After a few nights of undisturbed bait (tortilla chips — Agnew’s favorite) and no further evidence to indicate otherwise, we’re 99% positive that Agnew was a lone mouse. I can’t even convey how incredibly happy that makes me.

Rise and shine, campers, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today! I don’t remember last winter having this many *real* cold days. It seems like it got chilly a few times, but that we didn’t get below freezing very often. I’m quite sure I could Google that to find real numbers and statistics… but yeah, whatever. It’s cold. I like it.

My blog has become my long-term memory back-up system. A few days ago, I was trying to remember something that I did maybe nine or ten years ago, but can’t place the exact date. I caught myself wishing that I’d been blogging back then, because searchable archives are so handy when my brain fails to hold on to details. More than once, I’ve used my archives to figure out when the kids’ last illnesses were (for doctor’s office purposes) or when we saw certain people or did specific activities. I try to write something every day, though don’t beat myself up when I can’t get to it; there aren’t many spectacularly interesting or extremely well-written posts, but it’s a record all the same. I know that my mind will lose so many of the finer points over time, so it’s nice to know that I’ll have pieces of it stored away for later. I have several of my paper diaries from jr. high through college and beyond, and it’s always a trip to dig through them and resurrect forgotten things. It’s weird to see how much I have changed since then– I guess that’s good, though.

Anyway, when my boys are teenagers and aren’t ever home, I can look back on my blog and remember the times when I heard, “MOMMY!” six hundred thousand times per hour, when they were constantly climbing all over me, and when all I wanted was to just not be needed for five seconds. Because I know the time will eventually come when no one needs me, and that’s probably going to hit me pretty hard.

There are three loads of clean, folded laundry sitting in my living room– I can’t seem to bring myself to put it all away. That just about sums up the day, too: stuff is getting done, but it all brings about more stuff to do. Stuff! Stuff everywhere!

I need to work on not getting so overwhelmed. It sucks the life out of me.

Happy things today: peppermint coffee, Max’s ever-growing chess skills, Khai’s tea party invitation (”you want join me, mommy?”).

They say it’s a good sign, but OH, the itching. THE ITCHING! I’ve actually had happy imaginings of scratching my back, but I must resist. At least I’m not sticking to my shirt anymore. I’ll have to post another picture next week– the red lotus is already less red now that there’s less swelling and irritation.

It was a rough day, so I self-medicated with chocolate. I’m sure the sugar doesn’t help matters much (it does, after all, add to both my hips *and* irritability) but I enjoyed it all the same. Stress levels have been off the chart and the sleep meter is awfully low– surely chocolate is the answer!

Bound for Glory: America in Color is an exhibition of little-known color photographs from the 30s and 40s; there are some fantastic images in the online exhibition. Seeing pictures from that era in color makes it seem so much more real– it’s surprising how much difference it makes in my reactions to the phtotos. [stolen from groovychk]

I’m going to fall over and sleep now.

Agnew is gone. Josh hated so much to have to kill that little mouse– he’s having kind of a hard time with it.

I really do think we just had the one mouse, but of course there’s rarely just one. If there are more I think I’m on my own. Despite being completely neurotic and nauseated when it comes to the little crawly-things, I couldn’t make him do that again. Let’s just cross our fingers and hope there aren’t any more.

It sucks when your dad sees your tattoo on the internet before you have a chance to tell him about it. [insert sheepish grin here] Sorry, Daddy. Still love me?

Yes, I’m 30 years old and still worried about disappointing my daddy. If you knew how awesome my dad is, you’d understand. I have a lot of respect for him, even if he doesn’t eat lima beans.

Christmas cards are done, save for a handful of addresses that I’m missing still. Yay! The boys will put stickers on the envelopes tomorrow and then we’ll drop them in the mail.

Every year I put together a calendar for friends & family that consists of photos of the boys, month by month, from the last year. It’s hard to believe how much Max & Khai have changed over the course of 2005! I’m having trouble figuring out where the leak is that’s letting the months slip by so quickly. I’m about 1/4 done with next year’s calendar, so hopefully we can get it printed and bound by the first of next week. I get overambitious– it’s some sort of illness. Even when I’m aware that I’m doing it, I still keep going. What’s with that? Am I trying to beat my own exhaustion record or something?

