I have to say, though I felt a bit of a deserter for heading off to the coast for a weekend with my sister and a very special friend, I was looking forward to a break from The Rodents. And in an effort to salve my conscious (actually, between us, it wasn’t really bothering me) I did my best to leave food ready to go for the family staying home. Desserts too, it’s the kind of person I am. I believe in dessert therapy.
Really, I didn’t get around to telling you about the Last Traumatic Mouse episode before I left. In short, to sum it up, when you’d like to be sleeping, a mouse trap goes off and then starts thumping around your room, sleep is not going to happen, no matter how much you hope the mouse will just die! Thank goodness for a most wonderful brother that didn’t tell me to get lost when I woke him up from what I’m sure was a very peaceful slumber and had him come kill the mouse that had one foot stuck in the trap. I had even gone so far as to retrieve the broom, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything with it.
They tell me that after my Oldest Brother spread lots and lots of mouse poison and set traps targeting their trails there hasn’t been a mouse in the house since. And I left the day he did all this, so I didn’t get to experience this blessing. That’s life. I’ll get used to it. And I won’t be bitter about it. I won’t.
Honestly I haven’t had to deal with mice since then, so either way I should be happy. I’m really not hard to please. At least, most of the time.
Being at the coast was a wonderful break in more ways than one, just before I left we had also been doing serious packing and starting to move, and then visiting my Oldest Brother and his family on the way to the beach, I experienced their house in the middle of packing and moving. Major trauma for a girl who likes things perfectly orderly at all times. The adorable little beach house was an oasis of order and peace in a boxed up chaotic world. Actually, I’ve been doing pretty well with the disorder, I understand that there are times and seasons in life and I’ve just steeled myself for this temporary upheaval.
Rather than returning home after our weekend I detoured a few days to help my sister-in-law and got to spend some wonderful time helping them get ready to move and just being able to spend time with my very adorable nephew and nieces. And seeing my other brother and his wife. Really, I’m fond of them too, completely and totally aside from their adorable daughter. Honest. Honest truly. Really. We’re quite good friends actually.
And then it was time to come home. Except, I don’t really have a home anymore. I have to say it’s very interesting. Our new place isn’t quite ready for occupation, but we are almost completely moved out of our old house and have been sleeping on mattresses in the guest cabin on the property, only another brother and his wife our moving there in another few days. Or maybe tomorrow.
Mad Mac’s Merry Mountain Mover’s how may I help you? I wonder what would happen if I answered the telephone that way? It truly is slightly insane on our mountain right now with most of the family all ending up having to rearrange and move at the same time.
That is my life right now, stacks of boxes, disarranged furniture….and no place to go. I really like my sister-in- law’s idea of putting a chocolate candy on every box, so no matter where you look there is hope. That is just the kind of hope I need.
There has been the adventurous and fun aspect to all this madness; working together as a family, eating dinner settled wherever there is space, laughing together over our nephew while he entertains us, all the siblings still at home settling down for the night in the cabin with the warm freshness of a late spring night settling around us, the laugh, the teasing, the exhaustion……. Memories in the making.
The good news is that the plumbing that needed to be installed before the slab was poured is done and they did the concrete yesterday. Come Monday we should be able to move ahead with the building and fairly soon have the temporary living quarters built to obtain the occupancy permit.
By Monday we also might be camping down there with the packrats. And you thought I had issues with mice. Sleeping with a six shooters seems a sound idea to me at this point.
3 comments:
Oh, the poor mouse, to have one foot in the trap- that must have been hard for him! ;)
That does sound like a fun family experience, working together to create a new home. The way you wrote it, you sounded like Laura Ingalls, talking of the country life of stopping the wagon that was heading west for a night, Pa playing his fiddle, and the Laura and Mary clapping...Sounds like a good time. :D
This is great stuff, TW. I agree with Han: I love the way you wrote this. :)
Thank you ladies!
Life is certainly an experience right now. I keep reminding myself that we have it much better than the pioneers did. I'm not sure if it's working, but I keep trying. :)
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