A Tale of Two Rodents

GOOD EVENING SAYS RODENT #1:

If it weren't bad enough that I have to deal with decapitated, disemboweled and dismembered rodents on  an almost daily basis (no exaggeration), last night my sweet loving animals decided to make it a little more personal...a perfectly intact, soft, fuzzy, (dead) rodent at the foot of my bed.  Oh what thoughtful pets I have!  The really disturbing part of that tale is that I had already taken off my glasses and might have stepped on the dead rodent if it had not been for my observant-for-an-evening husband.  He plucked it from the floor by the tail and headed outside to return it to the land (toss it on my yar-dirt so the animals can snack on it and rub their faces in it after the fermentation process has begun).

GOOD MORNING SAYS RODENT #2:
My husband's job requires him to rise anywhere from 3:30am to 5:00am (usually the former).  This means that in order for him to get a decent amount of sleep he has to go to bed at 8:30 or 9:00pm.  I try to get the kids down around that time as well so the house is nice and quiet.  Then I stay up and play on the computer or crochet for another hour or two.  Especially lately we have been missing out on time with each other at night and in the morning.  So, we decided (yesterday) that this must change.  What does this have to do with Rodent #2 you ask?  Let me tell you:

 This morning I peeled myself out of bed at 4:15 (already 15 minutes late according to the new schedule), and hobbled downstairs to start the coffee.  As my husband and I were chatting in the kitchen already enjoying the new routine of actually seeing each other, Rodent #2 decided that our conversation was too dull for him and took off running across the counter.  I noticed that our cat Muffin already had his nose in the air but was looking on the floor rather than up on the counter.  Will picked him up and tossed him on the counter in the vicinity of the mouse only to realize that it had vanished!  Now the cat and my husband were sniffing around for this mysterious rodent. 
I practically saw the light bulb turn on in Will's head as he began taking apart the stove.  Sure enough, hidden under the coils and little metal food-catcher dishes were traces of mouse droppings and prized dead insects that had mysteriously disappeared just days prior.  Unfortunately the rodent had gotten away, probably wiggled its way behind the stove to hide in one of his favorite drawers. 
Here is what I don't understand: how can a mouse have anything to poop out if there is nothing in the drawer to eat?!!  I'm not kidding, there are two drawers that have been empty for a week save for traces of bleach left from cleaning out the dozens of poops and pees almost daily!  Well, enough on that.  I can only hope that the animals take good long naps today so they  have plenty of energy for another big rodent hunt tonight!

This tale of two rodents seems strangely reminiscent of a post long ago in the land of Quince:

The Mouse

Datura

If you will notice in the comment section of the "Unexpected Beauty" post, Candace identified the mystery plant in my front yar...dirt.  It is called 'datura stramonium' which, according to Wikipedia, belongs to the "witches weeds" because most of the plant contains toxic hallucinogens and was used in witches love potions in the days of old.  A wonderful addition to the family home, right?  I also read somewhere online (take this with a grain of salt because I don't remember where I read it) that some kids were experimenting with this plant and ended up crippled and blind.  Yikes!

At first I was thinking that our plant was different because it was lacking the spiky balls of death:

But, as it turns out, this ugly weed-like "fruit" comes after the flower dies and falls off.  DUH!  Sometimes it seems that my brain just doesn't work properly.  This spiky ball opens up and drops out a load of seeds that spread all over the place.  Although I don't mind having the datura in our yar-dirt this year, I can foresee loathing as they invade my future utopia.  So, I have been pulling off the stem of the flower after it dies so as to prevent the growth of seeds.  I was delighted to see several datura growing happily in our lovely wastelands out past my yar-dirt.  As long as they stay out there I will be happy to welcome them every summer.

Instagram!

I just found the most amazing photography app on my iPhone: "Instagram".  They have several beautiful (pretty exaggerated, but still pretty) filters that make any ol' photo look like a work of art.  Here is an example:

Before

After

So fun!  I can't wait to try it on all the darling photos of the kids!

Unexpected Beauty

A few weeks ago I was pulling weeds in the dirt patch (soon to be a beautiful oasis) in front of our house. I started on one end and worked my way towards the other. As I was about to cut down my final weed I stopped myself.  This one looked different.  There was a sweet fat leaf in the middle of some low vine thing.  I left it thinking it would be pretty for a while till it got all big and scraggly like most weeds do.  Good thing I left it because THIS is what it turned into:

This is the beautiful flower that greeted me this morning on what I almost ripped out as a weed!

The flower starts out as a long tube.  It's empty and looks like like a rolled up leaf.  As time goes by the tube starts filling up until it finally blooms.

This was taken on my iPhone before any flowers bloomed.  I just couldn't believe how big and beautiful my little weed was getting! Now I wish I had taken pictures from day 1.

This is the vine thing that is growing under the shade of the huge leaves.  It grows like crab grass but has these pretty little leaves that almost look like succulents.  I thought this one would get long and scraggly too but as it grows in diameter it also grows in fullness.

So, obviously this is not a weed at all but a big beautiful plant!  I can't wait to see if some sort of vegetable starts growing from the flower.  Does anyone recognize it? Another thing to mention is that  I haven't watered it yet at all.  I put a hose to it this morning and am just hoping that it doesn't kill it!  Who has ever heard of a leafy, flowery plant that doesn't need water?  I will keep you posted on the progress of the flower!

Some NeoGrandma Style

I thought I should post something on my family blog about how I've decided to move "Steph's Stitches" to a blog all its own.  Please welcome,

www.NeoGrandma.com

Along with a pretty blog (getting there at least) all it's own, I've also opened a shop on Etsy.com!  Check out the cool custom button I made...ALL BY MYSELF!

I'm having trouble making the image a link so click HERE to go to the shop.

Go ahead and look around, but don't forget to check back soon cause I'll be making improvements and adding items often!

Unplanned Vacation

 A few weeks ago MarMar decided to take the kids on a special kids only beach vacation.  So we packed them up for a weeks worth of fun and off they went to Pismo. 

Will and I were excited as well because that meant that we got a week to spend together, just the two of us.  Little did we know how soon and how much we would miss our little ones.  It wasn't until the 2nd day that we were planning our own little road trip down to Pismo to say "Hi", have dinner with them and head home. Well, as you may have guessed, what was meant to be a snapshot, ended up as a movie. 

We stayed the night with the kids, Marlene, and her little helper Lily (whom I almost forgot to mention...sweet, sweet daughter of Marlene's friend, loves the kids and the kids love her, and is such a helper without even having to ask...just darling).  The next morning, Marlene and Lily packed up and left Will, the kids, and me to have a spur-of-the-moment family vacation!

The weather was to die for (thanks to Molly's prayers, below), the beach was super sparkly clean, the water was perfect, and there weren't very many people there at all.  Our recipe for fun!  Oh, by the way, all of these pictures were taken on my precious iPhone 4!  I mean really, can you believe it?!