No More Cheese Please

There was a dead mouse in the middle of the bathroom floor this morning. It lay on its side, legs and tail limply extending similarly to my dog’s mid afternoon nap position. I was startled when I saw it, even though I’ve been expecting it for days; the traps have been set since last Tuesday. I jumped and shrieked like the good housewife I am, and quickly closed the door. I left it there for David to take care of tomorrow. Disposing of dead mice was not something I wrote into my wedding vows, and since David said something about supporting me in all I do when he wrote his, I’ll defer to his words now.

It’s the first dead mice I’ve seen in nearly ten years. For a while, I was convinced that mice didn’t live in houses anymore. But ever since we've moved in to the new house, I've heard them scurrying around every night, eating Oscar's dog food, scratching the floor with their little claws, and running around in the walls doing who knows what to the insulation. I was annoyed, and afraid (in my teenaged years, I woke up to a mouse digging through my hair on my pillow--eww). We set the traps and I thought that was the end of it. I wouldn't have to think about mice again.

There is currently a dead mouse downstairs in the bathroom. It's laying on its side similar to how Oscar lays on his side now. I'm feeling guilty for the little mouse (and perhaps the five or so others that chose to die in more private quarters). The thing was basically harmless. In my childhood years, my brothers and I found baby mice in a drawer once. We kept them for a day and constructed obstacle courses for them and made them race until, well, until they died (probably from overhandling, lack of proper food, or something...God I'm a horrible mouse murderer).

Now should I expect a Blaura-sized mouse trap to be set for me somewhere? Should I forget the whole thing and except it? Should I make a shrine to all the mice ever killed with poison/traps/young children? A little of all three, I suppose. Are these the small things that really matter in life?

I Live in My House

Finally, we are living in our house. We have searched, found, closed, and started to paint. Here it is:


The inside is not pretty. We've been painting the upstairs so that we can move all our belongings up there. Then we'll gut the kitchen and open up the spaces on the first level. The house sits back on the property so that there isn't really a backyard, but there is lots of privacy from the street. The patio area (pictured here) is situated between the garage and the house, and has lots of potential to become the fairy-garden I've always wanted.

The work we've put in has been very rewarding so far. I can't wait to have everything put in order, to walk through it all and think "I can do whatever I want here."

And, finally, I'll be constructing my writing room over the next year. It will need a new desk, some inspirational colors and textures, and some cozy sitting places. The ultimate goal is to create a sanctuary that neither television nor general laziness can penitrate. I'm convinced that once I have the writing room I'm thinking of, the room will do half of my writing for me. In fact, I'm blogging in the room right now, and I'm pretty sure the view from the window urged me to write some words, anything at all. "Don't argue," it said, "just write."

No More Talk About Houses

I'm pretty sure I jinxed this one too. We're not getting the cute house on the end of the cul-de-sac. It's turned into an awful situation that could possibly drag on for some time. I'm not even going to speak about houses until I'm living in one.

How to Take Over the World

We've all had our stomach take over, driving us around the office, on the prowl for anything, anything to satiate its little growlings. While some people may claim to be in control of their snacking habits, the vending machine tells another tale...

Standing in front of that dratted machine this morning, with no desire other than to appease the pitiful pangs of my belly, I wondered who would be coerced into purchasing a "Smooshed Apple Flat" or the "Cococo Chocolate Organic Crackers." Only the deepest craving could force one to press the corresponding number and retrieve these scary sounding treats (if they can even be called treats). With so little options to vend today, and with such a pressing ache under my belt, I realized I was at the mercy of the machine. I suddenly saw the possibilities: by basing vending operations on a barter system, tasty snacks could be traded for small deeds. Imagine the possibilities. In the wrong hands, it could be dangerous.

While I would not take over the world with this plan (it could be done, by no means is this the most efficient way), I'm thinking of installing one in my house to barter for small chores. You may have a cookie if you mop the floor. You may have a granola bar if you empty the dishwasher, and so on. The beauty of it all is that I won't have to feed my guests anything significant and they'll never notice because the junk food compensation will outweigh their expectations. Believe me, it will work!

Some Sort of Rut?

I just realized that I'm in another rut. A blogging rut, at least. All the blogs I've written since getting out of school fall into one of three categories:

• About buying a house
• About my lack of imagination lately
• Cover topics that begin with the letter B

Ok, so maybe the last on is a stretch, because "Bowling Bummer" and "The Banana Bread Blog" cover completely different subjects. But this is also the Blaura Blog, so it's obvious I have some subconscious alliteration thing going on.

So, does this blog count as thinking outside of the blogging rut box? Unfortunately not; it falls into all three categories. Sheesh, I need to try harder.

It's Safe to Look Now

Well, maybe not, but I feel really good about this house. The last one I blogged about was indeed jinxed, perhaps by my premature public declaration of love, but we are past the first hurdle on this one, so I show it to you without fear.

Ok, it's not anything like what I imagined what we'd end up in, but that's the beauty of being flexible, right? In this case, while the house is very well done, it lacks the charm of the house I had my eye on before. This house overcomes that with it's location: near a pool, tennis courts, park, public golf course (yes readers, I have been known to swing a club), and the Cherry Creek bike trail.

Additionally, this house has the biggest yard we'd seen to date (yay for Oscar!), a finished basement including wet bar (party at my place!), and room to grow when I finally allow my motherly desires to take over. Oh, and did I mention the convection oven? Be prepared for some future food blogs!

So, cross your fingers. This house in under contract, and we hope to close by the end of June. We'll all be lounging on the back deck sipping margaritas and BBQing in no time (like it's never been done before)!

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Awww, it's enough to make you feel cozy, thinking of a charming house with the little panes in the windows and the breakfast nook and the veranda and the porch swing that you're going to put up so you can sip lemonade and watch the sunset behind the mountains. That's what we're going after. Yep, we're packing up and heading back to Colorado.

Looking for houses hasn't been awful. Luckily, it's a buyer's market, so it feels like we've been able to walk among houses and raise our nose in disgust at all the bad apples. But we've also been able to locate the house I described above for a reasonable price. (No, it's not this house pictured...if I publicize the house we want too much, it might go away.)

But it doesn't feel like the house search has just been about finding the house of our dreams. I'm sure we don't have enough money for that. I've resisted falling in love with any house, especially ones out of our price range, or this house that we are about to put a bid on. If I fall in love with it, my heart might get broken, and that's not a positive way to settle back into my home state. So what I'm going for here is finding a good place to start. The current house on our radar has a lot of good things going for it, but there are certainly some traits we're willing to overlook. I know I'm not going to be attached to any house until I can sit on the grass in the front lawn and listen to the wind rustling through the trees overhead, and know that the sound will always calm me down.

Until then, we're still searching for home.