Sinister Things Going On At Our House

We live in this really old beat up antique house. It's an old farmhouse, soon 200 years old. We've done a tremendous amount of work on this house- nothing fancy or elaborate mind you, just trying to get it up to date. Have you wired a 200 year old house for modern living, which includes Internet and more than one outlet per room? Shesh! One thing, however, (OK, not the only thing) that we have not been able to change about this house since we became the current caretakers...

Photo by Augusta Serno via Flickr

... are the mice. That's just the way it is in an old house out in the country in the middle of a horse field. They love the Internet, by the way.

We did get the Sexy Psycho Serial Killer of a cat that first spring in the house and she truly was a prolific hunter in her younger days. Now she's a casual hunter. But she lives outside, which doesn't help us too much inside, and the Chihuahua, well...

... great as he was he had issues.

We used to set out traps and every morning we would "run the trap line" collecting carcases. Sorry if that offends any of you but please don't suggest we use no-kill traps or send mean emails. Trust me, the world will not run out of mice. I'm not even going to tell you the record for most mice in one day, set soon after we moved in, because it would make us look like Ben and Willard. It's just a farmhouse thing. Once, before the third floor was finished and we used the bedroom closet up there strictly as a closet but hadn't moved into that bedroom yet, I discovered one of my boots half full of dog food. Dog food is on the first floor, not the third. And that fringe on the rug in the computer room?

Oh well, who needs fringe? We trapped mostly in the fall and winter, spring and summers weren't so bad. And since we have acquired Remy the Rat Terrier...




(Seen here listening for the mouse to squeak again)



... the vermin haven't been around so much. We hear them scrambling in the walls in mid-winter but rarely see them any more. So you can imagine my surprise to find signs of mouse activity.

My husband and I each have a basket under our respective bedside tables for our Books-To-Read collections.

OK, I have two baskets but that's not the point. As I was cleaning up around there the other day, I discovered signs of nefarious activity.

Mmm huh-- chewing activity. And then something got stuck in the vacuum cleaner nozzle.

And then I found her, lurking under the bedskirt.

I don't play with Legos and Zippy is not allowed to haul her Legos up to our room. I mean, have you stepped on one of those things in the middle of the night in bare feet? So how did she get there? What would a sweet damsel, usually in such fun distress on the Lego Pirate ship, be doing in my bedroom?

You don't suppose there's something besides mice scurrying about in the night, do you? You don't suppose there's something much more sinister going on...

... like maybe they're nibbling away at my book basket in revenge for vacuuming up all their friends.

Oh that would hurt me deep. Maybe I should lay off the jokes about needing more vacuum cleaner bags every time Zippy gets more Legos.

And now- true confessions time. Half way through shooting the pictures for this post, I totally got it. I totally got why my Zippy loves Legos. They are really fun to play with. Yes, that makes me some kind of Lego Geek and the Nerd Quotient is already pretty high in our house. So be it. But honestly, you should give Legos a crack one afternoon when no one is home. Just be sure to get them all put away in the right place or Somebody is going to want to know, like the proverbial Goldilocks, "Who's been playing with my Legos?"

Lemonade Season

Image via That's My Letter

Jaime over at That's My Letter recently shared how she made this lovely lemonade sign, above, for her Etsy shop. It's an easy to follow tutorial and the sign really is a cutie.

It got me thinking back to when my Zippy was a kid (more of a kid than she is now- growing up so quickly). We talked every summer about having a Sunflower and Lemonade stand. We planned to grow all sorts of varieties of sunflowers and when they were ready, we would sell them right out of the garden. Picked fresh while you wait. Organic. Surprise the wife. Treat Yourself. We had lots of marketing pitches.

1. Sunflower, 2. Sunflower with bee, 3. sunflower, 4. Sunflower / Helianthus / 向日葵(ひまわり), 5. Sunflower, 6. Sunflower, 7. Sunflower, 8. Sunflowers, 9. Sunflower

Oh and while you wait, because it would be late summer and hotter than blue blazes, why not have some ice cold lemonade? We researched a nice variety of flavored lemonades for our daily specials and how to keep the ice frozen, how to shade our stand, when to be "open" based upon how many cars drove by at different times of the day (we counted), etc etc. I even sketched plans for the signs.

