Stay, Stay, Stay, Stay for a While

Continuing on the tour of our abode, our next stop will be the guest bedroom.  To get to the guest room, there's a door off to the left of the living room that leads to a hallway; off of that hallway is where our guest bedroom is located.  The guest room actually came together first and probably the fastest. 

Here it is, pre-move:

Oddly, I don't recall noticing the weird corners before we moved in. This room perplexes me a little in that way - I don't get why the builders didn't just make those two walls nice and straight, because I know they could have along the left wall - on the other side of that wall is just the hallway and the closet (for some reason, the enormous closet does not open directly into the guest room. Oh well.  Worse plans have been constructed.)

Despite the fact that I previously said this room was one the first to really come together, it was used as a dumping ground and staging area for the rest of the house for most of the first week.  This was largely due to the fact that we didn't have bed rails for the bed.  So, we lived like this for a while.

The shocking thing about this room is that L and I agreed very early on that we both liked this bedding.  I love that it has so much color to it and that it's a big departure from what I had  previously.  We're currently re-using the same accent pillows that I had with the old bedding.  I'm not sold on the combo, but it works for now.  The one thing I don't love about the whole thing is that the duvet looks so flat.  I want it to be fluffier.  And maybe not quite so long, but whatever.  It's fine.  Projects for this room will include installing curtains (once I figure out what kind of fabric I want to use), hanging floating shelves on the wall where that mirror is currently leaning in the picture above, finding some kind of artwork to hang over the bed, and hanging the mirror elsewhere in the room (likely wall above where the suitcase stand is currently located in the second "complete" picture).

A quick shot of the closet:

It's larger than it looks - it's much wider than what you see here (WHICH. I. LOVE.).  This closet is now my accessories closet, my holiday decorations closet, and sort of a catch-all for random stuff at the moment. 

Around the corner from the guest room and the guest closet is the second bathroom.  It should be noted that this bathroom is larger than the bathroom at our old house.  And I don't know why we would ever need to both be in that bathroom at the same time, but if we needed to, we could stand next to each other and both see ourselves in the mirror.  Both the mirror and counter space are sooooo much larger than what we had at the old house.

Some finished shots of the bathroom:

And finally, a shot of the gallery wall in the hallway:

All I can say about gallery walls is this: thank goodness for 3M Command Strips.  It's not the most creative layout, but with the limited amount of space, it seemed like it made the most sense. 

The picture above is taken from the doorway to the bathroom.  To the left, you can see the closet door.  You can also see into the guest room through the open doorway.  The only thing I didn't include a picture of from this side of the house is the laundry closet, which is directly across the hallway from the door to the guest bedroom. 

So that's the guest quarters!  If you want to come visit, just let us know - we've got space and love to host.

One more post and then we'll call this tour done. 

Dare You to Move

Next stop on the tour d'new house: L's and my bedroom.  Here 'tis before we moved in:

Woo hoo!  Nice, empty, non-descript square of a room.  Here's what it looks like now with furniture in it:

 What you can't see in any of these pictures is that the curtains are about 6" too short.  Awesome.  Obviously this is a recurring theme.  Apparently what you CAN see in these pics is ugly power strips.

And now some shots of the bathroom:

Those are both pre-move in.  Nothing has changed since we moved except now there are white towels hanging on the towel bars, white bath mats in front of both sinks and the shower/tub, and more stuff on the counter (like soap dispensers, tooth brushes, etc.).  The bathroom definitely needs some items of interest (at the very least, artwork for the walls) and possibly a new color on the walls.  I think the bathroom is probably the very last room on our list of projects, mostly because we're both so excited to have so much space that's JUST IN ONE BATHROOM!!  Plus, look at that tub.  I never took one bath during the entire three years that we lived in our last house because the tub just creeped me out because it was so old.  I've taken quite a few bubble baths in the new place.  (If anyone has any recs for great bubble bath, please share with me.)  Our last bathroom was the tiniest thing ever, and if you know me or ever came to any of my Austin apartments, you probably know that I've never been interested in tiny bathrooms.  I prefer space to primp and get ready for the day!


So that just about sums up the master suite.  More rooms to come soon!

