The Squirrels Have Declared War!

I'm an indoor kind of person. I don't camp, I don't go walking in the forest preserves, I do not feel the need to be outside infringing on the space of wildlife. So why do they feel the need to infringe on mine. There are three places that I consider to be my space, my car, where I work and my home. It's bad enough that lately on the way to and from work I have had to deal wit suicidal deer who stand a foot or two off a busy street and look like they could jump out at any moment. But I am once again under attack from squirrels.

This is not the first time these fuzzy tailed rats have staged an attack on me. Two years ago after Rob put the air conditioners in I woke up to a loud crash in my house. When I came out of the bedroom there was a squirrel staring up at me from my dining room floor. It took two of us to chase the little flea infested devil out of the house. But this seemed like one isolated sneak attack from a rogue squirrel.

Now it seems that the fluffy tailed rats have declared war. About two weeks ago I was trying to walk from my car into my office and this brave little squirrel got between me and the exit of the garage and refused to move. Eventually I managed t sneak past him after several minutes of evasive maneuvers. Then yesterday a kamikaze squirrel crashed into our dining room window. At this point I should have known something was terribly wrong. Today one of the little rats has once again infiltrated my homes perimeter. I went to take my dogs outside this morning and a squirrel was on my enclosed back porch. It's sudden movements scared me and brought out the instinct to chase small game in the larger of my two dogs.

Since the squirrels have started this fight I see no other option then to retaliate. I don't see it as an unreasonable request that I give these animals the entire outside world and all I ask in return is that they don't come inside. I now need to find a way to remove the squirrel from my home either by humane or inhumane ways since I have very little sympathy for the flea infested possibly rabid little animal who started this fight. If anyone has any suggestions for squirrel removal please let me know. If no good suggestions come soon I feel I will need to go to extreme measures. Thanks in advance for any help that you may be able provide in this squirrel war.

No serious topics...just a Wordle

So I was actually working on jewelry and paused for a moment to check my e-mail and close down the computer when I happened upon a Wordle. A product from a cool website http://www.wordle.net/. It takes any text you paste in or feed from your blog and creates a "wordle". A graphic image of your words. I created a few using text from previous posts. It randomizes the content and you can further tweak it if you like. I did not purposely put the words "ass" and "jim" right by each other in the wordle above. It did that. Sorry honey.

Also, I just couldn't help myself. I did another wordle using an excerpt from a monumental speech given not so long ago.

"And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

...

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:
Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America."

Comment re: dog suicide attempt

See, Rachel's house is not even dog proofed much less child proofed, another reason she does not have children :)

Wolfgang the amazing dog that can't be killed by ordinary means!

I'm home from work today because my car broke down and Rob is nice enough to be fixing it. But that is not important. What is important is that my dog Wolfgang apparently survived another suicide attempt!
Some background on Wolfie for anyone who isn't familiar. He was half price at a pet store when he was six months old because he was already a 10lbs Pomeranian, which is huge. He is now 13yrs old and 16lbs. He is beautiful and fluffy and he bites. He bites me, he bite our other dog Nikki who is 4 times his size, he has bitten my brother, snapped at little children, he's a rotten dog, and Rob loves him. This dog is also too mean to die. He has gotten his head stuck in a radiator, chewed a razor, ate several packs of cigarettes, frequently eats chocolate, drank an entire jack and coke then fell over and passed out in our living room, drank a guests glass of wine, knocked several teeth out trying to bite me through his crate, escaped into the west side of Chicago for a month and was found in excellent condition, and ate rancid ham.
So what was the new suicide attempt after all of this that would even be worth mentioning you may be wondering? He tried to hang himself. Yep, he has now survived hanging. (Damn it, he really will live to be 20.) Rob took him to the local coffee shop yesterday, this is their normal pattern, and when he went inside he tied Wolfgang to the chair outside. Not on the ground mind you because according to Rob Wolfgang normally sits on the seat of the chair and waits for him. Well yesterday he jumped. Of course there wasn't that much slack in the leash and his paws barely hit the ground as the choke chain tightened on his neck. Wolfie is fine after this, no harm done, but Rob is babying him even more, he tucked him in on the couch surrounded by pillows when he went to the store today.
So Wolfgang truly will live forever in spite of himself and in spite of Rob. I hope this brightens every one's day!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hey everyone. I'm posting because Rachel is threatening to put up a 3rd post before I can get one in...and then the earth shall cease to revolve and we will all wither away. So here I am. I'm going to briefly talk about Halloween. not too much to say. Awesome weather, lots of fun, a really great time. I have been eating candy for 4 days straight. eeehhhhh. Now to the topic at hand. catching some zzzzz's. I was talking to a good friend today and realized how important sleep can be. I'm one of "those" people that's bright and shiny most of the time but catch me when I have had little sleep or I'm hungry and watch out. I'm pure evil straight outta hell. As a parent I have realized that sleep is probably the thing other than total spontaneous sex that I miss deep down to my bones. Oh my god I miss it! It has been 4 years since I was able to go to bed as early as I want, wake when I want, nap when I want. I'm not saying I don't get enough. I do okay. my kids are really good nappers and sleepers (except for baby Jimmy who has been a tool for the past 3-4 weeks since he started walking. I hope it passes SOON). most times I'm up till 1am trying to get all the things done that I want to do, like blog. In the morning it's straight into the day. You can't lay around. there are mouths to be fed, animal and otherwise. There is no rest for the weary. I don't think this is news to any of you readers. you've probably heard it so many times before. And I'm so extremely super jealous of my childless friends that can sleep till 11 on a Sunday if they choose. Not that they do but they can.

