would you like to try a vanilla bran oat crunchy?

Usually when the drive-thru box asks if I would like to try some new menu offering, I say no. When my grandma was alive, if she hated something, she would describe it as "different," so when it comes to food: different = bad. I tend to get in a rut at the drive-thru and just stay there. It's so efficient to know exactly what you're ordering and how much it will cost.



EVERY weekday morning, a co-worker and I drive to Dunkin' Donuts, and say: "Hi, can we have four hot coffees? One regular cream and sugar, one regular milk and sugar, one French Vanilla cream and sugar, and one French Vanilla with sugar and extra cream. And can we have a drink tray, please?" The order only changes if someone is out of the office, and it's always $7.66. When we get back, my coworker does drink delivery, and we all get on with our days.

Yesterday, though, I had some time to kill, so I went to Tim Horton's in the afternoon. I ordered a hot chocolate. The lady asked, "Would you like that to be a candy cane hot chocolate?" A candy cane hot chocolate? Oh my, that would be different. But I broke down and went with it. Was I pleasantly surprised. Not only was the mint-chocolate mix delightful, but there were candy canes ON my hot chocolate. Who knew?? (I mean, other than Tim Horton, of course).

Officially Homeowners

20 months ago, I signed papers that said we are homeowners. We've had multiple bats, a bedroom on the first floor, a noisy squirrel and subsequent issues with an unnamed modernized pest service, a flooded kitchen, a blocked main sewer line, and a major construction project. It is only now that I am ready to say that we are finally officially homeowners.

Why?

We caught a mouse in a mouse trap. Actually, WE didn't CATCH the mouse. The MOUSETRAP OBLITERATED the mouse. We had to bleach the floor. I don't think my husband was prepared for the utter destruction inherent in using a mouse trap. I don't think I was either. It was gruesome. As it turns out, it's a good thing mousetraps are only $1.37 per pair at the local hardware store because they are definitely single-use items.

We do have a second trap available. It is currently in use trying to persuade Frank the squirrel out of his home above our bed (which is still on the first floor, but only for a few more weeks ... we hope) to an opening over the bathroom. So far, Frank the squirrel does not seem to be as dumb as Oliver the obliterated mouse, so we may be relocating that trap to a location conducive to relieving us of our rodent problem (i.e., the basement floor where there is a dark red stain).

That still leaves us with Frank the squirrel. I'll have to keep thinking on a solution for that one because ... we're homeowners!

I have problems

First of all, I apparently can't make jokes anymore. My family can no longer smell what I'm steppin' in. Recently, I saw an ad for DJ Hero for Wii, so I told my husband to e-mail a link to Amazon's listing for DJ Hero with a note that said, "this is what Kate wants for Christmas." I thought they would immediately get it -- that they would figure out that it's funny because my cousins are giant dorks who have been obsessed with spinning forever. I thought wrong. Damn near ended up with a $120 video game appendage that plays {C}rap.

Then last Monday at the gym, I realized that my razor was getting dull -- it was just taking too much to get my legs hair-free. I got out of the shower, detached the blade from the handle, made the shot into the trash can from several feet away (the crowd goes wild), and in my left hand is the blade. I threw away the damn handle! Doi! I'm still at the gym, so NO, there is no going in after it. I just went to the store and bought a new handle.

I can't remember all of the other brain-fuzz things I managed to do over the course of the next 8 days, but I do know it included things like tearing the bed apart on Sunday night at 9:30 so that our builder could hoist the box-spring up through the gaping hole on the second floor of our house (the box-spring does not fit up the stairs). I would like to point out that it was VITAL that the box-spring be READY to be hoisted as of Sunday night at 10:00, and that said box-spring is still taking up space in our living room. This adventure also included sucking up a sock in the vacuum cleaner causing 100% blockage.

We are 6 months away from our 1st anniversary and I am grateful that my husband has not decided to divorce me, yet.

So my nephew called me last night

To be clear, my nephew is 15 months old. The conversation went like this:

{ring ring}
me: Hello
{silence}
me: Hello?
{heavy baby breathing}
me: Davey?
Davey: KEEGEE!!!!
me: How are you? Can you give mommy the phone? Give mommy the phone.
{beep beep beep click}

I love thinking about the tiny little wheels turning in his head as he realized he had somehow reached a voice he knows, and that he spent most of today thinking, "If I got KeeGee, I bet I could get Grandma."

At the very end of my late 20s

I am going to get married. This has required a tremendous amount of self-restraint, because the first thing I do when someone tells me NOT to do something is exactly what they told me not to do.

Can I tell you how much yard work I got done this weekend? Seriously -- shovels, large bricks, trees AND shrubs...you name it. The yard looks great, and I managed to sustain one bruise, one scrape and one blood blister. All in all, not too bad, but I would like to leave this one piece of advice:

NEVER NEVER NEVER go to Lowe's during Wedding Week.