Category: Family

This is not fair

So last spring/summer we had the back door open for fresh air, a lot.  A mouse came in, so we got traps and caught it in just a couple days.

This fall another mouse dared to enter the house.  We set the traps again, and it was caught with-in the hour of setting.

We had one still set along the wall, just waiting in hopes that we would not catch another.

We went out of town for a week, and the trap was empty.

The temperatures dropped, a mouse came in for a snack.  It died.

We went to pick up more traps (because even though it says reusable, let’s be honest here, I am not un-clipping the mouse and using that nasty thing again!) just in case we need them.  The temperature outside keeps dropping, and I don’t want to be outside!

The price of the traps this time was $6.88, I think-once I find the receipt I will know for sure.  This evening we were at the store getting other supplies in that area of the store, and passed the traps display, and this is what I saw:

IMG00315mouse traps

It is the original price again.  It makes me so stinking mad!!!!!

We figure that because the outside temperatures dropped, many people were having trouble with the mice coming in, and the store (or rather the people who run it) decided that they might as well make extra money off the people who already have enough problems in their lives.  And now that the traps are in less of a demand, the price has dropped back to the original rate.

Now, if I can just think of how to make this work to my advantage….  Any ideas?

Canadian Thanksgiving

Here is the answer you all have been waiting for…

answer82

On October 12th we had dinner at Jacob’s parents’ house with the missionaries, Elder Pickett and Elder Drake.  Elder Pickett is from Canada and that happens to be Canadian Thanksgiving.  So using our super internet abilities, we found his family.  Jacob called his parents and talked to his brother and his mom and asked about any traditions.  We discovered that Elder Pickett has tried many new foods on his mission. The plate above is his clean plate.

Here he is loading up his plate:

IMG_2951

Here he is trying new foods:

IMG_2952

He liked it so much, we sent leftovers home with him:

IMG_2955

Eight dollars and sixteen months

We went out to Idaho (15th-21st) with Jacob’s Parents for Erin’s and Adam’s graduation.  We stayed with John and Tinell (she also graduated) Broadbent (they have two very adorable little girls, and stinking smart too).  John may be responsible for our potentially thinking about purchasing a Wii in the future.  We had a lot of fun in Idaho.  Not so much fun the four days in the car to get there and back. The trip was good; physically sitting in a confined space for four days is not so pleasant.

We were very lucky with the driving conditions.  We did see lots of tire marks where cars had gone off in the snow before we got to those points.  We are happy that the weather cleared up for us to make it there and back in safety and with out too much worry.

Now for the fun stats I know everyone is waiting for, knowing that I am mee and I do these things on car trips.  Just remember FOUR days of travel.

December 15th:

I counted up 30 places where cars had slid off the road in the earlier bad weather, not including cars still there.
There were 2 cars still out there, one was a mini-van and looked like it may have collided with a car not there any more.
There were 6 semi-trucks, 3 of which were flipped on the sides.
I just hoped and prayed that everyone was ok.

Watched Indiana Jones:  Raiders of the Lost Arc and Horton Hears a Who ( the newer one, I still prefer the older one).

Now for the Alphabet searches:

Start time 7:50am (finding the words in order)
Avenue Burlington Club Dane Equipped For Golf Hiring It’s Junction Kawasaki Lockridge Melrose National Orlando Peterbilt Quarter Right Stop Travel USDOT VanWyk Wisconsin Xpress (as in U.S. Xpress) Yanke Zooming
Stop time 9:44am

Start time 9:46am (finding the letters on license plates we passed)
668WWA SB3P2M  989CMQ  126TDX  490MLE TF4209  G598107  237SJH 894NIP  790JJA  KTYAHWK  206ALZ  CWM 995TLN 188WDO PS4404  951RQZ  6FBR122  795ESC  896TJY  U1462O  OVF776  435EWX  835RMX 726SYK  013NQZ
Stop time 12:10pm

Start time 12:56pm (finding the words randomly)
Airport Beatrice Class Downtown East Federal Grand Harley Icy Jery’s Knight Lincoln Mack Nation Oak Park Quest Ramada Sale Then University Vehicles Warning Xtra York Zoo
Stop time 4:05pm

We stayed the night in Laramie, Wyoming.  I did not make any lists the next day (the 16th) because I was too busy whining about the lack of data service on the phones as we drove through the rest of Wyoming.  I was also taking lots of pictures of the scenery.  It is beautiful even if there is not a single person who lives there to enjoy it!!!  We decided to stop briefly in Salt Lake City so we could take Jacob’s parents to see the new Conference Center.  It was a fun tour.  And wouldn’t you know it, the first person we see as we are rounding the corner to park the car was Brother Maynard.  He and his wife were serving a mission here in Macomb, and just left in August.  Driving through the mountains was very pretty.

