Nu nu nu nu nu nu BAT HOUSE!!

We went to a friend's engagement party last weekend. It was a good time, sans kiddos. One of the (only slightly) alcohol-fueled discussions Ry had was about the ridiculous amount of mosquitoes that call our backyard home. Seriously, right now I can't let the kids play in the yard for 5 minutes without a new crop of bug bites all over their legs.

A friend of ours built a bat house for his property. He now has 3 bats, and swears that it seriously cut down the number of mosquitoes on his property. Ry, of course, was very interested in this non-chemical solution to our mosquito problem. I was a little skeptical about bats living on our property, but figured this interest would melt away like Ry's headache the next morning.

I was wrong. 

The very next day, Ry was at the hardware store buying the required supplies for a roomy 25-bat inhabitance. He and Gummy Bear spent most of the afternoon putting this beauty together. Bear is getting old enough that he really helps with little projects like this.

We only had one minor injury, quickly remedied by a bear bandaid.

Bear was very proud. Do you see the opening at the bottom? It's about 3/4 of an inch wide. That's how the bats get in because they can collapse their skeletons. Seriously.

And because we live in the northern part of the country, we have to paint or stain the house dark to help hold the heat.  It's drying in the basement, but we're going to get it up sometime this week. Apparently, the toughest part is actually attracting the bat. Once you have one though, others quickly follow. Our friend is willing to gift us a bat, but I have no idea how in the world we would get it from his house to ours.

In other news, I just used the phrase "our friend is willing to gift us a bat." Life is weird sometimes.

Feeling blue

Yes, I'm in a blog slump.This is mostly due to the fact that we've had quite a lot of crap to deal with here and I'm feeling quite blue. Our problems are not real problems. No one is ill, we have a comfy house, and our kids are brilliant and cute (one humble opinion).

Ry and I have been trying to the do right thing, financially for quite a while now, and it just seems that every step forward leads to two steps back. Learn from us. We bought our house in 2005, at (what we later learned) was the peak of the housing bubble. Now, 7 years later, after paying our mortgage faithfully, on time and in full every month, we are still underwater. This is depressing. We tried once before to refinance the house, so that at the very least we could start making more headway on the principal. We are again in the process of trying to refinance the house to a 15 year note. The appraisal came back quite a lot lower than we expected, making us even further underwater than we thought.

Add this to the fact that my unsuccessful job search seems unlikely to end any time soon and you might be able to see why I'm feeling a little blue. As it turns out, my new degree isn't worth a whole lot until and unless you have a couple of years of experience or a BSN to go with it. Since the experience seems unlikely to materialize without, you know, a job, my next avenue is to fast-track the BSN. If I go full time, I can probably get it finished in about a year, but it will cost more money, that we don't have. This is super depressing.

So anyway, we are trying to figure out our way forward. While we do this, I find that I'm totally unmotivated to update the blog. Sorry. I'll get back to it sometime.

Please don't think that my life is doom and gloom. It's not. I'm having a lovely summer with the boys and my mom. We have been able to spend lots of time together, see our friends a lot and generally enjoy all that summer has to offer. There's just this stuff hanging over me at the moment.

Here's a picture of Gummy Bear making a cheese volcano with what was about to become a lasagna. He's going to be a very good husband some day.

What do you see?

Tonight we went out to dinner to celebrate Ry's return home for the weekend. I sat next to Cheeky Monkey, who directed me to draw the following picture.  Take a minute. What do you see here? Ry and I laughed until we cried about what we saw. I'll describe our interpretation below and then tell you how it really went down. First though, write your own narrative and leave it in the comments.

Ry and I thought: This is a domestic disturbance in the kitchen/dormitory. One partner is unhappy because the coffee is cold. S/he threatens to dismember the other partner with the ax if the problem isn't rectified. The partner says "but I can't fix it, because I don't have arms!"

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Did you write your version?
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How it really went down:

CM: Draw a sad face. I draw a sad face.
Me: Ok. But why is he sad?
CM: Because he doesn't have feet!
Me: Ok. I'll give him some feet then. I draw a body, legs and feet.
CM: Good. Now he needs a chair. I draw a chair.
Me: There you go. Do you think he needs arms?
CM: Yes! I draw arms. Now make his bed! I draw the bed.
Me: What else?
CM: He needs a picture! I draw him holding a "picture". And a cup. Make a cup. I draw a cup. Now make a happy face. I draw the happy face.
Me: Does he need feet too?
CM: Yes, and shoes. I draw feet and shoes. Now make the bed. With a blanket and pillow. I comply.
Me: Anything else?
CM: More bed. And blanket and pillow. I draw another bed with requisite linens.

Sadly, dinner arrived right after the last bed was drawn. It all seemed so innocent until I looked at the complete picture.

Stuff I said today

I'm feeling pretty discouraged tonight. I was given reason to believe I might be getting a phone call about a job last week. Today that hope was pretty well extinguished. I never expected to be unemployed in August, but here I am. But enough about that.

 The good part about still being unemployed is that I am spending lots of quality time with the boys. Ry is out of town this week, so I am spending an especially large amount of quality time with them this week. Here are a list of things that actually came out of my mouth today:

1. I don't think you accidentally kicked your brother in the head.
2. No more talk about poop at the breakfast table, OK?
3. Yes, clouds make shadows. That's why it's shady sometimes.
4. Yes, you are just as cute in your new outfit.
5. You have to put your pants on if you want to go outside.
6. Do you see that I'm doing something? Then please stop asking me the same question over and over again.
7. It hurts when you do that, huh?
8. Put your underwear on!
9. No, I don't think the bee wants to drink milk from your straw.

Makes you jealous, right?