Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Home Improvement

OK so an update on the "mickey situation":

After I saw the mouse, I did not rest until the Orkin technician came out to my house. We had had the manager Mike do our initial inspection, but our regular technician's name was Brian. Mike specifically asked Brian to cover our property, even though he doesn't normally do our area. This of course inspired confidence! Yay, Brian! Basically, what Brian told us was that there were a number of places that the mice could be getting in and he wasn't exactly sure yet what was going on. However, he did put out a ton of "baitboxes" that had poison in them and set out more glue traps. (Side note: apparently poison is not supposed to be placed inside of houses. I offered to sign any number of forms allowing this. Fortunately we just went "off record" with it. Don't tell his supervisor at Orkin.)

Well, since then, we have seen no mice but plenty of evidence. Each morning when I wake up, I do a "dropping inspection" before making breakfast. Each and every day, there is at least one present left for me by the Mickey Mouse Club. Today, for example, there were 10 different individual droppings. EW. The thing that's most disturbing is that they are almost entirely ON THE COUNTER still. This means that I have cleaned the kitchen counters every day before being able to make breakfast for myself.

So... I decided, rather than calling Brian - who foolishly gave me his cell phone number - I would take care of things myself. Hubs and I discovered that apparently mice hate/are allergic to peppermint oil. So, I got some from the grocery, soaked cotton pads in it, and placed them all over the kitchen. The result is that my entire house smells like a candy cane - but there are worse fates. People on the internet swear by it! Stay tuned for the results tomorrow morning!

In other household news, I bought paint today to redo the dining "nook". It is currently blood red. Including the window trim. My plan is to repaint the trim in white and the walls in a grayish blue. We shall see how kvh and home improvement projects go together in the days to come.

In still OTHER news, I had a fantastic 3-hour-long meeting with my new third grade team today! I am excited that they all are so passionate and knowledgeable. It seems like all of us are bringing different experiences and backgrounds to the team. I'm really looking forward to getting to know them better as we work together.

The meeting made me think of something, though. Just in general, I've been meeting a lot of people lately. One of my less attractive qualities is a tendency to "come on strong." I actually have had people tell me in my sorority that I scared the crap out of them when they first met me. I tend to be loud and talkative when you first meet me. OK that's a lie, I'm just loud and talkative always. But this tends to be magnified when I am just meeting someone. I feel like it comes from a place of really wanting to put myself out there and share where I come from and what I know, but I do think I can be intimidating at first. Something to work on?

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