We headed back early the morning of December 20th:

We watched A Christmas Story and Back to the Future I, II, and III

Alphabet searches:

Start time 8:55am (in  order)
And Blackfoot Comfort Diabetes Exit Fort Gas Highway (9:00am) Indian Just (9:19am) Kehoka (10:28am) Lots Miles North Ogden Price Quizno’s Restaurant Subway TechnaGlass Unleaded Villiage Watson Xtreme Yard Zone (no passing zone)
Stop time 12:54pm

Start time 2:42pm (finding the words randomly)
Area Benson Cross Draw Express FedEx Georgia Halliburton Interstate John Keystone Lays Marten Number Only Parking Quick Richfield Sswift Trading Ursus VanPack Winning Xpress (Ad Xpress) Yesco Zone (Auto Zone)
Stop time 5:10pm

We stayed that night in Ogallala, Nebraska.

December 21:

We watched Rigoletto and we stopped about 1:30pm in Omaha for lunch at Jimmy John’s in hopes of meeting up with a couple of friends.  Unfortunately, neither of them were able to make it.  Maybe another time.

Alphabet searches:

Start time 9:22am (finding words randomly)
Ants Bridges Coleman Drive Eagle Food Golden Hershey Inn Join Kearney Lodging Minimum Nebraska Oversized Penske Quit Road Simon’s Transport Utility Veterans Wallace Xterra Yourself Zumstien
Stop time 12:15pm

Start time 12:16pm (finding the letters on license plates we passed)
325OYA 421PAB PCO648  PGD520  8-E2706  18-F585  RGW007  917HLC  200PII  RDJ634  73682K PLW453  XGM676  17-N188  POM896  PVF7849  OYQ634  RCO658  584TTS T865260  HU51693  PV6347  OXW366  PXB761  14-Y427  66055HZ
Stop time 2:40pm

Start time 3:13pm (finding words randomly)
America Buckle City DesMoines Elk Ford Go Horn Immigrant Johnston Kum Limit Malibu Nissan Oldsmobile Pontiac Quality Ram Sunrise Town Up Value Wings Xtra Yukon Zeitner
Stop time 4:33

That is enough of my obsession for now.  Give me a day or two for pictures and holiday reporting.

Halloween, or my favorite holiday

I seriously need about 12 of these dress up days a year, one a month would be a lot of fun for me.  Jacob on the other hand would not really enjoy costuming once a month.  In fact, I was unable to get him to dress up, even to be a butcher and carry a fake meat cleaver…to go with my swine flu (I was so excited about this one!):

meeswinetailflu

Sitting outside to hand out candy (what was up with only 30 minutes of trick or treating?):

meesitting

And my tail closer-up (it may very well be my favorite part of the costume):

curlytail

With out my snout (like when I had to get a drink or eat):

meenosnout

My eyes, simply because I like this picture:

myeyes

The scary (lunging) monster that made a little girl cry:

scarry

It also got a “What the fff…?” by a boy about 12-13 years old, that caught himself, and then I told him he should not know that word.  And I think Loana Deveraux had to go change her drawrs after her encounter with the monster….  Here she is, or was?

ghostofloanapast

Here are cookies I made using the cookie press (for the first time ever) that Jessie gave me because she never used it:

cookies

Dead and Deader

Last Friday (June 12), I went out for an afternoon bike ride, and when I got home, the monitors connected to my main work computer were dark. I wiggled the mouse to bring them back to life, but they did not revive. The computer had crashed.

While such a thing had never happened with this particular computer before, we’ve all seen random system crashes, and I didn’t think anything of it. I had saved all my files before going out the door, after all.  I pushed the power button on the computer case to shut off the machine and reboot it…

…And nothing happened. The case LEDs were still on, keyboard LEDs still glowing. The machine had all the appearances of being alive, but was dead. I tried again. Held the power button down for 15 (it should turn off after 10), 20, 30 seconds. No response. It wouldn’t turn off.

Hmm. This is strange.

I flipped the rocker switch on the power supply and the machine shut off instantly. After a short wait, I flipped it back on and pressed the power button.

Nothing happened.

Again, I pressed and held the power button. No case LEDs, no keyboard lights, no fans spinning up, nothing. Great.

I love the small town where we live, but one of its downsides is that there’s no decent place to buy computer parts in a pinch. Thankfully, there’s a big internet electronics warehouse store that’s located such that when we order things with the cheapest UPS ground shipping, we almost always get them the next day. But, it being late Friday afternoon, I knew anything I ordered wouldn’t actually ship until Monday, so I wouldn’t get it until Tuesday. Oh well, at least I still have the laptop to keep me on top of things.

I decided that the power supply was fried, so I ordered a new one, which arrived tuesday afternoon, just as expected. Tuesday evening, I sat down with the ailing computer and swapped out power supplies. I got it all plugged in and put together, and hit the power button.

Nothing, again.

Dangit! For those of you lucky enough to have never had a computer die, here’s a hint: When you have a computer that’s just dead, the culprit is almost always either the motherboard or the power supply. In this case, I had good reason to believe the power supply was the problem. Apparently it wasn’t (or at least it wasn’t the ONLY problem). Now I need to order a new motherboard.

