Packing Heat... sort of

Meet the "Grizzly".

Before you start thinking I’ve joined the NRA and installed a gun rack in the back window of my Mazda, it’s just a BB/pellet gun. But then again, it’s so much more than that. It’s the arsenal for my war with the stray dogs.

How heartless I must seem to all you dog lovers out there. Maybe I am, but I would argue it’s no different than spanking your children. There’s a momentary sting of unpleasantness, but the lessons of obedience and discipline are needed. Unless you’re someone who doesn’t believe in spanking your children- in which case you can call me heartless and I’ll call you wrong. Then we can move on with our lives.

The Grizzly is my last alternative to the stray dog problem. I’m hoping the dogs will soon make an association. They come into our yard. I bust a cap in their butts. It stings. They run. And hopefully it doesn’t take long for them to make the connection.

I borrowed the gun from my nephew. He tried to loan me a more powerful one that weighed about ten pounds. If I had stray moose in my yard it may have been an option, but I opted for the lightweight, less powerful one. I’m not completely heartless.

Now, I just need some ammo. A trip to Target and I’ll be armed for battle. Yes, I’ll be the VERY pregnant woman sitting on the back deck, with my feet propped up, drinking iced tea with a camo gun slung over my shoulder. You can take the girl out of Mississippi, but you can’t take the Mississippi out of the girl.

My Canine Gang War

What do you get when you live in the hood?
- A neighbor who knocks your peach tree down with a riding mower, hauls it off and never says anything about it? Yep.
- Your car ransacked in the middle of the night and several items stolen? Jon’s was.
- Low-rider drive-by with the bass thumping so loudly the whole house shakes? Oh, yeah.
- Frequent police visits to the house across the street? Of course.

And apparently, you also get packs of stray dogs that hang out in your backyard. It’s a dog gang really. There is clearly a leader who comes to bark at our neighbor’s dog that stays fenced in his yard. The other gang dogs just sit, lie, poop, bark, and hang out in our yard. It’s a nuisance that has driven me to anger many a morning at 1:00am.

This time of year, I like to sleep with the windows open. Not only do I enjoy the night air, but we can keep the house cool without running the AC. Until that incessant barking! I always try to sleep through it, but end up jumping out of bed, mumbling expletives under my breath and slamming the window shut.

Recently, I’ve noticed the dogs making themselves at home underneath our deck. Great. Next thing you know, they’ll be having gang initiations in our backyard. Not to mention one of them is VERY pregnant and this has to be stopped before a litter of puppies is delivered on our property.

Solutions?
1. Animal Control: Been there, done that. I called. They drove by. The dogs weren’t there and they moved on. Just another failure to capitalize on my tax dollars.
2.Yelling “GIT”? That’s my Mississippi coming out. I’ve yelled at them several times. They slowly walk away, mumbling death threats under their breaths and probably plotting what they’ll pee on next.
3. Throwing rocks. Oh, I’ve done that too (not at the pregnant dog). Only at nine months pregnant, my ability to twist and throw isn’t what it used to be. They are usually out of range before I can get down the deck steps, bend down and pick up rocks, catch my breath, then throw. It’s a futile attempt, really. And again, it’s probably just enough to piss them off. It won’t be long before I come out to find gang paw graffiti all over the garage doors.

So, I’m in a gang war with a pack of stray dogs. If I’m going to beat the “hood,” I’ll have to think “hood.” I’ll keep you posted.

Making Room for the Boy

I have several blog posts to catch up on and those thoughts, stories, etc. are coming soon. But, everyone keeps asking about the nursery. If you knew what this room looked like before then you know what a process it has been. Thank you Allison, Kristi, and Jon for helping me get it cleaned out and ready for its new purpose. We kept it simple… not too babyish, so it doesn’t have to be updated as he grows.