Movin' On Up

We've been in the new place for just under two months, so I figured it's about time for a picture update.  I thought about waiting until we have everything the way we REALLY want it, but then, if I held off for that, there would probably never be any pictures.  There's a lot of things I/we would like to do that will require saving up for.  So, consider this round the "in between" phase and just know that eventually, there will probably be another round of pics once we've made upgrades and changes to each room.  Also, I think I'll try and do this room by room over a series of posts, because otherwise it would be way too long. I'll also work through the rooms in the order in which you would see them as you walk through our home.

That means that first up is the kitchen/dining/living room.  Essentially, this is all one big room.  This is what it looked like before we moved in:

This is the view from the front door.  The perspective isn't great, but beyond the island is a dining area that isn't defined AT ALL in this pic because there's no light fixture.  Beyond the dining area is the living room.

Similar point of view NOW:

The room definitely looks longer now that we have furniture all moved in.  Everything fits nicely!  Definitely a relief.

A view of the kitchen, pre-move:

Better view of the kitchen.  So much storage compared to our old house!!  To the left of the refrigerator is the pantry - you can see the door handle here.

 A shot of what things looked like on moving day right:

 

This picture is deceiving, as it gives the illusion that the only boxes on the island are the ones you can see from this view.  Rest assured that there was another row of boxes behind what you see here.

And lastly, a view of the island and front door from the dining area/pantry, pre-move:

Similar shot, now:

A few shots of the dining area now (sorry, no pre-move pics of this space):
 

And a view of the living room, taken on moving day right after the movers left: 

We were a little nervous how things would fit in the space.  Luckily, we were able to part ways with a lot of stuff at our yard sale (a whole other post) and it all worked out.

Some current shots:

So what will change?  First and foremost, we want to get a new sectional sofa.  We actually found one that we both agree we REALLY like, which may come as a shock, given what I last wrote on the subject.  That will probably be one of the first things we pull the trigger on.

We also plan to invest in a new dining table and chairs.  What I think we will probably do is get the table and chairs from Crate and Barrel that coordinate with our hutch.  Still not sold on the chair situation (I don't want to be overly matchy), but we have a little time to figure that out.

We also want to get rid of the current coffee table.  Prior to moving, we had a yard sale and we sold the one we were using inside at the last house.  Now we are using the one that L had prior to us getting married.  It fits this living space better than the other one we had (that one was bigger), but this one is just not fabulous. 

I also want to paint the walls in here at some point and hang curtains.  Paint is daunting because it's a really big space to paint, so it'll have to be a color we really like.  This will most likely happen post-furniture purchasing.  The curtains are tough because the windows are so tall.  L's suggestions so far have been to just hang curtains at the top of the main windows so that natural light still comes in through the top windows or to get two curtain rods and hang a short set over the top set of windows and a long set over the long windows.  I know, I know - you're thinking what the rest of the world is thinking: WHY hasn't this man started his own design business yet??  Anyway, this will probably result in custom curtains of some sort because I really dislike the fabrics that are available in off the shelf options, but it's hard to pick fabrics when you're living with furniture you know you are getting rid of sooner than later.  However, plantation shutters are also a possibility.  We need to weigh costs at some point. 

Other items to tackle: finding something for the wall behind the sofa, upgrading the TV to one that can be wall-mounted, getting a new entertainment center console, and finding a light fixture to put over the dining room table.  We've looked a bit at light fixtures and we actually have found one we both like, but I kind of want to buy the new table before committing to a light fixture. 

So that's the kitchen/dining/living room of our new place!  Check back later this week for more pics of other rooms.

Stacks on Deck

L said he would unpack the books from the den in the old house and arrange them.  This is what I found:

Not exactly what I had in mind for how we would arrange them.

