe that these rodents have evolved or learned enough to know to stay away from traps (i mean we're out in the woods, where would they learn that...) (COULD they learn that?)

Okay, so I'm thinking there's food elsewhere...you know what that means....yup my favorite subject! Cleaning!

So yesterday I O.C.ed (my sis and I's term for detail cleaning) the kitchen/dining/living rooms. As well as the Den. I also rearranged the living room, and we LOVE it! I took every single item out of drawers, cupboards and cubbies and cleaned it all out, cleaned up the bottles etc. Cleaned the floors and the table and chairs...took apart the couch and cleaned all that.

Lemme tell you (should I be ashamed?) that I found a LOT of crumbs. This find lend me to the realization (with the help of Captain) that since December, we've only really been cleaning the surface. Haven't had the time or energy to really clean the place.

Okay, yeah...here and there I've done some major stuff...not even including the kids' rooms! But it really hasn't been enough or often enough to make a difference.

Today my plan was to do the laundry/pantry/junk room and try to hit the kids' rooms again. Yeah...but of course the day dawned mostly sunny and just beautiful. I don't know where my children are. They ate breakfast (eww we only have the apple oatmeal left, mom) and took off to the winds. That's fine by me, they've been driving me up the wall for over a week cause the weather has been horrible!

And so...I'm bravely attacking the laundry etc room today...by myself. I just picked up all the laundry that the kids have thrown on the floor (for fear of entering mouse infested area). If I can do it...I plan to move out the washer and dryer and clean behind/under those. And also try to move the freezer to clean around that area....it's empty so there's a 5% chance that I'll be able to move it.

And yes, I'm prepared to scream as if my life depends on it if I do find that smart little mouse behind anything!

Ps If I somehow have the energy or motivation after all that, I'm going to try to re-organize the shelves in the room too....they seriously need help...

pps. check back later today or tomorrow for a PHOTO post! About what? Well...Cleaning of course!

Real and Imaginary

Yikes! I posted a comment on one of my favorite blogs just now...without thinking that someone out there might read it, and then click on over here! So I thought I might come on over, take down the dust covers and spruce the place up. At least post something...something hopefully not related to cleaning or the weather...

*****40 minutes later******

Um yeah, can't think of anything. Haha, no really, it hasn't been 40 minutes. But I really can't think of anything.

Honetly, my life is consumed by cleaning. Dishes, sweeping, dirty toilets, laundry. With 6 people in the house and several "extras" all the time (neighborhood kids, friends and family), the place can get quite messy. And by messy I don't mean a few toys on the floor. I mean the sort of messy that makes you want to rent a front-end loader to just clear it all out and start over.

Oh pooh...I've already gone and wrote about cleaning twice!

Monkey Man came running up to me this morning in tears. He said that a spider stole his bouncy ball. I laughed and he glared. My first thought was something like a Dung Beetle rolling a ball of turds...only this being a large spider rolling away on his bouncy ball.* Funny to me, but not so much to a five year old scared of spiders (all my kids are scared of spiders, I think I did it to them when we lived in Georgia and told them to RUN SCREAMING if they saw one-um yeah). So anyway, I got ahold of myself and followed him to the ball-stealing spider.

He asked me what I was going to do. "Well, I'm going to go beat up that ball-stealing spider!" He cheered.

Sure enough, there was his bouncy ball, just under the stove, and when I rolled it away with my shoe (ew I'm not scared of spiders, but I don't like them much either), there was a rather large spider. And in true ball-stealing bulliness, once it fell off the ball, it ran AT me. AHHIEEEE!

Squish!** All is better! No bully spider is gunna get away with stealing my baby's play-things! Ha!

Of course, a few minutes later....M.M. uses said bouncy ball as a progectile weapon against his brother. Good thing he has bad aim!

In other "pest" tales...two of my children have reportedly seen mice in the house...in two different places. I dutifully bought a few traps ***, and wonderful Captain set them up. In the search for the best places to put them, we found zero signs of mice in the house. NONE at all. Not even in the crawl space...where we did find a half-eaten bag of stale cheetos, a pizza crust and a soda can...but not even one mouse turd! We did set the traps, though, just in case. Although, I'm pretty sure that the trap in the garage is um, full, the ones in the house are un-touched.