If you paint the sign and then add glitter to the glass, wouldn't that look cold and frosty as all those hot people drove past? OK, yes, I got carried away with the whole idea.

But then Zippy came wandering in one day with a board and asked if she could borrow some paint supplies. Just an aside, we have many items around our yard that have been painted over the years, her swingset having become a landmark on our road. "If you get to the house with the painted swingset you've gone too far. Turn around in their driveway." (Arghh, don't turn around in people's driveways!!) She understands what not to paint (cars, house, garage) and to clean up her supplies afterwards. So anyway, I didn't give her request much more thought until I went out to check on her for lunch and found her lemonade stand sign in the grass under the big maple tree.

Way better than my signs.

We never did get the Sunflower and Lemonade Stand act going, mainly because we were often at the beach the week the sunflowers were at their best. But I do have some great art for my kitchen.

I mentioned that it looks kind of like outsider art. And, with all the logic and straight-forward common sense my then 7 year was blessed with she said...

"Well I did paint it outside."

If you pass a lemonade stand this summer, manned by tiny little budding entrepreneurs, you better go ahead and stop. Have a cold one for me.

Thanks so visiting today-- I'll see ya next time.

Feeling Helpless

My kid was upset last night. My husband and I were in the living room minding our own business over a nice book each when it dawned on me that I had been hearing crying coming from upstairs. Our daughter has a couple of medical things going on that require "regular monitoring and periodic intervention". Nothing life-threatening but definitely life-long. She's always been such a good sport about it. The past year or so she has begun to occasionally express frustration that she has to have these things done but for the most part she takes it all in stride. Not so last night. Apparently, while she was writing down this weekend's sleep-over with a friend on the kitchen calendar (our Brain-Central of the house), she took note of the her scheduled trip to the O.R. in a couple of weeks. Now, this isn't a surprise- she's known about it all summer. But the take-it-in-stride stars just didn't align for her last night.

Maybe it's her age. My kid is an independent operator, not caring too much about bending to pressures from other kids or worrying too much if she's a bit off-beat. She is off-beat but that quirkiness is what makes her so fun and likable and she generally likes to be her own gal. It isn't because he's cute that she likes Johnny Depp movies- no, it's the quirkiness. Solidly into the tween years now, however, she has begun to care just a bit about her looks, being normal enough, and fitting in with the crowd. Not much, but a bit. So the regular trips to the little pool of physicians in which she swims must suddenly indicate to her that she's abnormal in some way. Don't you remember that feeling as a kid, that horror at thinking that you may not be quite OK enough?

So what does a mommy do after she sneaks upstairs and crawls under the covers with her kid? Well, you snuggle and huggle of course. And you let her cry. After awhile you ask, "What's the matter sweetheart?" and of course she says "Nothing." But the tone of her voice means, "Really big things are the matter and I'm trying to be brave but if you ask me again I'll spill my heart because I really want to talk about it and I need my mommy." (Tweens-- miles of sentences with no punctuation in sight and no stopping for air.) It's so nice to be needed, even if you have no idea how to help.

We don't know the burdens and troubles other people must bear. We do know people who are in situations that are so much more serious than ours. We pray for them and are thankful that we aren't in that place. We don't know why God has chosen to hold back His healing hand from our daughter. It's a huge step, even for an adult, to accept on faith something that you feel is deeply unfair. What do you say to the most precious person you know who harbors a suspicion that she is unacceptably different? Quirky and independent are one thing but "different", to a Tween, is a whole 'nother ball game. It's serious business.

I did my best to help her see things in a perspective that would take away her fears- fear of going back to the O.R., fear of being unacceptably different, fear of what things might be like years down the road. As parents, we do the best that we can, we pray more over one person than anyone else in the world, and we do our level best to keep our own concerns and fears hidden away. My daughter can tell you both of the times in her life she has seen me cry but neither one has been over her medical issues. She needs to know that I'm not going to fall apart on her in these situations. I need for her to know that they aren't worth falling apart over.

She is a Tween now. These are the discovery years, when she'll start finding out who she is, what she can do, where her talents are, and how she fit in to the world around you. She starts to change. She actually picked out some non-Tomboy clothes while school shopping the other day.

Maybe Johnny Depp is kind of cute after all.

Thanks for visiting today. Thanks for letting me spill my heart.

