The Mouse MUST DIE!

I am typing this and there are two mouse traps on the stove right now. A loud scary" SNAP" is the sound I want to hear when I am sleeping tonight!
My hubby set two traps last night. While one went "undiscovered", the other one had it's peanut butter licked clean as the trap stayed in tact. I kept thinking or dreaming that I heard a snap. But Instead I was greeted with the sad news of the mouse's survival first thing in the morning by my trap setting hero.

You're probably wondering about the mint experiment by now. Well I am sorry to say, the mint experiment only works when you live in an apartment building with five or six other families slacking and leaving lots of food out for a hungry mouse to eat. Only in that case a mouse will not bother going through the hole that has nasty mint smells(according to the mouse) and a super clean kitchen with not one scrap of food to eat.

In my case, the mouse won't bother that I spent all morning, afternoon, and night breaking my back cleaning and picking up every crumb of food( believe me with a toddler helping out mommy bake by throwing the flour all over the kitchen floor, is not easy) Plus did I mention that just to make life more exciting for me, I decided to potty train( I'm on day 2, and it's a disaster!) The Mouse doesn't care about all the stuff I mentioned above. The Mouse is hungry, my house stands alone so no other families to check on. And The Mouse is evil. Yes, he's evil I tell you. don't let his cute little face and tiny frail little body deceive you. He is evil evil evil! Plus he leaves me his "evidence" to clean after. Don't I have enough "evidence" to clean already!

Enough said, we'll see who wins this treacherous war.

DIE DIE DIE!

Can I end this post with my usual peace?( oh well!)

Peace!(Mouse excluded)

mice, spiders and soot gremlins, oh my!

I was suspecting, but yup, we do have a mouse in the house!
I saw itʻs evidence on the stove two mornings in a row. A big fat ewwwww. So back to the mint leaves experiment.

I also saw a spider on my keyboard today and yelled "SPIDER", and the little one came running looking for this fascinating creature!

My daughter ( the one that talks apparently) loooooves both, mice and spiders. So when she heard us discussing the mouse situation to the landlord, she got super excited and started looking for the mouse herself. She started searching the house for some mice, spiders and while she was at it, some soot gremlins too (ʻcause, why not?).
hereʻs what she said as she ran around the house looking for all three.

"huh, where did it go?" In a very concerned manner.

"what does the mouse say mama?" waiting for me to reply.

"the itsy bitsy spider.." moving her fingers in a crawling spider motion.

and finally " COME OUT, COME OUT, WHERE EVER YOU ARE!" in a full blown volume.

Well how about a compromise, I can do soot gremlins.
So hereʻs what Iʻll be yelling for the coming I donʻt know how many days "STAY AWAY, STAY AWAY, WHEREVER YOU ARE!"

Peace.

Splash!

I wasnʻt going to blog today. Instead I was trying out a feature on flickr that ended me up here with an empty post!
I tried to delete the whole post but failed drastically, so to try and remedy and/or avoid the awkwardness of leaving you with an empty post. I am sharing some photos from our massive puddle play in our yard, it was pouring insanely yesterday. Ah spring at last!





Peace.

loving:

My new cute little desk, bought second hand from a thickly french accented (according to my hubby) Frenchman or possibly a Canadian ( thanks for picking it up hubby).




The weather! Could it be more beautiful?(insert Chandler sarcastic tone)





My awesome new recycled/reconstructed sweater. It was on super sale, and I think the seller is by far my favorite etsian yet. Some etsians send thank you notes with their products. She not only sent a very cool thank you note,but also a dark chocolate bar ( need I say more?) and a pen drawing of a shiny sun on the package. Iʻm in love!
You guys need to seriously check her shop out.

I donʻt know if you noticed in the list bar, but Lisa Hanningan is currenly one of my favorite musisians. hereʻs another song by her, sheʻs wonderful.



Oatmeal for mama and toddler, for breakfast. I add maple syrup, almond butter, apple sauce and some soy milk...heaven.