You better shop around

Once L and I decided we were going to buy our new place, we started discussing which furniture would make the cut and move with us and which pieces would be put out to pasture.  I was prepared for this; I knew he had strong feelings about the fact that mostly we only used my stuff from my single days or bought brand new stuff for our current place.  (In my defense, I had a full apartment of furniture that coordinated because I lived by myself for so long.  I didn't have anyone to contribute to the furniture.  On the other hand, L always had roommates and really only ever had to contribute his bedroom furniture and a sofa, and he sold the sofa before he moved up to VA, although he did replace it.  But why break up the matching stuff to use some random pieces of his when what he had was left over from college?  Do you want to use boy furniture from college in your home?  No matter how clean your boyfriend or husband is, the answer is probably not.  Especially when college ended more than a decade ago for your boyfriend or husband.)

We both agreed that it's time for new living room sofas and that we probably would like a sectional.  The first day we shopped for ideas, we went through Bassett, La-Z-Boy, and Havertys.  Y'all, La-Z-Boy is pretty much my own personal hell.  Why?  Because in a perfect world, I'd be able to convince L that we should get a sofa that would be a genre that would include something like this:

It's hard to see it, but there's a nailhead trim around the arms. But while I love the nailhead trim, I realize it won't be in for forever, so this sofa won't be invited into our home.

And yet, we spent an hour and a half in La-Z-Boy looking at sofas that look like this:

Champagne and Sprinkles and I call these sofas Muppet sofas (just throw some googlie eyes on the back part of it and you'll see what we mean) or marshmallow sofas.  Not only are they unattractive, but they are huge and very expensive.  What I learned about La-Z-Boy is that EVERYTHING must recline (NO) and not only that, but Americans are now too lazy and fat to pull the reclining lever with their hand; everything must be power-operated.  You know what we do NOT need?  A COUCH THAT REQUIRES A POWER OUTLET.  I was so over the store the second we walked in.  And we weren't even done for the day!  We still had Havertys left to go through. 

The second day we shopped, we went to stores that I selected.  This entailed spins through Arhaus (who makes a line of sofas that are classified as apartment sofas, which made me think of the episode of Friends where Rachel's sister buys pants and calls them apartment pants), Z Gallerie, West Elm, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, and Crate and Barrel.  What I'm looking for: something attractive, not too modern, not overstuffed, and something that is not so deep that when you sit down your feet don't touch the floor.  When you're an adult, it feels really stupid to sit on a couch and not have the ability to put your feet on the floor.  This is proving to be incredibly difficult and I honestly do not understand why.  A few ideas of what I have in mind:

Pottery Barn's Comfort Square

Custom sofa from Bassett

Pottery Barn's Turner Collection

Do we see a general theme going here?  And yet, we walked out of La-Z-Boy with a price estimate for this:

Horrible.  It's huge, it reclines, it looks marshmallow-y... it was just bad.  To be fair, I think L was trying to be kind to the sales guy who had latched on to us (he tried so hard), but there's no way that sofa will be purchased and in our home.  Also, L didn't share my strong feelings about massive, over-sized sofas.  He told me at one point on the first day that he didn't really care what the sofa looks like, which made me laugh and ask him if that was why we were looking at a sectional that would require extra space to recline and that has the option of having a console wedge (complete with a cup holder, which is EXACTLY what I've felt every sofa I've ever had in any housing I've ever lived in was missing) thrown somewhere in the middle. 

We will not be purchasing a sofa that has designated receptacles for beverages. 

As it turns out, L does actually have an opinion about furniture, but he just doesn't know it until I point things out to him that I like.  Anyway, after all that, we decide to just live with what we currently have for the time being and upgrade once we get a better idea for how furniture fits in the new living room.

Also nominated by L for replacement/eventual upgrade: the coffee table, the dining room table and chairs, and the guest bed and bedding.  I agree with l about the coffee table FO SHO.  It's totes time.  I also agree with the bedding for the guest room.  I've secretly wanted to upgrade for a while but didn't think he'd understand why.  This is what we currently have:

It's fine.  The entire bed is what I used prior to marriage.  But I'm over it.  It's very 2004 and bland.  Plus, dupioni silk is not the best fabric for bedding.  My recommendation: never get bedding that you can't just throw in the washing machine.  Anyway, I pointed out this set at Z Gallerie and to my complete and utter surprise, L liked it:

He still does not understand Euro shams or their purpose, nor does he understand needing or wanting more than one, single accent pillow.  But I think the answer to that is that he doesn't have to understand it and he doesn't have to go with me on hunts to find accent pillows.  We went back and purchased it last weekend and the whole experience was a complete 180 from the first weekend we went shopping.  He wanted to show me cool light fixtures he'd seen previously and art work for the living room.  It was amazing!  I also realize that perhaps the difference is that we weren't looking at sofas.  Time will tell.