what become so clear to me today is how much losing some sleep can totally affect every other thing going on. Really truly mess with your emotional state. make you cranky. not have enough energy to do the things you want to do so then you feel even worse because you're getting nothing done including sleeping. You feel like crap because you have bags under your eyes and it reminds you of how hot you used to be before the sleep stealers shot out of your womb. Or your thyroid takes a crap on you and then life REALLY sucks (more on that some other time).

But what can really be done? The early child rearing years will be and are some of the most wonderful years of my life but they are also the hardest. They take a toll. I'm always last on the list of the person who gets the attention in my house. and I think it goes - baby, daughter, dad, dogs and THEN me. Then again, I created this scenario and the reason is most likely because I'm the only one in my household who can take such abuse and still love everyone and put on a happy face. It's much easier for me to do without than for Jim who has to go to work everyday and run a business or my children to not have the things that I think they need. the good news is that this too shall pass and as the saying goes, some day I'll wish my kids would need me.

and I truly hope that Jim can see past my bitchiness and realize that if he just let me sleep in this Sunday he would truly benefit. wink wink. happy wife = happy life.

what I really want to say is "Hey, childless friends/relatives/concerned citizens, get your ass over to my house so I can take a frick'en nap!" teehee

Dear childless readers, please hit the snooze button just one more time for me. I'll just dream of sleep and maybe try to not do the dishes or run one last load of laundry and go to bed. and with that I say good night.

Maybe Kerri Is Right And Silence Is Golden

So today I was over at Kerri's house working on the jewelry project. I think things are coming along quite nicely so far. We went to a bead store with Paige which included the phrase "don't touch" a lot. But it was still a successful trip. The problem was after we got back to Kerri's house. So picture this, it's getting close to dinner time and Kerri is cooking. I am trying to look some things up on the internet and then I hear a baby Einstein DVD on a loop, because the viewing part is over it is stuck on the start screen. It's playing the same song over and over. Layer that noise with one of the children riding on a push car thing that has a popcorn popper thing on it. Also add in the other child pushing a toy car that sounds like a machine gun while it moves. On top of all this background noise Paige is attempting to carry on a conversation with anyone who will listen to her and the little boy is carrying on a conversation with himself. I feel the need to point out here that they weren't being bad kids, they are actually great kids, but they are still kids. So I decide I need to get away from the noise so I go outside for fresh air. Bad idea. A church not far from them has some bells going off but they aren't typical bell they play a whole song, those things were going for 5 minutes. This is total chaos as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure all of you parents reading this are going "ahh, typical day". Well not typical for me. By this point I am twitching, if people wouldn't think I had totally lost it I would sit down suck my thumb and rock. If there is too much noise in my house I either turn off the T.V. or ask Rob to turn down what he is working on. As you can tell I'm used to quite being very easy to achieve. I would like to end this with a compliment to all of the parents that you have much stronger ears then I do and you need to be applauded for that. I also wish all of you parents at least 15 minutes of silence a day because I'm sure you need it. I will continue to live in my quite and easy to control environment which doesn't make me twitch only venturing out as needed into the world of children. And to Paige and little Jimmy if you ever read this when you grow up if by some chance this internet stuff really is around forever, I'm sorry I'm picking on you but your the kids I see the most.