Also, it just occurred to me this morning that I haven’t thought about stocking stuff for my kids. Gah!!! I’ve got Santa’s gift all ready to go (hoooray, internet shopping!) but completely forgot the stockings. That’s one of the best parts! Ideas for fun trinkets, anyone?

Somehow, a Kelly Clarkson song got into my holiday playlist in iTunes. Hmm. I suspect the children.

Despite being so tired that I feel like I might pass out, I’m going to attempt to blog. This might be as dangerous as blogging while drunk, I’m not sure. Let’s consider this one an experiment. Maybe not an experiment in the name of science, but an experiment all the same.

This weekend was insane. On Saturday, Katie came over around 11am to watch the kids so that Josh and I could head to Plano for the first part of his company Christmas party. I was a little ambivalent after finding out that we’d be playing Whirlyball and lasertag for three hours, but it was SO MUCH FUN! I’d never done either and ended up enjoying both. I wasn’t spectacularly good, but neither was anyone else– that was part of the fun. When that was done we headed to Camp Summit for the main party. These people know what they’re doing! There were less than 20 people there, but I’d guess there was enough steak for 50.

After a veddddy tasty dinner, there was a gift exchange in which the company provided all of the presents. Much to my surprise, the tree was surrounded by huge boxes– that made the gift game all the more fun. Josh ended up stealing a spotlight that can project different patterns and colors, while I scored a speaker system. Yeeeaahhh! I’d been wanting something in the kitchen that I could hook my Shuffle up to while cooking, and this is perfect. The sound is excellent, and truly, I’d forgotten how much difference a subwoofer makes. Happy happy happy!

Next came the karaoke. There’s another first– I’ve been lucky enough to avoid karaoke up until Saturday, but when they passed out numbers so everyone had to participate, I knew my luck had run out. This was a karaoke competition– first prize? A 1:6 scale Cadillac Escalade remote control vehicle with it’s own radio. I didn’t even know such things existed! Josh and I sang a duet: Jingle Bells. Why? Because it was the shortest song on the CD. Yes, we suck. There was no way we could win– the couple before us did a song from Grease that brought the house down! The winner ended up being a guy who put all he had into Sweet Home Alabama. We aren’t bitter since he really did sing well; plus, we openly accept our karaoke suckitude.

We had a good time, and I’m glad to have faces to go along with all of the names Josh tosses around on a regular basis. I don’t know why that makes a difference, but it does.

Now it’s time to tell you about Sunday, otherwise known as TATTOO DAY! Daniel and Jess came to pick me up around noon and we headed west to Epic Tattoos in north Ft. Worth. Jess and I have been talking about doing this for months– and finally, finally– we made it work. Yaaay! Nick did a fantastic job; I recommend him highly. I’m so in love with Jess’s ink; in fact, I wish I’d thought of it first! It’s a symbol from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that means ‘found’ — and Jess feels the same way I do about those books. She got hers done first, and I was so excited for her– it’s just absolutely perfect.

Then it was my turn. I’ve wanted a red lotus tattoo for years, and spent quite a lot of time searching and sketching in the quest for the right image. It was Nick’s idea to do all red, with no black ink at all, and I love it. :) It took two hours because of all the shading, and while most of it didn’t hurt too badly, the parts over my spine just absolutely sucked. When you know that the pain will end quickly it makes it so much more bearable… and you just let the pain be while your mind goes somewhere else. I can’t wait to see what it looks like after it has healed completely.

I’m elated to have my lotus after wanting it for so long!

Okay, so that’s the big update, rambly rambly rambly. There are still a million and a half things to be done before Christmas and I’m trying not to get freaked out about how long my to-do list is getting.

Sleep? What? A fairy-tale myth!

p.s. This girl who went several years without watching TV is now excited that the next Project Runway is only two days away and Battlestar Galactica starts up again in a few weeks. Woohoo! [yes, I know how sad that sounds, and yes, I really am excited.]