Since we agreed to hold off on the sofa purchase, we went through a period where we were at odds over what to replace first.  His thought: the guest bed.  Mine: ANYTHING in the living room since we will be using that area daily.  He tried to hold out but I refuse to look at beds right now when we have one that is functional and only one confirmed guest coming in the future and he will. not. care. what kind of bed he's sleeping in.  I agree that the dining room table we currently have is not going to match well in the new place and that it would be nice to have a table with an extension leaf, but it's also hard to reconcile ditching a good, solid-wood table for perhaps something that may end up being crap (although who am I kidding?  We are not replacing our table with something that requires home assembly and a manual in a foreign language).  Also, I have a very weird, sentimental attachment to this table because it's an antique.  It was my grandmother's.  I have no reason to feel attachment to it other than that.  Part of me wonders if we should just paint it (the current stain won't match the cabinets or flooring in the new place) and get new chairs, but that doesn't solve the size problem.  As for the coffee table, I totally agree with L's request to upgrade.  The problem is that he (inexplicably) dislikes glass coffee tables and he's taking a hard stand on this, which I find terribly annoying.  I asked him for an explanation and he thinks they are hazardous.  I pointed out that no one will be dancing on our coffee table and that glass is super easy to clean, but he just ignored me.  We went through something similar when I bought night stands for our bedroom without consulting him.  He would have preferred the night stands that matched the bed or the chest of drawers we bought; I disagreed and purchased some that have a mirrored finish.  I won that one and three years later, the only time he's commented about the night stands was the night he first saw them, so I assume it's fine.  The man just really loves and prefers big, wooden furniture.  This is problematic in a confined space. 

So for now, the moral of the story is that furniture sales people are the worst (waaayyyy too aggressive and poacher-like - JUST LET US LOOK!) but maybe the next time we go looking, it won't be so bad.  Or, maybe we'll end up with a muppet sofa and a super-matchy living room.  But if that happens, it probably means I'm dead or heavily drugged.  Watch for the warning signs, people.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

 One of these days I promise to try and start posting regularly again.  It's been a busy spring and beginning of summer for me and L.  Lots of stuff happening in these parts.  Since I was last posting on a frequent basis, I went to Miami for Nolly's bachelorette party (POST RING PASS!!!  Yes, we are awesome and we did a ring pass for her since all the attendees were Pi Phis),

L and I spent his birthday weekend in NYC (I'm horrible and didn't take any pics), Nolly and Flad got married in Houston,

my sister and brother-in-law came and visited us for a long weekend (there are no post-worthy pics), L and I went to Austin for the 4th of July (if I can muster it, I'll recap the travel misadventures in a post... it was unbelievably ridiculous... but of course I have zero pics from any of it - do we see a recurring theme here?), and we just got back from HSG's wedding in Mexico.

We're quite the globetrotters this year!

With the decision to stay here and take the new job in place, L and I both agreed in the end that a move is in order.  We've spent a lot of time trying to decide whether or not it would be better to continue renting or to buy... the idea of owning is both appealing and daunting.  Part of the agreement to stay included negotiating a dog clause.  We are now in agreement that we WILL be getting a dog soon, although probably not until after we move. Once that decision was made, we started pondering where exactly we might want to live.  The same weekend we had to decide whether to stay in VA or go back to Texas, we had breakfast on Sunday morning and run some errands.  On the way home, we randomly popped into a condo building we've seen many times while eating at a place that occupies space in the first floor of one of the buildings.  The building is new construction and we knew they were selling different floor plans, so we went in to get more information.  As it turned out, they had an open house going on that day so we were able to walk through the building and see all the different floor plans that were still available.  We immediately were drawn to three of them, but at the time, we still didn't know if we were going to stay in Virginia or move back to Texas.  Long story short, we did research on previous units sold in the building, went to some open houses for other properties, checked into some apartment buildings, and ultimately we decided we think we're ready to buy.  Then we had to figure out what we could afford to buy, so once we knew that, we decided which place we wanted and got the ball rolling.  We submitted our offer about two weeks ago and it was accepted (woo hoo!!!).  We close on September 14 and move the following day.

