Enough excitement for one day, thanks

I know I haven't updated in a while, but I've been trying like a maniac to finish Little Sis' room before Thanksgiving. Actually, I wanted to finish it today, so that I could have tomorrow to start cooking and getting the house back in order for the holiday. But noooooo. I have to be a world class procrastinator and put off till today what I should've done two weeks ago. Grrr!

Today I did manage to get the last coat of paint on the walls, and two coats on the trim, and then I touched up the ceiling, only to realize that the paint doesn't quite match what was already on the ceiling. (What do you mean there are over a dozen shades of WHITE!?) So now I think I need to paint the ceiling. Grrr! again!

I hope to get her flooring down tomorrow, and her room put back together, because I absolutely HAVE to start cooking Wednesday.

Remember I started on her room to search for the Dead Thing? Turns out Dead Thing was somewhere in the wall, accompanied by Scrambly, Scratchy, Living Thing. A dozen glue traps were deposited in various locations, and last night, in the wee hours, we caught Living Thing: a teensy field mouse. I'm hoping it was the only one. I still have traps out just in case.

A few minutes ago I was out in the garage and heard more scrambly scratching. "Great," I thought, "more house guests." I did some digging around and found... a little brown bat! He had gotten stuck in a box of toys I had sorted out of Little Sis' room. I managed to get him into a coffee can and outside. I was worried that he was injured since he only seemed to be crawling, and then WHOOSH!! off he went, right onto my shirtfront. I screamed. Like. A. Little. Girl. How embarrassing! I'm not even afraid (usually) of bats, mice, etc, but he startled the ever lovin' pee out of me (not literally, thanks), and then I thought maybe he was scared enough to bite, and I screamed louder. I am SUCH a wuss! I guess he just wanted to give me a 'thank you' hug, and off he went, with the cat bounding in his wake. The girls thought it was hysterical, and Little Sis announced she had never heard me scream before. I'm sure I've lost major "mom can kick anything's butt" points.

In other news:
I've been tagged by Preston over at Me and the Blue Skies. You should definitely check him out. He's awesome. But take a snack because his food blogs will make your tummy rumble.

The meme is a bookworm meme. The rules are:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next two to five sentences.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one. Pick the Closest.
6. Tag five people to do the same

I closed my eyes and grabbed the TSC catalog and Slavic Myth and Mankind, Forests of the Vampire. I didn't mean to grab two, they just came out of the shelf together. Since TSC is just boring, I'll go with the Vampire book.

"And her presence survived even in Communist Russia: for she provided the sickle of Soviet imagery, the instrument of the bountiful harvest which nourished industry and fed the people who drove it."

That's actually the last sentence for that page. The rest is just identification of page images. Just in case you are wondering, the page is titled The Eternal Face of Mother Russia and is about prehistoric female fertility idols.

Since I was nearly lynched after tagging people last time, I'll just go with an Open Tag. That means everyone can participate, but no one has to feel obligated. Just leave a link to your post.

I'm off to work on that room a bit, and then to bed. Hopefully, not to be woken by more scrambly scratching.

Still alive, but send Adam Ant anyway

Still working on Little Sis' room. Yikes. Double Yikes! I haven't even finished cleaning out the toys yet. My fault, because I haven't really taken the time to work on her room. It's been a busy week.

Everyone have big plans for Thanksgiving? We are planning a huge dinner. And I have to admit to a certain sense of satisfaction when I realized that I don't have to shop for most of our dinner. I need to buy the turkey (unless we bag a wild turkey before then), the ingredients for the cranberry relish, and the ingredients for sweet potato casserole. But the rest will come from our garden or be made from scratch.

Hopefully, next year, we'll have raised our own turkey and grown our own sweet potatoes. I'll still need to buy cranberries and pecans, but I can live with that.

The best part of this Thanksgiving will be having family here. Ok, not the family of which I am the black sheep. Those people can eat canned turkey and gravy from a jar for all I care. Anyway, I mean my kids, and their kids, and their SO's, etc. I only wish my military baby could be here. Otherwise, it will be a wonderful holiday.

Our menu so far consists of:
turkey
stuffing
yeast rolls
soda bread
sweet potato casserole
green beans
zucchini
corn
cranberry relish
deviled eggs
apple pie
butternut pie (I didn't grow any pumpkins this year, but this tastes the same)
blackberry pie
maybe an angel food cake

What are you having?

A new royal family, a wild nobility, we are the family

Hat Tip to the person that knows what the title is from, and no fair googling it!!

'Two glasses of wine and a random update' would have been an appropriate title, I suppose, but I'm in a mood. "No method in our madness, just pride about our manner!"

I've been working on the kitchen for a while now. We tore out all the cabinets and rehabbed the room when we moved in, but it really needed an update and some fresh paint, as well as room for my new wood burner. Our kitchen is the only place with room for a new wood stove, and it will work well for heating the back of the house, so everything had to be rearranged, and why not add some new paint while I had everything drug out into the middle of the floor? lol Pics in a few days when I get a chance.

I'm still working on firewood every chance I get. The past week was nice and warm, so I spent most of my time cutting and hauling wood, which put me behind on the kitchen. Some days I feel like I have too many projects going at once. Why is it that on warm days, the firewood stack seems huge, but on cold days, I think we really should double what we have... and then some? Speaking of cold, we have snow flurries today. ugh.

I'd hoped to get Little Sis' room done before the holidays. She needs flooring (her floor is painted concrete), and she is tired of pink. I'm personally not ready for her to be tired of pink, fairies, and princesses, but she's ready to move on to blue (blue!?) and horses. Never mind that someone (me!) spent a great deal of time making a fairy quilt to match her old room. Sheesh. Why do they have to grow up?? Damn those puberties!!! (A reference to Little Sis at one time, about age 5, saying she didn't feel well, and maybe she had the puberties.)

I'd hoped to spend a little time enjoying the house being back in order between doing the kitchen and Little Sis' room. However, I am now motivated to get busy on her room. Why? Because of the Dead Thing somewhere in her room. Ugh, the stench! Ok, I'll admit it's not our first Dead Thing. Here in the woods, it's not unusual for a small mammal of some sort (bat, mouse, squirrel, etc) to find its way into the walls and perish there. Yet, the new Dead Thing must be in her room somewhere. Judging by the stench, it's an elephant or T-Rex, so it should be easy to find. And I figure, as long as I'm going to end up buried in Barbies, toys, and dolls, I may as well get started on her room.

Maybe I'll find a triceratops to go with my new T-Rex. If I'm not back in a week, send a search party. Preferably one with Adam Ant.