Moving, Mice, and Meat

The last week has been so very hectic! I know you'll all understand my absence when I explain.


Dave finished his classes a couple weeks ago, so he, Aila, and I were staying at my parents. We had been looking for a rental (as our home still hasn't sold), but were having trouble finding a place where we could have the dog....stupid...stupid dog! (I do KIND of like her...not too much, though ;)


So, a few weeks ago, I spoke to a woman who told me that she might have a house available for rent the second week in June, and she would allow the doggie to live there, too. Yeah...but it would be great if we could get in some place more quickly. I searched around to no avail. Last week, I called her back, and lo and behold...she has a house available NOW. It is a different house, but it is available NOW!!! We agreed to meet on Wed afternoon at the house, so I could look at it. I took my lunch break late that day to run over to the house and check it out. It looked pretty shabby from the outside, but she said they were going to paint and have the roof done this summer. The inside was actually pretty cute...it looked like a cheap rental house, but really pretty cute all things considered. She told me that she was aware that the previous renters had a dog also, and that the dog had left a scent. I, not thinking clearly, and being quite stuffed up from seasonal allergies, didn't think that it would be a big deal; it wasn't that bad anyway, right? First wrong. She also told me that she knew they had a mouse problem, but that she thought they were all taken care of now. I thought, that's gross, but okay. I really wanted to get out of the guest room at my parents. Second wrong. The carpet had been shampooed and looked fine. That was my biggest concern, because Aila will most likely learn to crawl in this house. I told her we'd take it.



The city handles all of the utilities (which I thought was weird), so I called Dave on my way back to work to ask him to call the city and get everything changed to our name. He called me back within a few minutes to tell me that you have to go, in person, with photo id to set up utilities. So, because he wasn't in town, I left work early to run by before they closed. They gave me a card to fill out, on which I was to supply 2 personal and 1 professional REFERENCES...for utilities??? The personal references had to be local. What do people do if they don't know anyone? The deposit was $30, and the old woman gave me a stern lecture, "Now, you have to pay your bill on time for the first year, or we'll charge you another deposit!" I accidentally laughed out loud because, well 1. we pay our bills on time, but 2. OOOOHHHHHH $30?!?!?!? What a punishment! (I thought about asking the lady for her name to list as a personal reference!


Thursday, I got my hair done! I now have super crazy hair! It will calm down, I'm sure, but for now, it is wild! Maybe if I can ever get it to look really good, I'll post a pic! (It's not bad, I just haven't had time to mess with it, and the bangs are giving me some trouble.) Then, we went to Lawrence. It was our anniversary, so we thought it appropriate to spend alone time in the car together...with the baby...and that's it!



Friday was busy! I got my new glasses that I've only been waiting a month for. I can see! YEAH! I met up with my best girlfriends for awhile, and bought the baby girl some new dresses at Carters. I love their stuff. Then Dave and I met up with some friends for dinner...guess you could call that our anniversary dinner! Then it was home to pack! ugghh....I hate packing. I got most of the breakables from the kitchen packed up Friday night, which was good, because...


Saturday was absolutely nuts!!! We packed and moved and packed and moved.....Thanks to all who helped! We couldn't have done it without you!!! We didn't even pack and move all of our stuff. We left a lot in the house, so we'll still have a lot to do when we sell the house; we have that to look forward to! By the time we actually got to the rental and unloaded the furniture and boxes, it was late, so we called it a night. We didn't even start to unpack. I did notice as I was going to bed that night, something that would haunt my dreams...and rightly so!


Sunday morning we got up refreshed...sort of! I started in on the kitchen. First cabinet I open...mouse poop!!! Second cabinet...mouse poop....and on and on! I handled it well at first, cleaning with clorox and 409. Then we took a break...and it sunk in. We were living in a house full of mouse poo! Thankfully my mom called, and offered to come help. If it weren't for her, by the end of the day, we would have either been back at their guest room (probably why she came!) or in a hotel room! It just kept getting worse. The mouse droppings I had seen on the chair rail in the kitchen the night before led behind the stove and refrigerator. When we pulled the fridge out from the wall, this is what we saw

That's right...it's mouse poop!!! AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!

I thought I would vomit! There was mouse poop INSIDE the stove...not just a little....A LOT! My mom pretty much cleaned all the bad stuff as I stood there with my jaw dropped trying not to burst out in tears! It's better now, but it sure isn't home! SO...if you know anyone in the market for a house...tell them to get out there and stimulate the housing market by purchasing our lovely home....so we can get out of this place!


The frustrating thing is that we are paying so much money each month for a nice, clean home, and we don't even get to stay there!!! Plus...I miss Aila's room. I put so much thought, and effort (again, along with my mom) into that room, and she loved looking at the flowers on the wall.






(I had to post the nakey pic with the flower right above the behind!)



This is her room now! Kind of sad, really!






Yesterday, Aila had turkey. A little non-traditional based on recommendations for her age to move from veggies to meats, but I had my reasons. She ate it, no problem, but it was funny because she would gag, but she kept opening her mouth for more! Doggy REALLY wanted some!




Last night, after Aila went to bed, Dave and I settled down to watch a movie. We paused it for me to shower, and start some laundry, during which time Dave played Wii (this continued much after I was finished!) After we restarted the movie, we heard something in the back part of the house. We were both nervous. It sounded like SOMEONE had knocked something over. It was a pretty loud crash. We looked around for a flashlight, but couldn't find one, so Dave ventured into the unknown in the back room. He flipped on the light to find that the noise was just because something had fallen off the washing machine! PHEW! Problem: the something was the tupperware container with dog food in it! AND it fell BEHIND the washing machine. Darn if I'm not the smaller between the two of us, so I got the job of crawling back there to pick it all up! FUN! I had just gotten out of the shower, and I was on my hands and knees picking up dog food. Some had fallen beneath little pipes back there; some was stuck behind pipes. Now, we were both thinking, "yeah! the mice are going to love the free food", so we put a mouse trap back there (especially because a few pieces of dog food were completely out of reach by human hand, knife, or vaccuum), but there was no mouse this morning, and the dog food still appeared to be stuck back there. That's a good sign, right? I'll hold on to any good sign I can get.


OH...AND...we are waiting to hear from our realtor about a two-time looker we had!!!