Happy Birthday

1. Birthday Glow, 2. wrapped for a party, 3. Cupcakes!, 4. birthday cake

We had a birthday around here last week. Our kid busted into the Tweens with all the flair and gusto with which she normally does anything. No, I can't believe we're at eleven already and I wonder what I've been doing for the past eleven years. Just trying to keep up, I guess.

by [ Leah ]

My husband and I travelled the fertility treatment road and when we got to the end of that road, we decided to sit at the intersection for awhile and rest. Rest, heal, cry a little bit if we needed to, and see what God wanted us to do next.

And then, beyond all scientific explanation, there she was- a miracle and a blessing neither one of us thought we deserved. To me, this precious child is a demonstration of both God's grace and His mercy.

I don't have any profound insights into parenting. It's been such a different trip than I ever imagined, with valleys to climb out of and hilltops from which to enjoy the view. Always more hilltops. I'm still amazed at how suddenly you fall in love with someone you've just met. You start out together, total strangers, and as you get aquainted that sudden love takes on incredible depth and richness and passion.

How is it that I can love my child so much? I believe that because God so desperately wants relationship with us, He builds into us a huge capacity for love. We are made in His image and our ability to love is a reflection of His image, of His love for us. That capacity to love doesn't grow out of the primordial soup. It is planted in us in order to respond to His love for us. That the ability to love spills out to others is like, well, frosting on the cake.

by TheKarenD

What do we do with birthday cake? We share it. Likewise, we share God's love with those around us, we reflect that love, we spread that love, because He has given us that capacity. Because He loves us.

And has blessed us.

Twix Bars

For a long as I can remember, my dad has had a thing for Twix Bars so when I came across this recipe for Homemade Twix Bars at Hoosier Homemade it was a no-brainer. Of course we're going to try these!  And my dad just might re-consider who wins for favorite daughter! 

(Oh yummy ... my tummy smiles just remembering them.)

So we gathered all the makin's and got to work. You can get the step-by-step for these from Liz here.

 My daughter has always loved baking and we've begun to move into some new cooking territory other than stirring up brownies and tossing the salad. One of her self-proclaimed specialties is pancakes and she regularly invents new concoctions using unusual ingredients or omitting ones that always seemed so necessary before. Like eggs. But her flapjack adventures generally turn out to be delicious. She has a certain gusto about her and that quality carries over to her cooking. When I mentioned that the graham crackers she was wailing on with the back of a soup ladle needed to be crushed very fine, she assured me in a low, confident, conspiratorial voice, "Oh, I don't think we'll need to worry about that."

So yea, they turned out to be pretty good. It's uncanny how much they really do taste like Twix Bars.

Am I now my dad's favorite daughter? Well, about that..... seems he didn't actually get to eat any of these. I'm not sure what happened to all of them.

You Could Have Knocked Me Over With A Soup Ladle

 Every now and then, in the middle of scrambling around through life, you get a glimpse of things. Maybe it's an "Ah Ha" moment when a certain truth becomes crystal clear. Maybe you see into someone's heart and finally understand what drives them. Maybe it's the solution to a problem or you realize you've come to actually enjoy messing around with the laundry (OK, that one's never happened to me but one never knows, life is full of surprises).

While my kid and I were whipping up the Twix Bars for my dad, I had a glimpse of my daughter. I was struck by how much she's grown.

 There was a day when she was on a chair at the counter just splashing around in the sink. I think of that as the pre-dishwashing stage. She was simply exploring the world above eye-level.

Then came the stage when she could actually have conversation and make observations about what we were cooking. No big revelations, but a unique way of looking at the world.

Next, she took over. "Can I try it by myself?"

One morning I came downstairs and she was making breakfast. Not cereal but rather some sort of omelet creation with cheese, granola, and a gas stove on high. It was a learning opportunity.

At each stage she got a bit taller on what we called the Helping Chair, until finally the Helping Chair just got in the way and we moved it out of the kitchen all together. Now she threatens to look me in the eye and make suggestions for improved Twix Bars. It was a glimpse into my daughter, a clearing of my vision. It's been a tough year, with some big new lessons to learn but she is growing. She is not only physically taller, but emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

And since this quick look into the funny, quirky adult that my funny quirky child will become, our conversations are different. Not so much the topics but the demeanor of our interaction has gotten, well ... taller.