I'm starting to think that I've caused this pest scare as well. See...about a week ago, I helped the girls to clean their room (oh no more about cleaning!). And was totally disgusted. Needless to say, they are grounded from sweets/yummies for a little while. We found packaging for soda, chips, cookies, ice cream, candy and crackers. And several cups, spoons and two plates. Yeah. And no, they aren't allowed to eat in their rooms. Allowed being the key word here.

All of this was hidden quite well...jambed way under the bed, in between the bed and the wall, in drawers and even an empty bag in between the mattress and the box.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah!

While sweeping up tons of food crumbs off the floor, I laid it on thick. "I'm surprised you don't have bugs and mice in here!" Bugs and mice love this sort of stuff...lots of food and great places to hide! The girls looked dutifully ashamed (but didn't stop Princess Pout from stealing the rest of Daddy's Triple Strawberry Ice Cream a few days later and hiding the carton in her dresser).

So, yeah, I think with all of that, they got it in their heads that since they are the little pigs **** that they are, there must be mice in the house. Ha ha ha...jokes on me-who's out the $ spent on the traps we probably don't need.

* Interestingly gross...in searching for a pic of a spider on a ball (bug circus style), I ran across this rather disturbing site. I guess this guy's got talent, but who'd want these things?

** Yes, I squished the spider...I have no problems with that at all. Don't tell me it's animal cruelty, or bad luck or any of that. I love all of God's creatures, but Spiders are gross!

*** Yes, they are KILL traps...see above

**** Yes, I know pigs are actually very clean! And I love pigs. I don't love food all over the place!

Need foot products?

Okay...just a quick note to ask google ads WHY my blog gets foot stuff ads?

I don't think I've even written the word FOOT in the time I've been writing! Foot doesn't cross my daily vocabulary as much as one might think...unless you ask me about all the times that I've been sitting on the couch and someone sticks a foot in my face, telling me to smell it. Unless you ask about the time that someone stepped on a nail, I'd guess I would have to say the word foot. Unless you ask what's at the foot of my bed (um nothing). Unless you ask what's on my foot, duh, shoes. Unless you ask me what a footer is...which is a thingy at the end of an essay or something like that...I know what it is, just can't explain it. ha, so don't ask.

So, foot, to my knowledge, has never been written in this blog...until today...and I write this foot post in hopes that Google ads will put different ads on my blog. Hmm...may I suggest something else totally un-realted like....hmm condoms.

I don't know how, but my flowers are blooming

Do you rememer your 7th birthday? I don't. Well, maybe I could if I talked to my sister. She seems to have a perfect memory...or maybe it's just that she remembers some odd things that I don't remember. Like the fact that Dad drove a water delivery truck for like THREE YEARS...I didn't remeber that at all....so yeah, maybe she'd remember my 7th birthday...although she was only 5. lol

So.....#3 (Shorty) is turning 7 tomorrow. I'd thought about writing one of those touching, from-the-heart letters to her...one she'll probably never read, but speaks about how much I love her and can't wait to see the woman she's becomeing....yeah, um....Probably not.

There's just too much to do. Like usuall. Today is falling under the "ugh it's how late" catagory. Not that I've spent a lot of time goofing off this morning...at least it didn't feel like a lot of time. But it's already noon, and the list of things done is agonizingly short. Although I have already ticked off Monkey Man THREE whole times today. Whoohooo go me! Oh and I have gotten coffee (of course), although I'm not sure if one cup is gunna cut it...I may have to make more.

OH my! Bone Head got his hair done on Saturday! His hair was rapidly changing from baby blonde to darker blonde...and he badly needed a haircut. So, Captain took him and MM to the hair place. They came back with an adorable bowl cut for M.M. Shaved underneath and long on top :) And my eldest child came home with what I can only describe as a "Jonas Brothers" do. Yea...his hair is now dark brown (chocolate to be exact), with a blonde-blonde area above his forehead. He LOVES it. Shocked the heck outta me...but looks good. At least it looks like it's supposed to be messy.

Okay, okay...going to get busy on my list of adventures today. Yeah...adventures sounds WAY more interesting then chores. Hm...I may be on to something here. I'll test it out on the kids and get back to ya. "Hey kids...we need to start our adventures today". Hey, might work!

ps. Oh and yeah...the flowers are blooming...the ones that I didn't plant, and haven't touched are doing splendidly....the stuff I planted or take care of...isn't.

pps Okay...the tomato and the squash are doing good...but that's because Captain took those over. hahahahahahaaaa