Wildlife Adventure

 

Before I tell you about our wildlife adventure, I need to tell you about where we live.  We are in a neighborhood.  Not in a neighborhood like in North Carolina where everyone has at least a 1 acre lot.  No—in a neighborhood where no one has even 1/5 of an acre, and where some people have less.  Behind us there are houses on slightly bigger lots, and then it looks like a house on a big piece of property.  (Meaning a house that was built a long time ago before the urban growth restrictions.)  On the other side of our neighborhood there’s a big natural area that is heavily wooded, and on the other side of that there’s a wetland—but we’re pretty far away from those.

Last night the girls had gone up to bed and all of a sudden Rachel came running downstairs yelling

Raccoon!  There’s a raccoon in the back yard!!

We quickly turned out the family room light and hurried to the french doors to look out, and sure enough, there was a raccoon scurrying towards the back fence and then underneath it.  We didn’t think anything more of it.

 

Late last night when Russ & I were ready to go to bed (after dealing with stress by watching mindless television for far too long) we got Tiger and put her outside.  Tiger seems to be slowing down in her old age, and now spends many of her daytime hours sleeping somewhere in the house.  (We all say we want to be cats when we grow up!)

She still sleeps outside, though, but we haven’t gotten the garage unpacked enough that she can sleep in the garage.  So her bed has been out on the deck, and a few feet away from that is an old kitty litter container that holds her food.

When I put Tiger outside I went to put a scoop of food in her dish, but I couldn’t find the bin in the dark.  I had Russ turn on the porch light but the bin wasn’t there.  I was so puzzled.  Russ put on his shoes and turned on more lights and came out to look with me.  No bin anywhere.  He suggested that maybe the raccoon had carried the food bin off, but I was sure it hadn’t.  First of all because the bin was a lot bigger than a raccoon, but also because it would have had to carry the bin over the fence—there wasn’t room to get it under the fence.

We decided that one of the kids must have moved the food.

 

This morning we asked each of them, but no one knew what had happened to the food.  When Rachel got home from band she went out into the back yard to look, and a few minutes later came running in triumphantly.  “I found it,” she said, “the raccoon was trying to take it under the fence!”

Sure enough, it was in the back corner of the yard, right where the raccoon had disappeared under the fence.

The raccoon must have been very frustrated that it wouldn’t fit underneath.

It looks like it’s been pushed and rolled in the mud quite a bit!

So all’s well that ends well, especially when we don’t have to keep feeding Tiger tuna because we can’t find her food.  But I’m really thinking we need a plan B for the food.

Road Warnings

Turns out that the saying

is really true.

And after this morning, I’m a little concerned about our bridge.  Cause that thing was icy SLICK.

It may just mean that by next spring, we’ll have a saltwater pond…

Cooking with Rachel Ray

 

(no, not that Rachel Ray!)

I’ve been  trying to remember to have the kids take turns helping me in the kitchen every time I make dinner so that they can start learning some cooking skills.  Tonight I got Rachel to help me make out of this world Chicken Pot Pie and she was terrific.  She made the roux, made the white sauce, helped me chop the onions and then sautéed them.  The only part she had problems with was that the onion was seriously pungent.  I kept telling her it wouldn’t be bad, but it turned out I was totally lying—it was the worst onion I’ve cut in a long time.

I couldn’t even open my eyes, they hurt so bad!

I must not be Real Simple

Before we moved I came across an advertisement for a Real Simple magazine subscription for the bargain basement price of $10/year.  I tucked it away, thinking that once I was done moving I might be interested.

After all, their motto was

life made easier, every day. 

And I had a suspicion I was going to be in a place soon where I would need some life made easier, every day.

So I waited, and then I ordered.  As I ordered I hoped that Real Simple would be the one thing I needed to help me get organized and survive the moves. 

 

Last month’s issue of Real Simple promised on the cover

40 Elegant Home Furnishings!
Design pros reveal the secret pieces they rely on to take any space from average to aha!

“Ah ha indeed!”, I thought.  “This is what I’ve been waiting for!  Because I have a new space, and I am not quite sure what to do with it!”

 

And so, one day when I needed a little pick-me-up, I ran a nice hot bath and climbed in with my Real Simple magazine in tow. 

Very quickly I realized that the decorators at Real Simple and I were on different wavelengths.

Or maybe different planets.

 

May I present the evidence?

This:

A cowhide ottoman for only $399.

This:

A fan chair, for $2500.

Even better, this:

The Zanadu chandelier, $1920.

And my personal favorite, this:

The feathered headress, only $1500. 
The designer likes to use them in groups of 3 above a bed sometimes.

 

What???

 

So you can see, I am sure, why I will not be renewing my relationship with Real Simple when this year is over.  Cause whatever version of Real Simple this is, it is not mine.

Great Saturday

As the day is (swiftly) winding down I figured that after my whiney post this morning I owed it to…someone or something…to record the fact that today was just a fantastic day.

When I woke up (after sleeping as late as I could) Russ had breakfast burritos ready.  Yum, yum.  I sat on the couch beside him and ate while he watched the first of many football games.  When I was done eating I picked up my computer and just did whatever I wanted for the next couple of hours.  Whiney blogging, email, pinterest, words with friends, facebook, a resolution to stop talking about politics, and finally I had done everything I could think of to do.  I was almost embarrassed every time Jared came in with his friend and I was still sitting on the couch in my pink striped pajamas…almost, but not quite.

