Deck the Halls

I awoke this morning at 6:30 a.m. without the assistance of an alarm clock. How? you ask. Why? you ask. Well... that's how badly I wanted to know if the peppermint oil would work to keep the mice away from our kitchen.

I tried to go back to sleep, but like a kid on Christmas morning, I just couldn't. I finally gave up and tiptoed downstairs into the candy cane-scented air to see if the mouse gods had left me any presents. To my extreme relief, I saw not a single sign that a mouse had done its business on our counter. Hallelujah!

Gleeful, I made my breakfast without cleaning the counters for the first time in a week. I poured my iced coffee and headed to the sofa to watch a little tv while eating. Just as I was congratulating myself on a job well done...

...a roach scuttled across the living room rug. It's always something.

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?

One Monthiversary

Hubs just reminded me that it is July 11, and we got married on June 11. Happy one monthiversary to us!

You know, when you get engaged/married, many people that you meet or know try to give you marriage advice. Some of it is good - like many of the talks I've had with my mom and grandmother - and some of it is not - like the drunk middle-aged women yelling "DON'T DO IT!" at me when we went out for my bachelorette party. (Side note: seriously, how rude is that?!?)

But when it comes down to it, no one can really give you advice for your marriage because no one can really know what goes on except the two people in it. In fact, that's true of any relationship. You can really only understand it from the inside out. No two friendships, partnerships, or marriages are exactly the same.

So far, married life with Hubs is great. I'm not a gusher, but I am in awe every day of what a truly good person he is. I will say, though, it doesn't really feel that different now than it did a few months ago. Hubs has all but lived with me for a while, so I guess that makes sense. In fact, I think I saw him a lot more before he started residency, so in some ways I feel LESS married to him than a few months ago.

One difference is that I did, in fact, decide to change my name. I went back and forth about it. I feel extremely attached to my name the way it was - my middle name was my mom's maiden name, so I had both sides of my family in it. Van Horn is uncommon and unique, and everyone under the sun has called me KVH since high school. I actually already know a girl from my sorority whose name is Katie Davis, which added to my apprehensions about having both a common first and last name. With an extra initial in there already, I knew that hyphenating was out, so I was left with the choice of either changing my name or not changing it at all.

In the end, however, I took the plunge and visited the Social Security office. I made a compromise with myself, though; I didn't drop any part of my name. I kept my middle and last names as my whole middle name and made my last name Davis. It's a long mouthful, but I figure I won't have to use it most of the time. And now that I'm writing this, I realize my name is even better now. It includes my past - with both sides of my family still in there - as well as my future. Which, thankfully, is with Hubs. :)