Pumpkin Picking with the Family

When I was a little girl, my grandparents used to take me and my sisters out to Browns Orchard in Loganville, PA to pick pumpkins. It was one of the things I looked forward to most in the Fall - picking that perfect pumpkin and then going for a nice glass of fresh apple cider. In Texas we didn't do the pumpkin thing. In fact, it was rare if I even got a pumpkin in Texas, so when I found out we were moving back to the NE, I looked forward to revisiting my childhood a bit and joining my family again on our annual pumpkin picking adventures.

Now the location has changed and we have a few new welcome additions to our little harvesting pack, but the good times remain the same. The old farmhouse across from my grandparents house is now the scene of our new escapade. They pile us pumpkin hunters on a hayride and transport us from the barn to the fields where we can enjoy a variety of pleasures from pumpkin picking to corn mazing. Since Erick joined our little band, he has instituted a new tradition - picking the ugliest pumpkin in the patch. In Erick's first year, he brought home a pumpkin completely covered in warts. The second, a grey pumpkin....that we were able to take home for free because it was apparently "rotten".

In Erick's absence, my family and I were determined to keep this little tradition alive. Even my little three year old cousin, Laura, joined in the hunt for an "ugly" pumpkin. Sadly, this year no such pumpkin was to be found. I finally settled on a green spotted pumpkin that was a little deformed on one side. I am convinced, though, that had Erick been with us - he would've found a pumpkin to rival the hideous entities of years past.

Erick is disappointed that I was not able to find such a pumpkin, but I think is proud that his little tradition was still carried out in his absence. In all reality I think he should be happy that he alone has the distinction of finding the ugliest pumpkins...and he seems to top himself every year - so the fact that an entire group of us failed to find what Erick considers "the perfect pumpkin" stands as a testimony of Erick's talent and should make him proud that none could rival his knack for finding that one pumpkin in the patch that no one else would take home.

Death-defying crazy ninja mouse

It's Fall, the most beautiful time of year in my opinion. The leaves are changing creating a landscape full of red and gold hues everywhere you look. But it also means that little nasty creatures come crawling in from their dirty little holes outside into my nice, warm home inside. It's funny, we didn't have a rodent problem when our street was populated....now that we're a ghost town it's an annual event. Last week I found mouse droppings near my dry goods so I knew it was time to put out the traps again. The traps I bought last year were pretty nifty - they are marketed as "clean, reusable traps" in that they don't squish the mouse flat, it's more like a giant opaque clip....as seen below:

All last week I had the traps set around where I found the droppings (on top of my fridge of all places...yuck!). Every morning I would wake to find new droppings and no mouse....so I would go through my cleaning ritual (BLEACH BLEACH BLEACH!!!) and set them again. After a few days of this, I called my friend Sophia who has a husband at home (husbands are great things to have in times like these) and they brought me over the old school "jaws of life" traps. Nick suggested I put peanut butter on the traps to lure the mouse to its untimely end - so I pulled out my favorite peanut butter and loaded all the traps.

The next morning I entered the kitchen apprehensively expecting to see a tiny corpse crushed in one of the traps....but no - it couldn't be - the mouse had actually eaten the peanut butter off one of the "jaws of life traps" and left MORE poop! For three consecutive mornings each of the traps, one by one, were getting cleared of their peanut butter bait without actually catching the mouse. I began to theorize that this mouse had seen a few of his friends, maybe even his parents, get whacked by traps and had thereby, learned the tricks of the trade....that, or he was a crazy ninja mouse.

Or he could be doing this

This morning, though, I saw the last trap...my "clean" trap" closed and a little leg sticking out of the side. I felt a mixture of triumph and guilt....mice may be disgusting, dirty and disease ridden, but they are kind of cute in their own little way. I put my thick yellow kitchen gloves on and grabbed the empty bag of dog food from the trash and prepared to remove the newly deceased from off the top of my fridge. As I lifted my trembling arm to the trap, the "dead" mouse lifted its head and sniffed the air....I screamed like the little pansy girl that I am and scampered up the stairs. I have not re-entered my kitchen - the mouse, as far as I know is still in the trap. I am now at work fearing that I will come home to an empty trap, save the leg that remains trapped in the "jaws" of this so called "clean trap" leaving me to deal with a three-legged, peanut-butter loving, rodent hell bent on revenge.

Inspirations from the Bathroom

Okay, so this is probably not the best way to start off our blog - but recently we were discussing great ideas at work and I always seem to receive mine in the bathroom (usually in the shower). So, when a co-worker of mine ran from the bathroom in excitement because of an idea that came to her on the toilet, I decided that we must be closer to God in the bathroom.

Not my bathroom - but wouldn't you be inspired?

I did not however, decide to start this blog in the bathroom. There was no burst of sheer genius that drove me to it, there was no brilliance of mind - in fact, it was quite unoriginal. I decided to create a blog merely because everyone else was doing it, so why not jump on the blogspot bandwagon?

Currently, (as if you didn't know) Erick and I live in Washington, DC - well at least I do. Erick is presently residing in Afghanistan. Needless to say, he won't be posting any blogs on here for a little while. We have two Beagles, Han and Luke. Erick refused to let me rename them because he is a crazed Star Wars fan and since I would not allow him to name our future children Lando or Beru - Han and Luke remained Han and Luke. Luke is a bit overweight and on the cowardly side. Han is a pansy until you make him mad...and a little sickly because of his allergies. They are the little rays of sunshine in my life right now - we go on runs together, we snuggle together, they greet me when I come home from work and they wake me every morning with a few sloppy kisses.

Han and Luke

Erick is an officer in the United States Air Force and as already discussed, likes him some Star Wars. He also has a love of musical theatre which is just fabulous because it proves my mother wrong that I would "never find a straight man who loves Broadway." I was convinced that there were plenty of straight men out there who enjoyed a great showstopper and after marrying Erick, I have found that even more straight men know what it means to "Defy Gravity" and "Put on a Happy Face." These straight, Broadway lovin' men are all either Mormon or in the Air Force...or both....what's the correlation? - who knows?

Another guy who likes Broadway