7 Quick Takes (Vol. 13), Slowly-Emerging-from-Hiding Edition

Yes, I'm still alive! I've actually gotten some e-mails asking this, so I'm happy to send out the official report. :-)

1. Well, after I mentioned that I would be calling down the wrath of the Scorpion gods by saying that their number was diminishing, I found three more live ones in the house over the next few weeks-- including one just two days later in the laundry room under the laundry basket! Another one ran under one of C's dress-up costumes. I had to run and grab something to smack it with, but it was gone when I got back. I picked up the costume (tulle skirt), shook it hard, and... nothing. My husband surmised that the beast had escaped elsewhere. Can you tell he knows NOTHING about the craftiness of scorpions? I shook the skirt even harder, and out tumbled the DA&% SCORPION. I knew it! I smashed him 1,000 times... because they. just. don't. die. easily.

2. To keep with this topic, I heard a crash on the back porch while I was cooking the other day and the kids were playing outside. C ran in to tattle tell me sweetly that H had knocked over our little basketball goal. As she headed back outside, she casually mentioned, "Oh, and there's a scorpion underneath it." After screaming that she'd BETTER NOT BE KIDDING ABOUT THIS, I ran outside, grabbed a flip-flop as a weapon, and flipped the goal over again. It was a big ol' mama scorpion... and that big ol' mama scorpion was COVERED in babies. See THIS if you want a (terrifying) idea of what it looked like.

She's now a dead mama scorpion with a whole bunch of dead babies.

And I don't feel the slightest bit guilty.

3. C and I are making a Confetti Cake today. How fun is THAT? It was supposed to be a while ago in honor of her namesake-saint's feast day, but life was hectic at that time. Click the photo below for the recipe we're using.

4. When I reminded C that we were going to have a (belated) party for Saint C's feast day, C asked if "she" was going to come to the party. I wasn't sure who she meant, and asked her. "St. C, " my little C said, "Is she going to come to our feast?" After I stopped laughing, I took the chance to tell her again how we're so lucky to have the saints in Heaven to pray for us, and how she's especially lucky to have Saint C looking out for her, and that I'm sure she'd be present with us at the "feast," just like how Jesus is always there with us in our celebrations and our sorrows and all the times in-between.

5. Thanks to Lauren, I started looking into Ron Paul for 2012. I'm loving almost all of what I've been reading! Currently I'm hooked on his easily-digestible latest book, Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues that Affect Our Freedom. You can read the first part (Abortion) on Kindle as a free sample if you want to get an idea of how the book is set-up, which happens to be alphabetically by essential issue. The English teacher in me loves this.

6. #5 leads me to this one, which I've stolen from another blogger. It's a video about how the media, including Fox News (though honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Fox News... despite my political leanings), has almost completely ignored Ron Paul, to the point of ridiculousness. Jon Stewart and I are rarely on the same page, but I do find him amusing sometimes.

7. We took the kids to the circus on Wednesday. I'm so spoiled now-- we were in a SUITE with its own private bathroom, fruit tray, chips and salsa and queso, popcorn, and drinks of all kinds. There was a little balcony to sit in and watch the circus, plus couches and chairs and bar stools. When you're taking two little ones to the circus, having a space to move around, plus eat, plus use a non-public potty, plus have access to water/soda/adult beverages, is just about my definition of Heaven (ok, a little bit off, but possibly not too far). And did I mention that this only cost us $30 TOTAL for the 4 of us-- AND we had free parking in a reserved lot RIGHT NEXT to the Frank Erwin Center?? See... quite close to Heavenly.

Bonus: I'm still annoyed with the fact that my blog updates so late/not-at-all in blog feeds. If you missed my post about Austin Fertility and Miscarriage Support, please read it and spread the word about this awesome ministry.

My closet is Hell, Take 2

** Checking out the links to previous posts is vital to understanding this story.
  
Back in April of 2008, we had been living in our current home for just a few months. It was a wonderful time-- we'd moved here when C was just a few days old and I was getting used to the routine of being a new mom in the first home that was "ours" (since M had been living for years prior to our marriage in the home I moved to when we married) and the weather was nice enough that C and I could really get out and get acquainted with our new town.