What a whirlwind of a weekend. To say that I’m exhausted is a grave understatement.

I’ll make a real post tomorrow… until then, here’s the red lotus I’ve been waiting years to get:

For the past few weeks, we’ve had a mouse in our kitchen. Let me state here that I am completely freaked out by small-and-crawly things– I still have nightmares about a hamster my sister had nearly 20 years ago. Yes, it’s dumb; I don’t understand why I get so panicky, but I do. Having a mouse in my kitchen has been difficult for me to deal with, and my reaction has been to clean, clean, clean. The mouse might have danced on every countertop during the night! SCRUB THEM ALL!

I named him Agnew… it just seemed to fit. RevJim asked if his name came from Spiro Agnew, and while it didn’t directly, I don’t actually know of any other Agnews in the world so I suppose that it must have been a subconscious thing. Maybe?

On top of the ickiness of having a mouse, we apparently have had a smart mouse. We bought the “Mice Cube” — it traps the mouse without hurting it. I don’t like the squirmy things, but I don’t want to kill them! Well, all of my attempts to lure Agnew into the Mice Cube had failed. Peanut butter? No dice. Bread? Not interested. A few days ago, I made a treasure trail of tortilla chips up to the trap, placed one chip under the door, and then put a big chip inside the trap. Oh, Agnew was crafty! He snagged every chip, including the one under the door– and left the big chip inside. A couple of hours after I noticed the chips were missing, I heard a mysterious sound in the kitchen. At first I thought it was one of the boys, awakened by a nightmare or something… but no. It was Agnew, under the stove, chomping away on his stolen chips like there was no tomorrow. I even tried making some noise to see if he’d run away– but I think he was feeling cocky after his victory. He stayed, loudly crunching his chips.

At this point, we began to wonder if Agnew was, in fact, a pandimensional being rather than an ordinary mouse.

Yesterday, Josh baited the trap with brownies. Once again, Agnew Mighty Mouse managed to pull off a heist– the brownie inside the trap had actually been gnawed partially away, but he didn’t go all the way inside.

Then, Josh had an idea. He carefully propped open the trap door with toothpicks such that it wouldn’t rest on Agnew if he were halfway into the box. Then he put some brownies and cheese inside. All day long, we kept checking the trap… but there was nothing.

Until tonight, when we heard clicking in the kitchen. Finally! He’s IN THE TRAP!

Except that now I feel really, unexpectedly, sad and guilty. The plan was to take him a few miles out and release him, but it’s below freezing outside. We can’t just put him out there– besides, we’re not sure yet how he got into the house, and he’d probably just come back in.

Only, it’s not an issue any more. Why? Because Josh, in his soft-hearted attempt to turn a stainless-steel colander with a glass lid into a nice little temporary home for Agnew, let the little crawly-icky-genius-mouse escape!

There’s no way we’ll get him back into the trap. Never. Sigh. EWWW. I’m so disturbed.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. It makes me sad– he was such a bright light. I wonder what he’d be like now? He’d have turned 65 this year.

At 7:something this morning, our thermometer read 14 degrees– I was glad to find that Max’s school was cancelled so that I didn’t have to go out into the cold. Crawling back into my warm bed was a much nicer prospect than going driving on the ice.

It’s up to a balmy 20 degrees now, and Max is doing his best to convince me that we need to go play outside. Umm, no. I’m sure we can find something entertaining to do inside, like maybe building a starship or carving caves out of mashed potatoes. Ooh, we could perform a musical version of the kids’ latest cartoon obsession: Little Einsteins. Don’t worry, we’ll film it and give it a limited release.

Last night was the premiere of Project Runway’s second season. I’m continually amazed at the things these people can imagine and then create– it impresses me. Who knows if I’ll like this season as much as the last; after all, there’s no Jay this go ’round. I adored both his snark and his creations.

Must fight urge to lie on sofa with warm blanket (and coffee, and movies). Must find ability to be productive. Must tackle to-do list with (currently nonexistant) fervor. Must stop writing sentences like this.