The Glamorous Life I Lead

I love the life I lead, really I do.  I am blessed, lucky, whatever you want to call it.  But sometimes I just can't believe how absolutely glamorous it all is.  I just have to pinch myself sometimes.

Like yesterday for instance.  Our garage is a disaster and has been since we've moved in.  We're busy folks and Art just hasn't had the time to get to it.  I don't blame him, it's not on the top of my priority list either.  But I needed to get the Halloween stuff down so I thought I'd help a guy out and do a little cleaning for him.  After all the garage shouldn't just be a "man's job" right?  I can do this.

Well after spending all of 5 minutes in there, I discovered we have a rat/mouse problem.  Now we saw evidence here and there a few weeks ago of a rodent but we thought "no big deal" and we put out a couple of traps.  Turns out it was a very big deal.  I'll try to avoid giving y'all a visual that will stick with you all day and just say that rat/mouse droppings were all over.  I started to panic a little, okay a lot, and just started moving stuff out of the garage.  At one point I started crying, because I cry at everything really, and I said to my mom who was thankfully watching the kids for me, "I don't know if I should be doing this, what if I get a disease or something?"  You can always count on me for high drama. ;)

So after a quick call to my friendly local Hydrex man, and after going through boxes and getting things cleaned up this is what I can teach you friends, in case you ever find yourself with a rat/mouse problem:

• Spray Lysol everywhere first before cleaning anything up.  Let it sit for a few minutes and while wearing a mask, gently sweep it all up.  And no, you won't catch a disease or die of Typhoid fever.  The Hydrex man assured me of that.
• Items like that Indian corn you get at the store and use for fall decor?  Ya, throw that stuff away each year or keep it in a tight sealed Rubbermaid storage box because apparently rodents love the stuff.  Who knew?  And make sure plastic Easter eggs are all emptied before storing them away for a year.  Yup.

I'm just full of helpful information aren't I?  Recipe posts one day, cures for rodent problems the next.  You get it all with me.  All in all, I threw away 3 dumpsters of stuff, including half of my Halloween items and half of my Easter items.  Lesson learned to just invest in nothing but those plastic storage containers.  The old folded over cardboard boxes are no match for a pest.  No amount of Lysol and scrubbing could make me feel good about keeping that stuff.  Shivers.

I seriously thought to myself yesterday, "Man, I don't get paid enough for this crap."  But it's done and it's all cleaned up and now I can sleep at night.  Well sort of...

The kicker is while I was cleaning, I found our little pest.  He is in fact a mouse, NOT a rat, thank goodness, and the little bastard taunted me the whole time I was cleaning up.  He was crawling all along the back wall and shelves just staring at me.  My mom wanted to blast him with the fire extinguisher.  I threw a metal baton at him.  He's still in there though so it's time to call in the big guns.  Little mouse, you are actually sorta cute, but today you meet your maker, the Hydrex man.