That happy little time ended abruptly on April 3, 2008. No longer was my home a sanctuary-- it became a battleground, and I was determined to win the war. As an interesting aside, this is the time that I became buddies with Jen from Conversion Diary. When I typed in "Hill Country" and "scorpions" into Google, she came up (and at her old blog name, Et Tu?, nonetheless!). She helped talk me down from the wall. No, scratch that-- I wouldn't go anywhere near a wall since I was worried about scorpions. I slept with the lights on and at least one eye open at all times.

Anyway, the number of scorpions we've found inside has greatly diminished with each year (note: yes, I've just called down the wrath of the Scorpion gods, which definitely exist. I've seen them, but I'm taking my chances for the sake of telling this story). In fact, we've only seen 2 inside this year-- one itty-bitty baby smaller than my pinky fingernail, and one too dumb to run from a shoe. Hopefully they're getting smaller and stupider.

However...

Actually, I should have said HOWEVER. It's a big however. A REALLY BIG however.

HOWEVER, today my closet once again became the most fearsome place in our home. We've been noticing a few ants in our bathroom, where our closets are located. It started out being around 2 or 3 large ants a day, then progressed to 5 or 6 a day, then finally to 3 or more every time we went into the bathroom. I'd seen a couple up high in my closet, on and around the huge box that stores my wedding dress (happy 5 years to us!), and had squished them by hand. I decided to take everything out of my closet and then have M spray the entire thing top to bottom, to make sure I wasn't harboring any criminals ants somewhere deep in the closet. When I took out the dress box, I read the note on top that says you should shake out the wrinkles from your dress every year or so, so it doesn't develop permanent creases. My actual dress and veils (yes, I had 2...) are wrapped in muslin and boxed up, and then that box is nested inside the outer box.

As a removed the inner box from the other box, about 10 ants came out. Singing that girl is POISON... to myself, I zapped the little beasts. Only 1 ant on my actual dress (whew!) and only a few on the inner box. And no, I didn't spray my dress. I'm not THAT crazy.

THEN, I noticed a couple of ants coming out of the big box. A couple turned in 10... 20... 50... 100. I nuked them all.

THEN, I got the brilliant idea of turning the box over and shaking it. 200... 300... including eggs. UGH!

THEN, I got the brilliant idea of turning the box over AGAIN and shaking it AGAIN and FILMING THE CARNAGE so that my husband would feel sorry for me and take me out to dinner this weekend or something.   :-)

My voice is about 3 octaves higher than normal here. LOL  Check out all that bug spray. Yes, I was wearing nitrile gloves. And shoes. And I probably needed a mask. Now I need to stop blogging about the horror and go mop it up. I cleaned up all of the dead bugs but need to get the poison up before my kids decide to play in it or something.

The ONE good thing about this: they were ants, and not scorpions. I'd have burned the box and dress in about 2 seconds flat, likely causing a major wildfire, ending up on the news, and going to jail.

Cookbook GIVEAWAY!

In a shameless ploy to garner more followers and draw out the "lurkers," I'm having a COOKBOOK GIVEAWAY this week!

I'm giving away my duplicate copy of Cooking in Style the Costco Way.

I'm going to be totally honest-- if you're not the winner, then you can still get every single recipe in the book online HERE. Costco hands their cookbooks out free in their stores each year (a different one each year) and then also publishes them online. But... if you want to OWN a copy, enter to win! I ended up with two of the same cookbooks somehow (my in-laws? My husband brought one home, too? Who knows?) and would love for YOU to have it in your kitchen.

The Grasshopper Parfaits and Iced Mocha Martinis make it worth it, no matter what.

Ways to enter:

1) Comment on this post. Tell me how amazing I am. Or how amazing you are. Or how amazing God/your kids/your pets/your husband/the weird guy at the grocery store is.
2) Leave a comment on ANY of my other posts, then come back to this one and let me know you did. To help you out, the scorpion posts (especially the older ones) are good reads. See "labels" on the sidebar for the topics.
3) Follow publicly (as in, your gorgeous pic will show up over on the right side of my screen) and leave a comment telling me that you do. If you already follow publicly, leave a comment telling me this.
4) Add my blog to your blog list (the one visible on your home page) and let me know, OR mention this giveaway on your blog. Or do both, and I'll throw in an extra entry.
5) Do a random act of kindness. Let me know that you did... you can tell about it, or just mention that you did. I figure that making the world a nicer place is always a good thing.

