7 Takes, St. Francis style and not so quick!

1.  Linking up with Jen and sharing with you some of the laughs and excitement from this past week. I know you are on the edge of your seat, because the spider tale ended in such a cliffhanger. A few people asked what I did in that moment of peril, I went with option 2. I sat there frozen just hoping it wouldn’t move and tried my best to stare off into space, so as to ignore the critter.

2.  On the theme of creepy crawly, let’s continue with these white looking eggs we found in our mulch. I discovered them while watering some of our plants and mustered up enough courage to quickly touch one, only to find out indeed it felt hard like an egg. So I took to old google trying to find out what kind of creature we may have emerging in numerous numbers, my options were turtles or snakes! We tried to do our own process of elimination, we don’t live near water, we haven’t seen a snake or turtle in our yard all summer, but the mice population has been on the decline. So the next day we did a little investigating.  As my husband dug around in the mulch, trying not to disturb the eggs we discovered the said eggs have roots. No snakes or turtles here, just an odd growing mushroom and you can hear the sigh of relief!

My little nephews chimed in that maybe it’s a rattler or python, one of them drew me this picture. It’s a snake around it’s eggs and says, “I hope you don’t have snakes!”

3.  In case you haven’t figured out my phobia yet, here’s one more to add to the repertoire. This summer has brought a full on ant invasion into the house. Thankfully not the kitchen, but both bathrooms and making surprise visits in our bedroom! While making the bed I noticed there were a couple of ants tromping around on the sheets, troubled by their appearance I made sure to inform my husband of this discovery. His reaction disturbed me even more, telling me how he had to brush a couple of ants off of him that morning while sleeping…shriek!! Obviously the ant poison wasn’t working fast enough for me. So on to google, which told me that spraying vinegar mixed with water is suppose to help fend them off. No messing around here, it was going to be straight vinegar! I guess this falls in the category of some of the ridiculous things I have done. For 3 maybe 4 nights in a row I sprayed vinegar around the perimeter of our bed. Ridiculous, yes. Ant-free, I’ll take it! No, I wasn’t trying to scare away a bear or lion, just ants.

4.  On to more friendly and furry creatures…dogs! To be clear we do not own a dog nor does my husband ever see a house dog in our future, although we have been told by several people that buying a dog would be a fix for our infertility. (And I will save my comments on that for a post along the lines of “What Not to Say.”)

We usually go for a good 40 minute power walk every evening, some nights a little later than others. On this particular night it was about 9:30pm. As we made our way around the last block, the cutest little dog ran down the sidewalk and greeted us, ran a little circle around us and jumped up on us, though not very high. I immediately assumed it was lost, as the dog continued to follow us down the sidewalk. We heard the dog tags rattle, but it was pitch black out and too dark to see any information to help identify Benji. Shortly it became sidetracked and stopped following us and had turned back around.

My husband could tell I was distraught leaving it, not knowing if it was lost or not, so he suggested we walk around the block again. I think he also figured it was for the sake of us both getting a good night sleep. He kept reassuring me that it was probably just someone letting their dog out for the night and not really lost. On our second time around I discovered he was probably right as Benji was not in sight. I guess I was saved from a little embarrassment as I was ready to call the number on the dog tag. I quickly would have found out Benji was not lost at all when the person I called came out from the house we were standing in front of.

5.  On to some new topics. The moment when your husband uses the phrase “statement necklace” when asking his opinion which necklace looks better with your blouse. You know a little fashion has rubbed off on him in six years of marriage. In context, “I don’t think you need to add a statement necklace with that shirt, it might look too gaudy.”

6.  My niece, Rachel Koepke, who just graduated from high school has decided to do a year of missionary work, serving and spreading the love of Christ. She finds out this week whether she will be ministering to those state-side or going overseas. With most missionary work, she also needs to raise funds to support herself through the year, covering her travel, food, a place to stay, etc. She called me this past week and since then I have been trying to brainstorm ways to help her get the funds needed. So, I am taking to the blog, if you feel moved or would like to help I know any amount would be greatly appreciated and you can do so here.

7.  Since most of these takes didn’t qualify as quick, I will just wish you a happy weekend!