Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Sun
Jan, 28
2007

No luck with the rats

After we set 12 rat traps in the attic last sunday, I had high hopes. I had visions of trapped rats up there wriggling with all their might trying to get out of the gluey death traps. So when I went up there today to look for these poor ratty souls, imagine my surprise when I counted 11 traps (where’s the 12th?!) but zero rats in them.

I KNOW we still have rats too because one chewed a 3″ hole in our dogs’ food bin last night, and I heard at least one up there in the attic as I was looking at the traps. It’s just insanity at this point.

Dennis said he would call an exterminator tomorrow. We obviously have no luck trying to rid our house of these rats on our own.

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Wed
Jan, 24
2007

I love my iPAQ

I’ve rediscovered my iPAQ which I got for myself at some point early last year I think. no, make that 2 years ago. I used it for a while but I quickly realized that I wasn’t exactly sure how to use it. I don’t mean HOW to use it but how it’s supposed to make life easier on me. I wasn’t sure how to use it as the tool I planned it to be when I was ordering it.

Well, I charged it up again last month, I upgraded windows mobile on it, reinstalled a bunch of crap and somehow started using the same phylosophy I’ve been applying to losing weight and exercise. ..a wee step at a time. I’ve got laundry set up. LOL! So I have laundry duty scheduled 3 times a week for the 3 people I do laundry for which is myself, jada, and maya. Dennis still does his own, thank god.

I think going slow, real slow, as slow as I want to go is the key to success. As long as I’m not sitting idle and I’m doing something, I’m happy because I know things will get done.

This almost sounds like I’m talking in code. Well, I’ve been dreaming for a clutter free, spic and span existence forever and never been able to get there. I think this new method is going to work. :-D

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Thu
Jan, 18
2007

del.ici.us is bumming me out

C’mon yo! What’s up with my del.ici.us rss link roll, yo! It ain’t working.
:(

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Mon
Jan, 15
2007

Rats

Before we had the house restucco’d we (or at least I) knew we had rodents in the attic. We weren’t sure what kind but by the sounds I suspected racoons or possums.

Just after the exterior work was completed, I spotted rats in the garage so I knew there was more than one. We put rats traps in several places and it only took a few hours before we caught 5 rats. That’s right. FIVE! They were all rather small tho so we figured it was a litter and the mama was still around somewhere. A few days later we caught the big mama. BUT! Not long after that I saw another smaller rat running outside along the side of the house. I wasn’t sure it could get back inside since all the holes had been sealed… or so I thought.

I had been hearing more of the same fighting in our attic a few weeks after that and knew there had to be more rats. Maybe the baby that got away grew up, took on a Mr. Rat and had more babies. Another two rat traps were still out there but they hadn’t caught anything in months. One of them disappeared and finally we noticed a horrible smell and found the last trap had caught another huge adult. BUT! that didn’t stop the noise in the attic at night.

I found out just tonight that “disappearing” trap had actually caught an eight rat and was thrown out. I didn’t know that. So. that makes it 8 rats we’ve caught thus far. I have seen at least one rat out there. I saw it again today scampering up the shelves and disappearing into a hole to the attic.

We bought 4 more traps last weekend and I layed them out but after 4 or 5 days we’ve caught nothing. We can still hear them crystal clear over our heads from our living room – even with the TV on!

I think it’s time we call an exterminator.

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Mon
Jan, 8
2007

House stuff

I had a sort of “break through” yesterday while sitting on the can.  I was thinking about the housework and wondering how in the hell should we start to get it all in order. So I asked myself “where do I start?!” and a little voice answered “calm down. just start at the beginning.”

Yes!! The Beginning!!

But what’s the “beginning”? Could it mean we should clean house from top to bottom? Could it mean we should start with the dirtiest thing first, in our case the floor? Could it mean we should start with the biggest problem area first? I thought about it but I couldn’t decide.

I finally just decided to think of whatever made more sense to me and just go with it. So I decided that The Beginning meant to deal with the big items first. Big meaning physically big – like furniture. Like bicycles in the middle of the living room. Like the huge couch by the front door, and so on.

So, today I folded up Jada’s tent. It’s been up since before she was two years old. My god it’s been a long time and it was in the foyer too. Then I took all the ornaments off the christmas tree and I asked Dennis to take it out tonight. So there went two large things that were taking up a lot of space in this very cluttered house.

It’s a start.

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Thu
Jan, 4
2007

Lobotomy

I watched the tail end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest a couple of weeks ago and it got me thinking about lobodomies and wondering what those things really were all about. I knew it had something to do with scrambling the frontal lobes but I really knew nothing more. Well, this stuck with me and yesterday I finally decided to google it.

I read a little about the history of it. It started in the late 1800’s in Switzerland and worked its way to the US in 1935 by a Dr. Freeman.

At first the surgery involved injecting some solution like alcohol to destroy the brian in the fontal lobes. Dr. Freeman later developed a type of lobotomy called the “Ice Pick” Lobotomy where, instead of drilling holes into the patient’s head and destroying the brain via injection, he used an “ice pick-like instrument” (really just an ice pick) and inserted it under the eyelides and above the eyeball and tapped it through the bone there with a mallet. Once in the frontal lobes, he “moved it around” a bit and did the same on the other side. Continue reading ‘Lobotomy’

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