That's FIVE (really six since I'm being extra generous) ways right there to enter! When I first told Lauren that I was going to have a giveaway (umm... this was MONTHS ago, right after I split my private blog into two blogs in order to take one public), I'm pretty sure she was one of 3 people who commented, and thus had excellent odds of winning. Therefore, Lauren, you get an extra entry just for being a faithful reader/commenter/roomie/bridesmaid/friend. Yay for you!

I'll announce the winner NEXT Thursday using a highly scientific method that involves Advanced Calculus.

Actually, it doesn't. I'm going to put the foam bath numbers 0-9 (or rather, 0-the highest tens/hundreds digit) in the tub with my kids. I'll have my daughter grab a number, mix them all up again, then have my son grab one (which he will likely try to eat). If there are more than 100 entries (Ha! Lisa snorts at that thought), I'll mix them all up again and have my daughter fish out another number.

Thus, I'm going to close the giveaway at MIDNIGHT CST on Wednesday, September 1 (Seriously... it's almost September??) and announce the winner the next morning. Your book will be mailed to you by the next week!

One more thing: I'm posting a picture tomorrow of a dress I MADE. Yes, I, who barely knew how to use a sewing machine until M's wonderful aunt showed me the light (literally... she turned the machine on for me and a light came on), MADE my beautiful daughter a beautiful dress. Coming back tomorrow to see it will be worth your time!

Blog roll, eye roll

My silly feed to blog rolls is still not functioning properly. It's a "known problem" with Blogger, but selfishly... I don't care! Someone fix my Blogger issue!

Ok. Whew. That was good to get off my chest.

In other news, I just looked at the label list on my sidebar and had to laugh. In middle, in this order, was:

Gardening  Scorpions  Marriage  Poop

Hmm. And apparently I write about them equally. Interesting.

Note: I just now linked the scorpions and poop sections for you. 5 seconds later, my daughter informed me she had to go. As in now. Nope... she already went. This is my life. Time to keep an eye out for more scorpions.

We're just fancy like that

And on H's menu today, aside from several servings of organically-produced lait à la mère, is organically-grown, smoked carrot purée.

What? Smoked carrots?

Yes, friends. Smoked carrots. It's a specialty of mine.

What? You've never made ME smoked carrots before!  (Lauren scratches her head and wonders how she missed this amazing dish of mine since we lived together longer than Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were married, and they managed to produce two children in that time)

The dish is made like so:

- Boil water on stove
- Add carrots to steamer pot and cover
- Check multiple times (after expected cooking time) to see if the carrots are soft enough... nope
- Start a load of laundry and walk outside to check the weather
- Notice a scorpion that must be killed immediately
- See a neighbor and feel the need to commiserate about scorpions and weather
- Mention that the kids are still napping and that you're making...
- AGH! 
- Run into house and sniff
- AGH!
- Lift up steamer pot and peek at boiling water empty, burned pot
- Check carrots. Soft enough? Yup. Smoky? Ah, dang. They are.
- Realize your son hates every single solid food you've ever given him. Feel like crying because all of the money you saved making your own baby food will now be wasted.
- Purée and freeze the smoky carrots anyway
- Serve warmed smoky carrot food cube to son and brace for being projectile-vomited on
- WHAT? He likes it? He LOVES it? He wants MORE? Praise the Lord!
- Realize your son has gourmet tastes
- Look up "smoked carrots" online and find a recipe for Smoked Carrot Bisque. 
- Look up Culinary Institute of America. Ponder whether you or your son should enroll. Decide to wait until he can walk before making any major decisions for his life. Decide to work on not burning pots before you enroll yourself.

Have you ever...

had one of THOSE days? A day where you were

- projectile vomited on
- peed on
- pooped on
- nearly set on fire when the lighter fluid bottle cracks and soaks your shirt?

Really? You have?

Well, was there also a live scorpion, less than 2 feet away from your toddler and infant, that you had to hunt down and kill?

I didn't think so.

Welcome to my world.

Scorpion Update: The Battle Continues to Rage

Scorpion tally, including today's beast...

Scorpion stings: 0 (Thank the Lord!)