I should have gotten a closer shot of the quilt on the back of the rocker because it's so fun and creative and beautiful. Just like my sweet friend who made it! The moon on the wall above the rocker is one of my favorite finds. It’s battery operated with a remote control and it emits just enough light to give the room a soft glow at night. It will automatically cycle through the moon phases or you can change them manually to adjust the amount of light. After 30 minutes of inactivity, it shuts off. A great night light for $13- thanks Amazon! I made the rocket out of foam board and we’ll eventually throw up a few stars around it to take up some of the bare wall.

This is his changing station / bookshelf / toy storage / etc. I love multi-purpose furniture... and IKEA! The art is a canvas painting of the solar system with robot astronauts and aliens. Educational AND fun. I know… there’s a moon and rocket on one wall and the solar system on the other- and I said there wasn’t a theme. It just worked out that way.

This is one of my favorite things about the room. We still have a few to add, but he’ll be able to see the faces of his family members who live far away. Of course, we’ll have to update the photos periodically… along with moving them higher up on the wall when he’s able to stand and grab them. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have 8X10 wooden frames where they can be pulled down on his little head.

And thanks to Kristi again for the “Welcome Baby” banner she made for our baby shower. I found a place to display it. It will be a while before his new eyes can focus that far… or before he can read, but I love it.

We're looking forward to welcoming Baby Stadler into our lives, his family, and his room in our home.

The cookie question: to dunk or drown?

When I made that recent trip to Publix for Chips Ahoy, I apparently fascinated my co-worker with the way I eat cookies and milk. I never realized my way was so “bizarre”.
It’s a natural process for me. I just take some cookies and pile them in the bottom of a mug. Then I pour milk over the top of them, break them up, and eat them with a spoon.
I realize that some people like to dunk their cookies, but I don’t. Yes, the cookies eventually get soggy. Once the chunks are gone, I just simply drink the milk, which is then sweetened with cookie crumbs and chocolate chips. It’s not gross- stop thinking that. Most people drink the milk after they eat all the cereal. How is that different?

From the way my co-worker kept watching me in astonishment, you would have thought I was riding a unicycle with a monkey on my back while eating cookies through a straw and juggling three pints of milk. Which begs me to question: how do you eat cookies and milk? Are you a dunker, a drowner, or do you have another way? I can’t be the only cookie drowner out there!

Incubating Crazy

Pregnancy does a lot of weird things to your body and emotions. While I haven’t wanted to throw things at Jon’s head during the past eight months, I have been a lot more emotional. I started calling these crying bouts “episodes.” Jon and I will be sitting on the couch watching TV and I will have to get up and go to the bathroom for tissue. No reason. I’ll just feel like crying suddenly. And, he has been so sweet and understanding of my sudden onset of insanity. But, in all honesty- men have to at least feel a little panic when women start to cry… especially when it isn’t related to anything because there’s nothing they can fix. Sometimes I’ll try and leave the room so he doesn’t know and doesn’t have to deal with the absurdity of it all. But sometimes he just puts his arm around me and lets me cry on his shoulder until I pull myself together.

Hormones are unpredictable and some days/weeks they are more overwhelming than others. I may have one really emotional week, then be totally sane again for the next two weeks. The uncertainty of it all has made Jon paranoid. Now whenever something sad happens on TV, or when there’s even the slightest possibility I could find something emotional, he will look at me and ask, “Are you going to cry?” Being crazy can’t be nearly as challenging as living with crazy.

I wish I could blame hormones on the overwhelming sense of urgency I feel about everything these days. Someone mentions Chips Ahoy and I’m in Publix twenty minutes later grabbing a bag and a pint of milk. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about how I need to rake and mulch the flower beds around the house. I mean, I can barely get up from a full squat, much less clean out and mulch the flower beds. I had a dream the baby arrived several weeks early and nothing was ready. No crib. No diapers. Nothing. So, in my dream I did what every normal person would do… I tried to put the baby back. No, not in the same sense it comes into this world. I tried holding it really close to my stomach as though it would just morph back through the skin and go back into my uterus. I’ll take episodes of crying over this kind of crazy any day. I also dreamed our baby was born with a mustache, but I’m trying to forget about that one.