Again, it’s after shipping time, so anything I order will ship Wednesday and arrive Thursday. Fine. I ordered a new motherboard, and went back to work on the laptop (which, by the way, is a Mac, and doesn’t have all the Windows software I need to work on my main business projects). The new motherboard arrived Thursday afternoon, and went easily into the computer case

Cross fingers. Say a prayer. Do a rain dance. Push the power button.

It booted right up. No other hardware damage, no data loss.

The rest of Thursday was spend installing new drivers for the new chipset and audio all that stuff that comes with a new motherboard, and Friday I was finally back in action. A full week without my main computer was quite a bit of lost work, and put me behind schedule, but I’m catching up quickly.

The moral of the story: While I didn’t lose any data, it made me take a good look at my backup strategies. While the source code that keeps my business running was always backed up in two different places, other things (like iPhone app sales records) were not. If there had been a hard drive problem, some important things could have been lost.

So please take this opportunity to review your backup strategy and make sure that everything important is backed up and will survive a hardware failure or worse (Question: what would happen if your house burned down while you weren’t home? Would you still have your precious data intact?). We work way too hard on creating our digital lives to have them vanish at the whim of a few faulty bits of silicon. Be careful!

I believe I was mistaken

So, I was pretty convinced there were raccoons in my plants.


Until this morning when I opened the front door and saw two squirrels pulling on the bird feeder post.  They had it bent clear to the ground and were eating the seeds.


I got mad!  I told them I hated them, and never to come back; then I shook my fist at them.  Mostly because one of them was digging in a flower pot that was barely beginning to sprout.  They had better not have destroyed our flowers.


I went to Farm King and found squirrel repellent. When I pulled back into the drive, there was another squirrel digging at the base of the post.  I will have to re-dig and re-place the post.

The repellent is a wolf or fox urine based product, 100% organic, and stinks!  It won’t (shouldn’t) scare the birds away, and ought to not harm my produce.  I hope it works!!!

I guess it is sort of an on-going project

As I sit on my porch, admiring the garden I have been working on, I figure I had better post pictures of the garden as much as I have.

Picture heavy!

View of front of house.  I like to sit in those chairs and enjoy the warmth, and try to catch glimpses of the birds.

frontwith-garden

Here is from the west.  The edges here are rain gutters that were taken off the house(they have been sitting on the ground for quite a while so I figured I can use them).  I cut them and buried them as borders.

fromthewest

Same section, different view.

west-garden

East section.

east-garden

Sunflower-this is the first I had seen of it above dirt, it grows fast.  These are the Mammoth Gray variety and will get heads about 20 inches wide and we will be able to eat the seeds, if the birds don’t get them first.

sunflower-start

It is really cool-I think-to see the ground split from the pressure of the plants growing and breaking through.

ground-break

Here are the beets once they broke through. I had to put the beets in a bigger pot, not pictured.

beetspot

Here are blooms on the tomato plant (there are two opened, more not yet, one may be harder to see).

tomato-bloom

There was a furry creature that dug up in this flower pot.  I think it must have a death wish!

flowerspot

Then I saw that it was digging up the pot where I had planted carrot seeds!

carrots-dugup

And if that wasn’t enough, it decided to dig into the unopened bags of soil that I hadn’t gotten to yet.

dirt-bags

This picture was taken through the window.  The birds like the food I put out, but must not be comfortable around me yet, because if I am on the porch they tend to stay away.  Or if they do approach, they fly when they notice the camera.

bird-feeding

However I was able to finally capture a few birds. Here is a sparrow.

sparrow

And here is a Cardinal, we think he is still young and growing his red feathers yet.

yooung-cardinal

We have beets, carrots, green bell peppers, big hamburger tomatoes, roma tomatoes, sun flowers, potatoes (white and red), and some strictly decorative flowers.

I started this post Sunday, so it gets that date, however I did finish it on Monday.

I did a risky thing

I bought black mulch.  I think I will like it, but with out the finished product, one can never really know.  It was not much more than the boring, cheep, no color kind, and all the colors cost the same.  Every one in town, it seems, uses red.  Everyone knows I have to be different.  So I picked black.  The house is white, so black mulch ought to be a good contrast, and it won’t clash with any color of flowers I will put out there, so I bought it.  I am not done because I had to go off to a “meeting” for camp.  It was very informal, and catch the girls as they come in and out from the fund raiser.  I love the young women.  They are young and fun!  Oh, back on topic.  Pictures are forthcoming as soon as I finish the project.


Another reason for a post, is that I feel a little queasy looking at that mouse every time I get on here.  I know, I put it on here.  But yuck!


A new quiz will return next week.  I know there are so many of you sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for a new one.  Since I think there are only about up to 10 people who read this.  I could be wrong, If you read this feel free to leave me a word in the comments.  Though I do ask that it not be a word I can/should not repeat to my friends’ kids.  I am not picky about who reads it, I am just curious.