Scorpions found dead inside, no need to kill: 2 (one in bedroom, one in living room)

Scorpions found dead, smashed between two pieces of siding for shed: 1

Scorpions found alive under charcoal bucket: 1

Scorpions found alive in closet light globes and fried with heat from bulb: 5

Live scorpions found in bedroom, and immediately killed: 1

Live scorpions found in living room, and immediately killed: 1

Live scorpions found in dining room/kitchen, and immediately killed: 3

Scorpions personally killed by me: 4 (11 if you include the ones found dead inside from light bulb heat/industrial bug spray)

Scorpions personally killed by my husband: 2 (seems a bit unfair, no?)

This is FAR TOO MANY scorpions. No scorpion is a good scorpion, but the best kind is a dead one. Unfortunately, I have come across FAR TOO MANY in the past month. Our house is around 1600 square feet. Given the randomness at which I have just happened to be in the right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time to see these beasts (case in point, today one crawled right under my daughter's Pack 'n' Play and was heading under my bed just as I was laying her down for a nap... had I gone in there a minute later, he'd have been safe from my "killing shoe"), I have estimated that we have over 30 million scorpions roaming the house. The math formula is highly complex and looks something like this:

1600 sq. ft x 10 toes on Lisa's feet x Lisa's 2 eyes x 1 baby that likes to distract Lisa x 3.14 x a whole bunch of other numbers = 30 million scorpions= FAR TOO MANY scorpions

(This is the beast I killed in the kitchen a few weeks ago. Don't worry... I smashed him over 50 times to ensure he was dead before I took the photo. These scorpions seem to have a way of coming back to life, so I made sure I was 100% positive he'd kicked the bucket.)

A time to live, and a time (for scorpions) to DIE

In order to really understand this post, you'll need to see the previous one. 

After taking C to the doctor for her 4 month visit and vaccines, I stopped by Ace Hardware to talk with the scorpion-killing expert. I made sure to point out that I don't just want to kill the few that I might see, but I want to either 1) frighten them all away forever or 2) completely annihilate every last one. After he told me that nothing scares them, I settled for total destruction. Before I bought the indoor spray and the outdoor power killer, I contemplated the following methods of death for the little terrors that have chosen to move in with me:

Cannon to right of them/Cannon to left of them... this method might leave a few holes in the house, though.

I feel that the TNT method would be very Wile E. Coyote of me. It has promise.

I don't actually know what's going on here, but this looks like it would take care of scorpions.

The one problem with this idea, besides the fact that I don't know where one purchases a guillotine, is that it might only cut off a leg or something. I'm going for 100% dead, not just the walking-wounded.

The samurai is my top choice for several obvious reasons. 1) I would not even have to be in the house while he goes all crazy on them. 2) With all of his clothing, he is far less likely to get stung while crawling in the attic to kill the scorpions. 3) He might even be available for babysitting while I run to the store. 

Closing note: If any scorpions are reading this, please stay away from my house. I have pesticide, and I'm not afraid to use it.

My closet is Hell

This is not a funny, ironic, "my closet is a mess" kind of post. No, my friends, this is a "Lisa has come face-to-face with her understanding of Hell" kind of post. Let me explain...

M is still off in New York, leaving me and C to work on whipping the house into shape (much slower than I'd ever anticipated). Since C and I are heading back home tomorrow, I thought I'd go ahead and organize my closet a bit and pack. Oh no, my friends, oh no. That will not be happening. There will be no closet organizing. After I flipped on the closet light today, I heard a rustling noise above my head. I thought that maybe a moth was hitting against a plastic hanger. And then, I look up to see THIS:

I would advise clicking the photo in order to enlarge it... then you'll understand my horror. THREE SCORPIONS (1 huge, 1 medium, 1 deceptively small) were in the light globe, which I assume means that they came in from the attic. I called my mom immediately to tell her I might be heading home tonight instead of tomorrow. When I explained that the scorpions appeared to be fighting and locked in mortal combat, she mused about when their mating season is. Not only did this scare the daylights out of me even MORE, it also says something about mom's mind, I think. Get it out of the gutter, Mom!

There is also a scorpion in my husband's closet globe. I turned on both lights and left them on... hopefully these guys will die miserable deaths up there and it will be a warning to their friends. Our neighbors have told their horror stories about scorpions, but I naively believed I didn't have to go into panic mode until May. Hmm... guess not. This has become my idea of Hell.