Unwelcomed visitors

We had ants coming into the house. We first noticed a line of them coming from the hall to the cat's spilled food(Otis spills it himself to get attention, anyone looking for a cat?). So I vacuumed up little ant bodies and squashed them while Erick was crying "Eat-you's, Mommy, eat-you's! I didn't know what to do, I felt helpless. I admit I'm too cheap to call an exterminator, but I had to solve this mystery- where were they coming from? I didn't see a trail from the front door, but I did see a few stragglers where the linoleum and the carpet met, and then as the carpet lines the hall to the linoleum in the kitchen, I found some checking out the bathroom too. Apparently, they were coming in from the front door and traveling under the flooring. Boo. So, some may laugh, but I thought that if I had to burrow my way through pepper to get somewhere, then I wouldn't bother. So I laid, no poured, black pepper down in certain "key" spots. I also laid down some sticky fly paper, I caught a lot of ants on those, and my sister said something about baking soda. Needless to say, I felt like I had a weird science experiment going on. Well, the trail down the hall did come to a stop, but I now found ants in the living room carpet and noticed that they were still coming in from the front door, but traveling along the door frame to the carpet. So I ripped of the the molding at the bottom, we need to replace everything anyway, and started lining all the cracks and crevices with sheet rock putty. I'm glad that stuff doesn't stay pink. I vacuumed and then I sealed some more. I would leave to go do errands and come back only to find that I had to reseal or seal a crack a little higher. Finally Adam ended my battle by buying some ant killer stuff and I put it around what I thought were ant colonies and mounds outside. I don't want to claim victory too soon, but there hasn't been any eat-you's for several days! I have also noticed that the ant population around our porch has dropped considerably.

Missing socks

Socks. They seems harmless, yet they cause a lot of frustration. The "left" ones always disappear in your dryer- I think they turn themselves into lint, and so you never have a matching pair.

These are a couple of pots that I have made in my pottery class- cool, huh? In between the cute clips of Tripp.

Trusting

I read a really good story to my class in church yesterday. It was about putting your trust in the Lord. Okay, how many times have I heard that in my life? Literally... probably a million. It's just that I have to learn to trust Him over and over again in each situation or issue that comes up. How annoying I would be if I kept having to tell someone that they can trust me and then follow through after all the doubting only to have to experience it all over and over and over again. The Lord is really patient with me. Maybe it really is a good thing that He doesn't directly talk to me, because He has every right to chastise me, a lot. And not only do I do this to Him, but generations of children do it to Him. And I get burnt out on hearing one child say, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy..." all day long, when He hears it constantly, with no let up. I really should give myself a break from my worries.

Family Vacation

Today we got back from Savannah, GA. Good thing too, cause lots of storms are rolling on in there and parts of Savannah did flood while we were there. We got there Friday during the day, and after check-in at the hotel, we were going to go straight to the beach at Tybee Island. Little did I know, that was definitely not going to happen. Not only are there a million people walking out in front of your car and in the streets, but there is no place to park. I have really considered emailing the mayor of Savannah and telling him what I think of the parking and how it really affects tourism. Everyone pays to park. There is no free parking. There are meters everywhere, and readers everywhere. It really wasn't fun driving around with everyone else who is looking for a parking space and coming up with only two options- A. Looping around again, behind a new line of cars, or B. Leaving
We chose B. and decided that tomorrow would be a new day and we would get an early start. Well apparently not early enough. When we got there Sat. morning, the lines were the same and guess what- no empty spaces. So finally, we asked this surfer if he really was leaving, because some people just like to hang by their cars and not leave. He said yes. I love surfers, because they only surf in the morning. Noon was rapidly approaching, but while we waited, and he left, the unbelievable happened. Someone swooped in and stole our spot. I'm not going to go into detail, because I have tried very hard to forgive them and I think I have, but I was like this-
I kept chanting "Help me love them" after we rounded the parking spaces for almost a second time before Adam said that we would try for a spot on the street. We found one, fortunately. It wasn't that far from the beach, but it was a good walk. We didn't take all the stuff intended for the beach, because we were only going to make one trip, so that meant no chairs and no toys. As it turned out, we didn't even stay 20 min. Erick didn't like the ocean that much and Adam and I weren't feeling much like swimming. We picked up our gear and left, after video taping Tripp's first dip in the Atlantic. (We forgot the digital camera in the trunk.) On our way back to the car, I felt like if I was going to repent about the situation earlier with the "swoopers", then I needed to leave a note.

I yelled at them and said, "You suck!" a couple of times, and I felt bad because... well, they had kids, I have kids, and that wasn't very Christian-like. The meter-reader guy said that he would have slashed their tires, but instead I wrote them a note. No excuses, just an apology to their family for my behavior, signed The Crazy Lady, because they probably thought that I was just that. I did realize that after I left it under their windshield wiper, that it might give them a good scare, looking like a parking ticket and all. But I hope after that, they might appreciate that someone cares.
So we decided to go back to the hotel and swim in the pool again, but I wanted to check out the lighthouse and its museum.
That turned out to be really great. Other than my acrophobia, the view from the lighthouse was awesome. I was so shaky when I got down, but it could have been the 178 steps that I climbed.




We swam in the pool and met some nice people and I'm glad that I didn't ruin my day by feeling mad or sorry for ourselves. I felt happy and more educated after that excursion. We went back to the hotel and swam. Today, Sunday, we tried to visit the ward there, but they must have had stake conference, cause no one was there. Overall we decided that it was a great trip, with a few learning experiences. I'm so glad that Adam had a good time also.