Girl scout cookies, (two boxes licked clean in only two days!).

This book ( book club girls, we can decide on a different book I suppose, I couldnʻt wait).

Yusuf Islamʻs new album for kids "I look I see 2".

My neighbor Totoro ( mentioned in an earlier post) and all the drawing and paper cutting inspired by itʻs characters.

Have a great weekend:)

Feel free to play along.

Peace.

a warm day

Itʻs 60 degrees out today:)






Me and the girls enjoyed a nice sunny morning at the park.

Peace.

Mornings

A typical morning for our family, in elapsed time form:





5:30 am, baba wakes up and prays, then struggles to wake mama up.

6:00 am, mama wakes up and prays then goes back to sleep

6:30 am, baba takes baby and toddler( giving mama an extra half an hour or so of sleep)

blank (I have no idea what baba does during this time, I have assumptions but only he can fill the blanks).

7:30 am, baba wakes mama up in a rush( heʻs late for school!)

7:45 am, mama reluctantly wakes up and takes over the girls.

8:00 am, babaʻs gone, mama is listening to NPR, preparing breakfast, nursing a baby, washing some dishes from last night( sometimes) all at once.

9:15 am, baby fed and napping, mama and toddler drawing and cutting some paper shapes(we draw and cut Totoro, soot gremlins, and/or anything from "My neighbor Totoro". Currently a family favorite.

10:00 am, babysitter arrives, mama runs to try to clean, cook, shower, do laundry, nap..in the fastest two hours in the world.

12:00 pm, Baby sitter leaves, toddler naps, baby is up, mama is exhausted and realizes itʻs only 12 noon.

How are your mornings?

Peace.

not mine

Every house hold has this one, or maybe two fruits that their house canʻt live without. In our case, itʻs apples and bananas.
( whatʻs your house holdʻs fruit?)

The apples serve as an after lunch/ before dinner snack topped with some sliced cheddar cheese, while the bananas are usually just peeled and eaten monkey style. But every once and a while I get lucky, and a couple of bananas go unnoticed, and they get dark and gross enough to go into my signature treat (banana bread).

So about a couple of days back I was ever so lucky to find those two gross bananas and I rolled my sleeves, tied baby in sling. Got out some play dough for the toddler and went straight to business. It actually took me longer than expected cause my brown sugar had turned into one giant clump, and I was hammering it with the heaviest object I could find in the kitchen, "the knife sharpener"( If you know me well enough, youʻll know I never sharpen my knives. I actually had no idea what a knife sharpener was, I figured I have to use it for something, so it became the tool that I extracted my boiled chicken by from the pot, I poked it out from its cavity! yay I found another use for it.wait a minute should I be happy that my sugar clumps, I really have to finish this thought, itʻs getting out of control, did I tell you about the one time I sharpened my knife and cut my finger? too long.. STOP!)

Back to my banana bread(phew)
The banana bread you see in the above photo, that actually finished baking by 5pm( I started at 11 am!), and was a dream of the day after breakfast with some jelly spread on top with my fake coffee drink, wasnʻt mine. It was baked by me, to be sliced and wrapped by me, to be sent off with some tea, to two worried parents who ended up spending the night in the hospital waiting for their little girl to get better. My husband came home, we heard the news and sent the banana bread for itʻs real destination. ( please make duʻa and send lots of good energy for the little girl, she passed the critical stage but is still recovering from croup).

It amazes me how sometimes god makes us tools for other people in the most mysterious of ways. Heʻll make someone like me fancy something sweet, then have everyone in the house oversee those bananas, and they get gross enough so I would bake them. Then have the sugar clump, so the one and a half hour ordeal, takes 6 hours. resulting in the banana bread coming out late enough so no one would eat it, but the real recipients of it. In this case two sleepless parents waiting on their precious girl in the ER.

get well soon sweet little M!

Btw If interested in the recipe leave a comment.

Peace.