Packing

Today, I'm starting to seriously pack. Last night, I had my last marimba recital, so Rob and I decided that instead of unpacking the marimba to put it back up and take up space in my living room (since I will not have time to play it), we just left it in pieces all wrapped up in blankets in the van. The van is now sitting in Mom and Dad R's garage for two weeks until we can move. We also now have room in our living room to stack boxes. That one 8 1/2 piece of furniture sure takes up some space. So, we're seriously packing. I have some great pictures of a wedding that we went to this weekend, and an awesome picture I want to share of some bubbles. . . But that will probably have to wait until we are driving down the road, and I can download the pictures onto my laptop. Then, we will have some picture mania on the blog, I think. However, Rob already shared the brick picture of the house. If you want to see our house all covered in brick, go to this link.

Completion Date

We got a very important phone call yesterday. Our house has a completion date. Three weeks from yesterday. We are leaving this house sometime around the 21st of June, and we should be able to close on our new house on the 25th of July. We can move in immediately after closing!!! YIPPEE! We're also thinking of maybe going to Disney World one more time while we still live this close. So in the next two weeks, don't expect very many posts. I may have to post to keep my sanity, but we'll see. So, we're starting to get very excited, and at the same time, I'm starting to get slightly apprehensive.

My Blog Roll

OK, if you notice the new addition to the right hand side of my blog, you'll notice that I have changed the style of my blog roll. If you know that I read your blog, and you aren't on there, I would like you to be. Please comment at the bottom and leave your link, so I can add you. It takes time to go surfing through all of my friends' blogs to find your links periodically. If you aren't here, and you want to be, you probably belong in group number one, so please comment here, and leave your link so I can add you. :) If you don't want to be on the side, and you want me to remove you, I will, but it will really cause me pain, so please mail me cookies to take the edge off. :) This new method is exciting. It lets me know when people actually post, so I know when to go looking and when going to the blog to see the same post that has been there for three weeks (I know, I'm just about the only person that does that) is a waste of time. Thanks!

Conundrum

*Disclaimer: If you're an animal rights activist or a person who loves all animals equally, or a person who loves mice and thinks they're adorable, cute creatures, this post is not for you. Please don't read it. I mean it. Honestly, I don't want your advice on this one, and this post may make you angry, so just do yourself a favor and skip this one.*

Mice. On Cinderella, they're these cute little creatures that wear clothes, help clean and sew a dress. In real life, they're creatures who take over your house, poop everywhere, and walk all over your clean dishes. I'm still not over the slow cooker incident. I'm not sure if I shared it on here or not, but for those curious people, I will write a shortened version in this post.

One night, very soon after we moved into this house from Mom-in-law's house, knew we had mice. I worked really hard to put all of our food into plastic, airtight containers, (I mean, $150 worth of plastic containers hard) cleaned my kitchen to where I could not see a speck of food out of place, and vacuumed my living room until I thought my arms were going to fall off. The only problem was that I as I was scrubbing my slow cooker, I couldn't get all of the stuck on food off. I tried. Really I did. I scrubbed and scrubbed at that thing, but sometimes, all scrubbing is useless unless you let the water do the job of softening it up over night. So, I filled up the slow cooker bowl with water, put some detergent in it, left it in the sink, and went to bed. The next day, I picked it up to dump out the water, and as the soap suds poured down the drain, there, floating in the water was a dead mouse. Yes. Dead Mouse. AAAAHHHHHCCCC. Rob swears that when I saw it and screamed, I also jumped at least 2 feet off the ground when I jumped backward. Knowing myself, I probably did.

So, with the slow cooker incident in the back of your mind, know that I sticky traps and mice cubes all over my house. I don't have the kind that snap shut only because I don't want one of my kids to find one and have it snap on their fingers. I have no qualms about breaking the mouse's leg and letting it die. Some people want to just catch it, and let it go back outside. I don't. He found his way in once, and mice can do a maze over and over again. I don't want him to find his way back inside again. Also, I don't want to get close enough to actually touching the mouse to let it go. Into the trash can they go. Safe and snug inside their little mouse cubes.

So, here in lies the question. There have been mice in this house since we moved in. I know that the ovens worked when the people before us lived here. However, the mice got behind the ovens in the time between the previous family and our family. I think that they might have gotten to some of the wiring.

Not knowing that the ovens do not actually work, I'm afraid to call the landlord and tell them that they may be broken. On top of that, I'm afraid that if I call him to come see if the ovens, work, he may turn them on to find out. If he does, and the mice did get to the wiring, we wouldn't know it until something drastic happened. When we moved in, we went and bought a tiny toaster oven. I successfully made cupcakes in it the other day. I had to cook 7 cupcakes at a time in the individual metal cupcake wrappers. It took four times through the toaster oven before they were all cooked, so in the 22 minutes they would cook in a real oven, it took almost an hour and a half of just baking to finish them in the toaster oven. I sort of figured it was a small price to pay to have the house not burn down. However, I am wondering how in the world I am ever going to make Jackie's birthday cake this year. I could go bake it at Mom R's house, or I could just buy one. Homemade cakes tend to taste better than store bought cakes, and asking about Mom R's kitchen makes me slightly uncomfortable. Should I just break down and call the landlord? What if we check it, and it seems alright, but when the wires really get hot from the oven being on for awhile, we find out we were wrong? Also, what if we don't have the mice gone, and they do more damage than we think they should? So, there is the conundrum. What do you think? Call the Landlord, buy a cake, or ask Mom R?

One of the cutest all time pictures ever

OK, so this is completely opinion based, but this is a picture of my friend Amber while we were at her house. We went to Warner Robbins to see the air show a few weeks back, and I finally got the pictures downloaded to my computer. Here is a picture of Daniel sleeping on Amber. She was lying on the couch with Daniel on her chest and he scooted up there all by himself. She was awesome about it too. She just laid as still as she could.