Creepy Crawlies

Okay, so naturally, we live in the woods so there are TONS of bugs around. I hate bugs. Growing up, I always made Evan kill them for me...even when he was like 5...before that, I made my mom or my dad do it. I hate having bugs in the house. I've never really had a huge problem with bugs in houses until here...I don't know how they do it, but bugs find their way in the house ALL THE TIME! I think it might be because the house is so old that there are cracks big enough everywhere...just thinking that makes me shiver! Not to mention, the little boys always want me to get the bugs and put them outside. Ha, yeah right. I grab enough toilet paper/Kleenex/paper towels so I know there is no way I will have to touch it, put it around my fingers so that I can easily smash the bug between my fingers without touching it or missing it and having it crawl on me, and then when the boys say, "Did you hurt it?" I wave my hand like I'm letting the bug go outside and then throw the paper towel away. It's pretty funny...they don't want me to hurt the bugs yet they scream like little girls when one comes near them. Just today we were cleaning up their room and there was a dead bug on one of the shelves and the 4 year old wanted me to get rid of it. I said, "Oh no...you're doing this by yourself." I had him get some toilet paper, go in to his room, and pick that bug up. He acted like it scarred him for life. However this is also the boy that asks for a new fork when he goes from eating his tomatoes to eating his avocados. I am going to turn this boy into a man yet! That's my goal!

Anyway, I don't think I ever mentioned this, but a few weeks ago when I got home from the city, my boss showed up to pick me up with a caution. She told me that the boys had seen a snake in the grass on their way back into the park on Saturday and it was now living in an aquarium outside the front door. It just so happened to be a rat snake, so there were 3 mice and 4 fish sharing it's cage with it. Apparently the boys really lobbied to have the snake in the house, but my boss had won that argument. Thank goodness...if one of those boys had opened the lid of that aquarium while I was alone in the house, I would be standing on the kitchen table until someone else got home to save me. There would be no way I would touch it...eww. So two weeks (I think) go by and I'm home alone for Memorial Day weekend. I get home Saturday morning from the city because I went to the Yankees game Friday night...I can't see the snake anywhere in it's aquarium. Perfect. I can just picture it sneaking into the house and crawling into bed with me. My boss calls like 15 minutes after I get home and so I ask her about it...she says that he likes to burrow under the dirt on hot days. After I get off the phone with her, I go look at the snake again, but can't see him still...and I can't see anywhere he could be "burrowed." I find out a week later that he actually HAD escaped that weekend in between when they left for the Hamptons on late Friday night and when I got back Saturday morning.

It has been really hot lately, so my boss put an air conditioner in my room, thank goodness! I was really confused last week though because I kept getting a TON of moths in my room. Then I realized that I am an idiot! When the air conditioner was put in, it made it so there was a crack in between my windows leading directly to the outside..naturally. I saw a moth crawling in and that is how I realized it! So I tapped the glass a bunch of times to make it fall off and then got to work. I covered the "hole" with notebook paper and tape...it looks VERY classy, to say the least! :)

Now, for my last and current dilemma...I get home from the city and my boss informs me that she found a MOUSE in our house on Saturday. Eww. I IMMEDIATELY thought of the hole in my room that I have stared at a countless number of times trying to decide if it could be, in fact, a mouse hole. I went directly to my room and shoved Kleenex into that hole. I was/am slightly worried that shoving Kleenex may be a bad idea, but it was all I could think of at the moment. So...we have mouse traps set all over the house and I am now nervous that I will be sharing my bed with a MOUSE. Gives me the shivers. I took a picture to put on here and I SWEAR as I pulled the Kleenex out to take a picture I heard little footsteps moving toward the flash. I swear to it! Eww! (The pictures are out of focus, but you should get the point...and this hole is literally 10 inches away from the side of my bed where my head is. Ugh!)

So I LOVE living here, but I HATE sharing this house with mice, ants, gross centipede looking things, moths, and possibly snakes. But I DO love looking outside my window every morning and seeing deer outside in the back yard! :)