Brisk me away

Sunday, November 27, 2011

the great mousecapade 2011. part 2.

so finally after about 6 weeks of plotting against the mouse, WE FINALLY CAUGHT IT!!!  VICTORY!

honestly the mouse has kind of been on the back burner lately because we've been focusing on some other crawlies we've had around our house in the past couple weeks.  yu-ck.  so last night after i went to bed, robyn was upstairs and heard a trap go off in the kitchen.  after donning rain boots and gloves (because that's how we roll around here...not taking any chances with the mice nibbing on our fingers or toes...)  she checked under the sink to find that the mouse had eaten the bait off the trap, set it off and gotten away.  i'll tell you, mice these days must be up on the peanut butter trick.  everyone told us that was the best bait, but experience has taught us, it is not.  this is when she got crafty.  we all know from every children's book ever written about mice, they love cheese.  so she melted some cheese to the trap.  this way there could be no snitching. 

today, we were in the kitchen putting some stuff away and what did we find under the sink?  a mouse in the trap!  SUCCESS!  as i scooped that little creature out with the dustpan, all i could think was "what now little mouse, what now?!"  sad, i know, but in light of the events from last weekend with the snake, i'm really just feeling dominion over these pests around my house. wo-man.  who even knew this girl could take care of such things??? 

welcome to the jungle

alright "welcome to the jungle" may be a little dramatic for this post but not too far off.  it's a regular zoo around here lately.  this city girl is having to expend herself in ways i didn't even know was possible.


some of you may remember this post from a few weeks ago about our mouse hunt.  well last sunday, robyn and i were headed out the door to church (on time mind you...that's a little victory in and of itself...) and what do we find to greet us on the sidewalk?  a SNAKE.  is this a joke???  now there are some things that i just can't handle, namely spiders, but snakes i'm usually ok with.  seeing this though, led us into a discussion of our options for this little creeper.  i'm not normally a "all snakes must die" kind of girl.  i mean if its outside and not bothering us, whatevs, just let it be.  right now i'm talking as though i've been around snakes my whole life and just pick them up bare handed...let's be honest, this is not the case.  city girl, right here.  so back to the discussion.  leaving it there wasn't an option because everything like that just gets into our house.  robyn and i didn't love the idea of sharing our home with this.  then i thought, maybe i'll scoop it into a dustpan and carry it to the field at the end of the street.  this idea was quickly vetoed as robyn reminded me that snakes crawl and i was in church clothes.  a dustpan didn't provide much distance between the creeper and my hand... and church shoes didn't provide much speed to get that snake to the field in a hurry.  this lead us to choose option 3.  killing the snake.  now we had to sike ourselves up for this one.  as we began looking around the garage, we realized that our options of tools to take care of the mouse were limited.  in the end, we choose a paintcan. i mean pickings really were slim looking at all we had to work with.  so i walked up to mr. slithers and just dropped the can on him.  at this point we were really late to church so we just left the paint can in the drive and went on our way.  when we came back, we lifted the can and SUCCESS!  the snake was dead.  boo-yeah. 


now google told us that this snake was probably just a brown snake, so really he would have been harmless.  if you look closely at the picture though, you will see that his head was kind of diamond shaped.  this made me think that he could have been poisonous.  once upon a time, in my kanakuk days, my friend becca and i used to orient the counselors during staff training to nature class. now this in and of itself is really a joke. i mean the girl who couldn't be in the room with a live spider teaching nature?  puh-leese.  but it happened.  any-who, digging into my vast snake knowlege all i could even remember was red and black, friend of jack.  red and yellow, kill a fellow.  good.  so i can absolutely tell you that this snake is not a coral snake.  so glad all that nature knowledge has stuck with me through the years. 

so there you have it.  i killed a snake.  who even knew i had it in me.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

short and sweet

so somehow blogging has taken a back burner to well, life.  this is not because i'm short on topics to blog about, but more because at the end of the day lately i've been lacking the creativity to come up with any kind of post that anyone besides my mom would want to read.  thanks mom :) 
thanksgiving is tomorrow.  i LOVE thanksgiving.  hopefully, there will be a post dedicated to thanksgiving in the near future, but i'm just not sure i can promise that.  for now i will just say that it is my favorite holiday and i'm really excited to head home in the morning to see my family. 

here is my top 3 of my life lately...

1. first and foremost, I'M GOING TO HAVE A NIECE IN APRIL.  i'm beyond excited about this!  i would have been just as thrilled with the news of a nephew but i sort of just knew all along that this babe would be a girl.  ask my family, i have a really great record for guessing baby genders when people in my life are pregnant.  call it a gift.  i love the thought of absolutely spoiling this precious lil cutie with all things pink and bows and tutus! 
2.  i killed a snake this weekend.  now this news is really just a teaser because the whole snake killing incident deserves it's own post.  and don't you even worry, i have pictures to document the whole thing.  it still shocks me that i even had it in me to do this.  just to peak your interest here are some key points...church clothes, paint can, robyn, google.  now that i've got you hooked, you'll have to check back later for the whole story.
3.  so i called it a top 3, but really it's just a top 2 i guess since i need to go pack for home now.  i can't actually remember if i thought of 3 things to post about when i started writing but now this is all that comes to mind....maybe i can blame it on a long day at work??  plus who has a top 2 anyway?  that doesn't even sound that exciting. 
alright i'm out.  happy thanksgiving everyone!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

i'm baaaacckkk!

i've taken a little bloggy break the past couple of weeks without even meaning to...whoops!  life has been busy busy so many things have taken a back burner lately.  one day last week, my most loyal follower, aka my mom, mentioned that she noticed i haven't blogged in a while, so i guess that means it's time to post again.  all of you who have just been waiting on pins and needles for an update on my life, you have my momma to thank for this....she says you're welcome. :)  
i have a few things lined up that i have been meaning to blog about but for now i will just stick to a post about this past weekend.  such a fun one it was!  it started thursday night when i got off work. one of my best friends from college, sarah and another dear friend from home, morgan came into town early that evening!  amber made us a yummy dinner and we spent the evening laughing and catching up.  we all stayed up way later than this girls 9:30 bedtime usually allows for. 
we spent friday afternoon eating a yummy loafin' joes lunch and browsing the aisles of target and some other local shops.  that night we met up with a couple of high school friends who still live here in town for dinner.  i love how out of town guests give an excuse to drop everything and just hang out.  i hate it that we sometimes need this excuse, but sure i'm thankful for the time together. 
sar and i.  such a sweet sweet friend.
saturday, ashley arrived.  woo!  we lunched at slims and lazed around that afternoon.  love that with best friends, just being together is enough. 
reunited and it feels so good!  sure love these girls!  thanks for the picture steal ash :)
that night we went to the game.  woo pig!  sure do love watching those hogs win in person!  i didn't take full advantage of going to as many games as i could of when i was in school so it's such a treat now when i actually do get to go to a game.  it's an even bigger treat to get to sing "oh lord it's hard to be humble, when you're an arkansas razorback fan!" at the end of the game and we sure got to sing it saturday.  such a fun game to be at! 
love those hogs!

today has been bittersweet saying goodbye to the last friend who left today.  my heart is full after such a good weekend with friends who are so dear to me.  thankful for friendships that continue on even from states away and pick right back up when we're together.  "from the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another."  john 1:16