After living in our current house with its very small one bathroom and very small galley kitchen, I cannot say it enough how excited I am about our new place!  You better believe it has an open floor plan with a kitchen that's about twice the size of our current one and TWO full bathrooms (the master bathroom is big enough to have a small party in and we'll have our own sinks.  You have no idea how amazing this is since we can't both look in the mirror at the same time in our current place).  I'll post pictures at some point, but for the moment, I don't want to jinx anything.

My world is aflood. Slowly I become one with the mud.

Subtitle: I know you like to think your sink don't stank, but lean a little bit closer.  See?  Cracked pipes really smell like poo poo poo.

Okay so that title might be a bit extreme.  (Also, those are bad lyrics when taken out of context.  They definitely don't hold up 15-ish years later.)  But we really are experiencing unwanted water problems with our house.  One of the pipes leading to (or from??  Who knows) decided to up and not cooperate Wednesday night.  I was cooking away and L came in and asked why there was water on the floor.  It's not uncommon of me to spill things while cooking, so I just assumed I'd spilled a little water... until I turned around and saw the giant puddle continuing to form.  A little detective work revealed nothing wrong under the sink but an attempt to soak up the water with paper towels told us that the water was coming from underneath our ever-so-chic linoleum flooring, and let me tell you, that is exactly what we were hoping for.  Except not really.  We have a gross basement that serves as a non-climate-controlled storage room.  It's kind of gross and creepy.  It's directly under our kitchen and dining room and only accessible from the backyard.  L trekked down there and resurfaced reporting that there was water all over the place and that it wreaked of mold and mildew.  Awesome!!  Who doesn't want to deal with potentially rotten sub-flooring in their kitchen?  It's not like you use that room very often.  Totally one you can work around while the floor is fixed. 

This all means that today, he worked from home so that the plumber and salvage company (no lie- the company has "Disaster Relief" in the title, which is probably applicable in some cases but way over the top for ours) could come check out the situation.  When I called L on the way home from work, the salvage guy had ripped out the insulation in the basement and plywood (no idea where that came from- perhaps the ceiling in the basement?) and both companies made promises to return tomorrow to fix everything, so that was good.  However, what you don't want to do is walk through your front door and be slapped across the nose with the pungent odor of what I can only describe as a cross between stinky cheese and rotten eggs.  I have absolutely no idea what it is in this equation that is resulting in that smell filling our home in such an overpowering way, but it is GRODY. JODY.  So obviously that's when I started serenading L with my own little version of Outkast's "Roses" (see subtitle).  L was smart enough to open the windows in the kitchen, turn on a fan in there, and close the door, so the smell is a little less prolific now, so thank goodness for that. 

Our landlord has always loved us for some reason, and while L and I both agree that we are quite likeable and that there is lots to love about us, she always seemed a touch overzealous.  Now we think we get it... not only do we take care of the home and act quickly on any problems that arise, but we're also patient with them and we have yet to move out (despite the fact that we've had to have plumbers come out twice for the kitchen sink getting clogged, once for the tub not draining while one of my BFFs was in town visiting- hooray for one bathroom!!, a leak in the roof in our little den/office, and our unwanted pet mice).  Yes, we just might be crazy.  Truth be told, I started looking at new places last Friday after the midnight mouse incident, but L really loves the house.  Plus, moving sucks.  But the house is also old and so it's not a surprise that it has problems.  Our landlord very kindly insisted that we go out to dinner tonight on her and for us to stay in a hotel if it was too uncomfortable to stay in the house what with the sink being out of order and the odor.  We are lucky to have a nice landlord!  We took her up on dinner but we're hanging in there at the house tonight.  We wouldn't want the still-on-the-lam mouse to be lonely!