At two Russ declared it was nap time and I decided he was right.  I woke from my nap unexplainably energized, got up and got all sorts of things done.  Multiple loads of laundry folded, apples boiled to make more applesauce, a few things moved around, a little more unpacking.  Russ mobilized the kids to sweep and blow the leaves again and I baked up a few cookies for the workers.  Before I knew it it was dinnertime.  Then I ran the apples through the strainer, put the applesauce in the fridge, and Russ & I left for our date.

For our date we met up with some friends at an old hotel in a nearby town where we sat and talked, then found an empty meeting room and played games.  The games were good and the conversation was better, and after I confessed to feeling sad about eating Thanksgiving dinner alone they called later to say they’d come eat turkey with us instead of going camping.

There aren’t a lot of days in life where there really are no demands, and where I get to do just about what I feel like doing.

It was awesome.

Why I’m ignoring the fact that it’s November…

I keep seeing them, on facebook and blogs—thankful lists.  (One of my ambitious cousins is even listing as many things as the date—5 things on the 5th, 6 on the 6th, etc.)  Me?  Mostly not.  (Though I was thankful that I didn’t cut my fingers off the other day when I cut a quince improperly.)

In years past I’ve been happy to turn my blogging thoughts to thankfulness in November.  It’s always been a lovely experience for me.  But this year I’ve been distracted and resistant.

Distracted by my night in the emergency room and the subsequent effort to figure out what I can eat (and when I should eat it) to keep my stomach from hurting.  Which turns out to be a total pain.  Distracted by the fact that Russ woke up last Monday morning unable to move without agonizing pain.  Which turns out to be a bulging disc.  Distracted by Jared running a high fever for several days and laying on the couch without doing anything for an entire day.  (Which is always the part that worries me more than the fever.)  Which lasted almost three days.  Distracted by the ongoing pressure of keeping school going, feeding people, and trying to occasionally unpack a box. 

I did think of a thankful project that would be good for me, and which I may still do.  I think it would be a healthy thing for me to figure out, say, 30 things that I like about my new house.  So that’s been perking in the background a little.  But I haven’t been able to make myself start working on it.

I finally think I figured out at least part of what’s going on. 

Any other year, a thankfulness project was leading in one direction—to Thanksgiving Day, a day combining comfort foods and comfort friends in over-the-top amounts.  And the thing is, we could re-create the foods this year.  But this is our first big moment of alone-ness, the first in what is usually a series of things-done-with-friends but will now be completely different.

And we are all hating the thought.

I’m not sure what we will do.  We were invited to go on a multi-day Thanksgiving camping trip, but given the situation with Russ’s back it’s a good thing we weren’t planning on doing that.  In theory we could drive the 12 hrs to Utah and be with all sorts of loved ones, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea at this point in our life.  What is sure is that whatever we do, we will be missing our people.  The sous-chef who came early to help with the cooking.  The oreo pie maker who came later with her pie.  And the rest of their family…

Library Problems

A few weeks ago my cute niece reviewed a book on goodreads that I thought I might enjoy.  I went to the library website and requested it, and a few days later it came in.  When I picked it up, habia una problema.  El libro fue en espanol.  No leo espanol.

 

Yesterday afternoon I picked up another book from the library.  I probably need to explain again that I get book “recommendations” from all over the place.  I’ll be talking to someone and they’ll mention a great book, and I’ll text myself a note to put it on hold.  I hear something on NPR and do the same.  I read something online and it seems intriguing to me and I check to see if the library has it.  And then, sometime between 4 days and 4 months later, the library sends me an email to say my hold is in.  By that time I no longer remember where the original idea to read the book came from, but I generally still enjoy it.

Anyway, yesterday I grabbed my two books from the hold shelf, checked them out, and headed home.  When I got a chance to look at one of the books I was a little puzzled.  It just didn’t look like something I would have requested.  All I could figure was that one of my goodreads friends must have reviewed it and said it was really wonderful, and I had put it on hold. 

Last night I was just exhausted, so I put on my pjs and climbed into bed to read.  I picked up the new book and re-read the synopsis on the back.

It still did not seem like something I would have signed up to read.  But I opened the book and started.

Three pages later I knew I had read as much as I could stomach.  The story was just a little too familiar—“everygirl,” who lives with her inattentive father and is starting a new school, sees a good looking guy and experiences an electrical shock of connection.  Good looking guy, normally not interested in the high school girls, can’t stop looking at her.

Ugh, spare me.

Curious, I logged onto goodreads and started looking at my friend’s booklists to see who had read (and therefore recommended) it.  It was tedious to look through each list, so I finally gave up and typed the title into the goodreads search to see what other people were saying about this book.  Interestingly enough, when the search pulled up it said “None of your friends have reviewed this book.”

If none of my friends reviewed this book, then where did it come from???

I set the book down and picked up something else to read for a while.  Later, I picked it up again and told Russ about my confusion.  As I was talking to him I happened to pull the hold slip out of the book and glance on it.  And there, below my name, was the title of the book that I had requested.

 

Oh!  Suddenly everything made so much more sense.  I really didn’t order that book.  It was a total accident!  I didn’t have to try to read it!!

Can I tell you how relieved I felt?

So later I’m going to go back to the library, and give them back their book.  We’re going to wipe the slate clean and start fresh again!