Guessing Game

What is the most destructive animal in New England?  Coyotes?  Bears?  Wild house kitties?

Whatever you've guessed, it's wrong.

It's mice.  In my opinion, anyway.

Last winter when they were looking for someplace to get out of the cold, mice invaded our shed outside.  They destroyed anything paper or cloth-like, made nests in fertilizer, and poohed all over every surface.  It took Hubby the better part of a three-day weekend to clean out the shed, and then later on get a dumpster service to get rid of all the spoils of war.

And now, over the weekend--A family of mice (or one member of the family being a real jerk) has destroyed my central air conditioning.  They snoodled right into the unit outside at the first mention of cooler weather, and not for the first time.  Last time it was just some wires.  This time it's the whole kit and caboodle.  The compressor's toast, and the air handler in the attic too.  Should I feel bad that they perished in the resulting POOF?  No, no I do not.  Does this make me heartless?  I don't think so.

The resulting cost is similar to that of a small car, and our home insurance does not cover acts of "rodent damage."  I could seriously cry.

I know that it's going to be OK.  We have options, and the silver lining is that today is the first day of fall.  Not exactly air-conditioning weather, and this didn't happen in July.  It didn't destroy our heating system as well.  For these reasons alone I'm thankful.

But still.  Mice eating, and then blowing up my air conditioning.  Ugh, it's always something.

Target will Always Welcome You Home

Um.  I'm pretty sure that I live at Target now.

Don't get me wrong, Target is full of cool stuff and makes for a great hideout.  Perfect "Parent vacation" and hey, some of them even have Starbucks now!  I've lost many hours at a time strolling the aisles, debating picture frames vs. artwork, shopping for birthday gifts, choosing bathroom rugs or debating thread counts.  And I'm almost positive that it's usually a guaranteed $50 trip. 

I think I've been there five times in the last two weeks.  And every time I've gone, I've missed one item and had to go again another day.  I think that there should be a rewards program.  If you go ten times in a month, the next trip's free.  Who's with me???  

Wand Duels

One of the favorite activities of the boys are "wand duels."  This is where we chase each other around the house, pointing Harry Potter wands (large plastic drinking straws in mine and Sean's case) and yell spells at each other.  It drives my husband crazy, because the boys are pretty loud about it.  He said that he always thought that he had more time before we started talking around him, probably when the boys took Spanish in school.  Instead it's in Latin and in a fandom kind of way.  He's a muggle so.....there's also that.  

Anyway, the boys want to do more spells, and they want "Harry Potter Homework."  So who am I to deny them?   We'll definitely have to upgrade our straws at some point.

I love the fact that the boys are turning into voracious Harry Potter fans, I am so proud.  :)

Childhood Flick Favorites

I've instituted an unofficial Friday Night movie night at the house.  Daddy plays volleyball on Fridays, so it's a good time to snuggle up and watch a flick.  It's not every Friday, sometimes Pokemon wins out, or computer time.  But the last time we did this was a few Fridays ago, and we watched "The Neverending Story."  I had read that it was coming back to theaters for it's 30th anniversary and though I wanted to go, I didn't want to go by myself.  So I set it up to record, and we settled down to watch.

They were really engaged, but had lots of questions.  And I'll tell you, they were a lot less scared than I was back in the day!

Other movies we've watched:

Matilda.  Sean LOVED it and has asked when we can watch it again.

Goonies.  We did this one last year.  Will thought it was great.  I had forgotten about some of the crude humor in the beginning with the statue and Corey Feldman's character, but luckily it whooshed right over their heads.

Princess Bride.  We did this one two years ago and Will just fell in love with it.  I love it too, I always stop to watch when it's on.


I'm waiting til they're a little older for Spaceballs, but that's certainly on the list.  Always looking for ideas.

Suck it up, Cupcake!

Finishing soccer practice with Will and Sean on a Friday night.  (Soccer practice on a Friday night=bad idea. I unplug my brain at 4:30pm on Fridays.   But I digress.)

It was a busy night and we were headed to the Relay for Life to support the karate school.  And Mom had to pee.  There was a porta-potty in the school parking lot.  I gave it a sideways glance and decided I'd rather stop at home.  Even though stopping at home means a possible derailment of said plans.

 Kids are bickering in the car.  (Shocking, I know.)  I announce that we're stopping at home first and naturally, the boys want to know why.  I said "So mom can stop to use the bathroom."  Will points out that there's a porta-potty.  I said yeah, but I'd rather go at home.

Then out of the blue, in a nice deep voice he says "Suck it up, Cupcake!"

I wasn't sure how to react.  So I laughed.  Hysterically.  And sucked it up.  Hey, I'm washable.