Anyway, that's been the gross excitement of THIS week.  Hopefully this will be it for a while.  I promise that if anyone comes to visit, the stink and pets will be resolved and you won't know the difference once you are here.


Now for something fun.  I decided to peruse letterpress on Etsy in an effort to find something to hang over our bed.  I didn't find anything suitable yet, but here are two pieces that I like and that also go with our unintentionally patriotic-color-schemed bedroom:

guitar letterpress

I love light blue and red together.  We have both in our bedroom.  However, despite the fact that we both love music and I think this is a fun picture, it seems a little random for the bedroom.  But I do love it.

Texas letterpress

How is a born and raised Texas girl not supposed to love this??  And this actually would match our bedroom really well.  But we already have our Texas artwork for the house:

Texas Photomontage

So this would be redundant.  And again, random for a bedroom.  No dice.  My search continues.  If anyone has any suggestions for fun artwork, send them my way!

Come on, baby, let the good times roll

I made a Mardi Gras wreath!  Mom has had one for many years in honor of her Louisiana heritage and I've always loved it.  I wanted one of my own once I had my own apartment, but I've never pulled the trigger on one because I never liked what I'd find, or if I did, the options were either too expensive or Mardi Gras fell too close to Valentine's Day (because of course I have something for the door for V-Day, too) to warrant the purchase.  But not this year!  After I saw the wreath that my friend Julie made (check out her blog and her sweet kiddos here), I knew this needed to become the year I finally made a wreath of my own. 

Here's what I started out with:

That would be an 18" wreath form, a 12' Mardi Gras garland (I actually ended up using 2 of these), 3 strands of beads, and a mask (although there was a second one that isn't pictured in this shot).  Everything but the wreath form is from Party City; the form is from Michael's.

So I started by wrapping the garland around the wreath form.  I used a stapler to connect the ends to form, which worked great and was way easier than using a glue gun.  Plus, I'll be honest and say I have no idea if I still have my glue gun, and even if I do, I don't know if I have any glue sticks.  So the stapler was my lazy but easy way to go.

This is the wreath fully wrapped:

Kind of reminds me of a short version of the hoops we had in drill team for 2 of our field routines, but with shorter ribbon.  Because that's always a good sign.  But in this case, it actually works, so let's proceed.

Up next: affixing the masks and beads.  Both of these came with elastic, so I just untied one end of the elastic on each of them and then tied them to the wreath.  Then I strung the beads across the wreath.

Then it was time to hang it.  I don't favor wreath hangers- I don't like the metal showing on the front door.  I think it generally takes away from whatever you're hanging on it.  I prefer to loop fishing line through my wreaths and hang them on a nail via the fishing line.  Invisible, easy, and adjustable to fit the appropriate height of the door, instead of being locked into whatever height your hanger stops at.  Here's the final product:

So there you have it!  And all for less than $20.  Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Awake My Soul

Here’s a fun little story for you. Last night, I got in bed around 11 and fell asleep around 11:45. I assume L feel asleep around the same time, but who knows. I was sleeping peacefully until 4:06. I woke up because I knew I was hearing something out of the norm, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was pretty groggy, so I laid there listening, trying to make sense of what was going on. I was hearing something that sounded like material crumpling.

The noise stopped, so I took the opportunity to put on my glasses and get my bearings. This is what our nightstands look like:

My nightstand sits directly in front of a vent for the A/C/thermostat, and I keep a stack of magazines on the open shelf below the drawer. Occasionally, a magazine cover or page will ruffle and ripple with the breeze of the air coming from the vent, but that is usually much quieter than what I’d just heard. A few minutes later, the noise started again and it sounded like it was coming from under the bed or nightstand… definitely up close by our heads. And it was definitely something getting crumpled. I was pretty sure we didn’t have a robber hiding under our bed crumpling balls of paper, so I felt pretty confident that the noise-maker was of the unwanted animal variety. What’s a girl to do in a situation like this??? (It should be noted that I have a horrible imagination that totally goes off the deep end from time to time. It does not help that I saw When a Stranger Calls and When a Stranger Calls Back way too many times as a kid. The dude at the end of WASCB that’s painted to blend in with the wall at the end left an indelible impression on me and it STILL freaks me out. So of course there was a small- however improbable you may believe it to be- possibility that a man could have been disguised as carpet and waiting to grab our feet as soon as we got out of the bed.)

