Friday, March 21, 2008

"Sam, where's Mommy?"

I heard Dave say this as I walked out of the playroom and saw the refrigerator door open. I rounded the corner and there was Sam holding a carton of eggs. Our son quickly tried to explain the scene, stammering something about how he cleaned up the yellow. I calmly asked him to put our eggs back into the refrigerator and close the door. That's when I saw a smashed egg and a hand towel on the counter. Sam then explained he wanted to make a cake. He stood there with one hand on his hip, the other gesturing at us, "I heard you two coming and I had to clean up really fast."

When I went to the store today, I picked up a cake mix for us to make together when he got home from school.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Simple Deeds Inspire Amore

Dave hasn't worked since last Wednesday. He'd been home to prep for "Help us sell the Deweybarn weekend." Which was amazing. At the end of the weekend, our contractors looked admiringly at us and said, "You have a lot of good friends." The work accomplished puts us in a good position to manage the rest of our goals.

On Saturday I was going out for supplies. I looked up to see Dave coming out the door with a snow brush to clean my windshield. It melted my heart. Last night he carried my 12 year old dog up the stairs because Murdoch can't manage our stairs now that we've removed the carpet. Today, after the drama of loading everyone in the van for errands (picking out new carpet for the stairs being one of them), I saw he'd brought an extra caffinated soda for me because I was out of tea.

June 2008 will be our 15th year as a couple. I think time together and these simple things are what inspire us.

Friday, March 7, 2008

She Is Into Everything!

All morning it felt like I took two steps forward and three steps back. Mae got her hands on the wireless mouse from our computer, sending Sam and I on two scavenger hunts. I found a pile of CDs on the floor, cases dismantled, discs scattered everywhere, that took a while to sort out. At one point I caught her with a pencil crammed into her ear. That little girl is exploring her world and experimenting with cause and affect. What made me laugh the most was when I lifted up the toilet seat to see a little orange boat floating in the bowl. It is probably best Sam broke our camera, otherwise I may have been tempted to post a photo.

Monday, March 3, 2008

An Escalation of Vermin

Yesterday morning as I fixed breakfast for the dogs, I noticed the water in the cat bowl was all muddy. El Diablo Blanco was there and I said, "What the heck is that all about?" I dumped the water, changed it and thought nothing of it. Later, I brought out recycling and a raccoon scampered away from our cat's feeding area. Damn it, we can't have a raccoon taking up residence in the barn. I woke up Dave after he'd had three hours of sleep between 12hr shifts. A raccoon that should be hibernating running loose in the barn? We have never seen a raccoon in the eleven years we've lived here. After spotting him I was very creeped out. I feared he would jump out any second to attack my leg. Dave and I brainstormed about it.

Dave: "I don't think I can just shoot it."
Me: "What about trapping it to relocate to the Fairfax property?"
Dave: "It is illegal to transport a raccoon."
Me: "What the hell is a person to do? It's eating our cat food, bathing in their water dish, it even shit on top of the hay!"

Dave got up, called someone who knows more about this than we do, then got his gun ready. After spending nearly an hour trying to get a good shot, I heard "Pop, pop, pop." Before hearing the pops I paced inside, afraid to venture out and get between that raccoon and a gun. Poor little guy, he didn't want to be here any more than we wanted him here. When Dave came in after a successful mission, he told me the racoon was hiding in the hot tub. The hot tub? First thing that came to mind was a raccoon relaxing with a cigarette and a martini. Actually the outside panel was adjar and the little guy was hiding among the hardware.

We both feel bad. However, with our kids and animals we can't have wild raccoons taking up residence here.