You know what warms a mother’s heart?
When her ten-year-old daughter, all showered and sweet-smelling in her pajamas, announces “I’m going to run outside and check the rat traps before you tuck me in!”
Yes. This is what my life has become.
P came home on Thursday and Caroline couldn’t wait to tell him about the wildlife we encountered living outside my bathroom window. He immediately pulled out his arsenal of various rodent traps (Sadly, this isn’t our first rat rodeo.) and the two of them got to work concocting irresistible offerings with which to entice a rat and/or mouse. Basically their strategy was some Laffy Taffy left over from Halloween stuck on a glue trap.
The next day Caroline couldn’t wait to see if their traps worked. I’m sad to report she showed an enthusiasm usually reserved for Christmas morning.
But, alas, we are obviously dealing with the Yogi Bear of the rat family. By which I mean that he is smarter than the average rat. Because he has stayed away from our Laffy Taffy and our peanut butter and even some cheese. He is like John Travolta, staying alive.
Really the hunt for the rat was the most exciting part of our weekend. And that was fine with me. I was thrilled to have a weekend that involved no soccer or any other obligations. The Aggies even had the weekend off so I was able to watch college football like a normal person who doesn’t get overly emotionally invested.
On Friday night P was at the ranch and Caroline and I stayed at Gulley’s house until early evening and then picked up dinner and headed home. We watched Monsters vs. Aliens and it was as exciting as it sounds.
Then Saturday morning we slept in and spent most of the day in our pajamas. Caroline was fighting either allergies or a cold and wasn’t anywhere near her normal energy level. She built a fort in her playroom and one in the corner of the living room and was content to migrate from fort to fort as the day went on.
Later that night we had some friends over for dinner. I cooked Pioneer Woman’s braised short ribs with mashed potatoes and Mix and Match Mama’s cinnamon roll cake for dessert. It was the perfect fall comfort food meal. The only problem was it was about eighty-five degrees outside.
And that about sums it up.
Except I did make an unfortunate discovery that I want to mention. Last night I was messing around on the computer and somehow stumbled across an old google email address that I created a long time ago but never check because it’s not an address I ever use. Well, apparently, if you subscribe to my blog by email, and have ever replied back, your reply has gone to that google email address that I never check.
I can’t even tell you how sad this makes me because I try my best to respond when people email me and all of a sudden there were many sweet emails that I’ve never answered because I didn’t know they existed. I really shouldn’t be allowed to own a computer.
So if you’ve emailed me and been thinking I was so rude because I never even bothered to answer, please know I’m not rude, just technologically incompetent. From here on out I’ll try to check both email addresses unless some computer wizard can tell me how to combine all that email into one account. Or better yet, can just do it for me.
And finally, on a completely unrelated note, have any of you ever read C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy? It’s called Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy)Chronicles of Narnia years ago.
But you never hear anyone say, “You know what’s great? C.S. Lewis’s books about space.” Yet, it’s C.S. Lewis. How bad could it be? Anyway, I went ahead and ordered the first one but just figured someone out there has read them and might have some thoughts. Or at least some other suggestions for a good series of books to read aloud.
In the meantime, I’ll just be here waiting to see if rats can resist the combination of Laffy Taffy with a side of peanut butter.