horror

I'm not afraid of bugs, heights, or spiders.  If a piece of cheese or bread has mold on it, I will cut it off and eat the rest.  I don't always shower every day.  The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think of myself as overly squeamish or high maintenance.  Generally.

But mice.  I hate mice.  They have fur and bones and blood, and if you step on one, it might squirm under your foot.  Bugs don't do that.  

The first apartment I lived in after graduating from college had mice.  Luckily, the nice gentlemen downstairs emptied the traps for us, and I managed to put them out of my head. Until one morning, a few months later, when I looked down as I was shutting off a lamp and saw a long, curled tail poking out of a trap.  I called Greg, cried the entire way to work (a 40 minute drive) and by the end of the day had plans to move. 

So I am not joking when I say that I hate mice.

Well, this week, Greg found a dead mouse in our storage facility (pictured above).  The fact that I was not present did not stop me from shuddering, curling up into a fetal position, and calling my mom. The mouse was in between two boxes, but the nibbled hole in a tablecloth suggests that he was also inside one of the boxes.  The storage facility said that he probably ate some of their bait then wandered inside and died.  So far there is no other evidence, but it is taking all of my zen to continue reaching my hands into boxes full of newspaper and packing peanuts.

weekend away

I spent the weekend in Northwest Arkansas, at a sort of impromptu family reunion.  This is funny, because my family is not from Northwest Arkansas, they're from Oregon (my dad's family, that is).  But my cousin Mindy and her husband Jonathan moved there a while back, and her parents and my grandmother were visiting, so my mom and sister drove down from Indianapolis and I flew in from Philly.  And my dad just happened to be in Tulsa, which is not far away, so he came by as well.  We played cards, ate a Southern Boil, and talked new homeowner stuff, since Mindy and Jonathan bought a house when they moved.  They're painting their bathroom, working on GFI outlets, and growing lilies.

Not everyone in the family could make it, but my grandpa sent out one of his handmade cutting boards for my sister.  I got one in January (pictured above) and have been eagerly waiting to display it in my kitchen at Mercy Street.  It's so beautiful that I'm not sure I want to use it for chopping and cutting.

Speaking of Mercy Street, I missed all the activity there over the weekend.  Greg and our friend Michael made lots of trips from storage, filling the basement with boxes and furniture.  We can't put stuff where it goes yet, because the carpet isn't in, but we're getting ready so that once it's installed, we can unpack!