Obviously the answer is wake up your husband and scare the crap out of him. Here’s how I managed that! I wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy and that the noise was real. I’d only heard it twice, and in normal circumstances (read: not at 4:00 a.m. when the house is usually silent), crumpling paper/plastic/cellophane doesn’t scare me. Because I’m not a crazy person (usually). So L needed to wake up and hear it, too, just in case he could tell if it wasn’t an animal and it really was a scary man playing mind games with us by hiding under the bed and crumpling stuff in order to wake us up before murdering us with a stuffed animal machine, a la that crazy lady in that one season of Nip/Tuck (btw, I miss that show, but only the good seasons. I totally didn’t watch any of the final season). Anyway, in an effort to be as non-jarring as possible and NOT clue in the crumpling bandit to the fact that we were aware of its presence, I laid my hand on L’s chest and whispered that he needed to wake up and not make any noise and be very still. In hindsight, that would probably have scared the DAYLIGHTS out of me because I would immediately have thought there was some sort of imminent danger, like an intruder prowling around our hallway, but oh well. Luck was on L’s side and it was just something making noise under the bed. I quickly explained to L in the quietest. whisper. EVER. what was going on and that I needed him to hear what it was. And of course the noise didn’t start again for a full 6 minutes (during which time I’m sure L was thinking I was insane for waking him up to hear nothing). We listened to the noise a couple of times before turning on the light and actually speaking in normal inside voices. We agreed it must be a mouse, but then neither of us wanted to look under the bed (especially not me since it was on my side!). What was baffling both of us was the idea of why a mouse would be in our bedroom (SICK) and what in the world it was crumpling up.

And then I remembered something. For Halloween, we’d gotten a mixed bag of Hershey’s candy, and one of the varieties was little packets of Hershey’s kisses. There are roughly 3-4 kisses per packet. We still had a couple of those in January and one day I thought I wanted a little chocolate, so I grabbed a packet and was going to do something with it (eat it?) and I put it on my night stand instead because I got distracted by something else (probably something shiny). So fast forward a couple of days and I was vacuuming and knocked the nightstand with the vacuum and the packet of kisses fell off the table and under the bed, behind the bed skirt. I meant to pick them up but I forgot to, so I told L about it and we both agreed that had to be what the mouse was eating. The closest we got to looking under the bed was moving our pillows and peeking between the mattress and the headboard to see if we could spot anything. We saw a little bit of the Hershey bag, but what we could see didn’t look damaged and we didn’t see any fur. The possibility was still there that it was a man dressed as carpet and eating our old Halloween candy.

L asked if I wanted to go sleep in the guest room. I considered this but the way he phrased it didn’t indicate that he’d be joining me. Plus, that would mean a smaller bed AND that we’d have to change those sheets this weekend, too. I decided I’d rather be in the same room as him (I can’t even fathom what would happen if this scenario played out in a room where I was all alone. I would probably be dead or at least paralyzed with fear). L insisted that I was just going to keep freaking out all night at any sound, but I told him I’d just turn the TV on and put it on a sleep timer and fall asleep to that instead of dead silence punctuated by the sounds of a rodent candy party. So after more hemming and hawing on it, we stayed in the bed, turned on last night’s Gray’s Anatomy, and watched the entire episode. We were both too wired to sleep. Somewhere in the last 15 minutes or so of the episode, we heard our new bunk mate scampering in the wall and up into the attic or on the roof (I feel pretty confident that we’re unlucky enough to have this dude residing in the attic). We finally fell asleep sometime after 5:30, which made for a super-sleepy morning today.

L worked from home today because he’s been feeling nauseous every morning this week (pretty sure he’s pregnant) and today he actually did barf. Poor guy. He’s feeling better now, though, and he went out and bought a mess of traps and mouse/rodent bait and then set them all up all over the house and attic. We’ll be filling gaps in the floor and baseboards with foil tonight and this weekend.

What are YOUR exciting weekend plans???