Notes from me to you

Hello friends and family!!

Another long blog for you but its my day off and I'm feeling very share-y today! Hope you enjoy the stories and updates!

As my dear roomie, Sandy, and I were watching the Biggest Loser last night, quite a bit of excitement occurred. First of all.. today is garbage day, which means last night was "set the garbage outside on the sidewalk night." A little piece inside of me gets really excited about garbage day because its so easy and its a twice-a-week purging all of the garbage from the house. Maybe its such a delight because recycling here is so annoying.. they only pick up plastic and tin every other monday and cardboard only once a month and sometimes they just don't show up for whatever unknown reason and then we end up suffocating from recyclable material, as we are right now.. ugh. So being able to open the front door, twice a week, and just drop the bag of garbage onto the sidewalk is a secret, simple little purging pleasure of mine. :) hmm... enough about my feelings on garbage!

So last night as were sitting in the living room, I heard the rustling of plastic bags outside the window. I knew exactly what it was, because this happened on Saturday, too. Someone was rummaging through our garbage. yup... what was once a satisfactory pile of waste was now an attraction for those in need. I whispered to Sandy to tell her what was happening, we shut the lights off and looked out the window.. and there he was.. sitting on our steps, our front stoop, pulling things out of the garbage. What he was retrieving, we couldn't tell, but only hoping it was the spinach-gone-bad or the rotted apple instead of the pay stubs she'd thrown out. We debated what to do. He wasn't harming us.. he was probably just hungry, but sitting on our step? Rummaging through our stuff.. granted, it being garbage and set outside, i think makes it officially not our stuff anymore, but nonetheless, this was not the fate we expected for our once-belongings. My first instinct was to make him food but of course the mom in me said, "no!" It was a little creepy. Sandy's was to call the cops! lol.. which she did but of course he was long gone and the cops never even came. whatever.. it was alarming, sad, and annoying all at the same time since he left the random pieces of garbage sitting out on our steps. I wanted so badly to step out the door and talk to him.. and I think if there'd been a guy in the house, I'd have felt protected and comfortable doing so. bah..

A bit of time passed and as Sandy was reading me an e-mail she was sending to her boss, I saw movement in the kitchen.. LF. LF is what we named the "mouse" in our house (that's us telling ourselves there's only one). LF is the acronym of a not-nice name.. sorry, but we don't really like him. We'd hired an exterminator who closed up the holes on the exterior of the house, made recommendations, and set traps in places where he figured they were nesting (ewww!). But my friends, if you haven't heard me say it before, I've discovered in my last few years, in different places lived, that city mice are smarter than country mice. I've literally watched mice run around traps. In the house I lived in in St. Paul, the mice were eating the M&M's off the sticky traps. I know!

So Sandy and I scared the mouse behind the love seat and prepared for war. I was in ready position, on the tips of my toes, big tennis shoes on, tennis racket in hands, ready to dodge in any direction and step or swing. Sandy was in charge of moving furniture. We barricaded what we thought was its only other exit with traps and moved the love seat.. even tipping it upside down to see if it got into the couch somehow.. only to find nothing.. no holes, no mouse, no holes in the floor boards, only the rude, random remnants of a mouse. sigh... so LF is still on the loose.. ugh.. all the invasion!

More random thoughts.. since I know I'm going to be here for a while and its getting too cold to work-out outside (too cold for my wussy self), I finally joined a gym here. I went to meet with Carin, my first ever personal trainer, today. She's great! Nice, laid-back, fun, etc. I also concluded that she was a great fit for me as I heard the other trainer next to me yelling at his trainee as a form of encouragement.. like crazy Jillian on Biggest Loser :-/ and my trainer just said, "all right, 'atta girl, 2 more reps! good deep breaths!" perfect! If some hot guy was yelling at me, I'd probably drop the weights, run out the door, and cancel my membership!

Anyway, I'm super, super excited to be a gym-member again. There's something about gyms! I walk in and I'm instantly happy! Without even working out, being inside the gym brings some sort of strange, instant satisfaction. I belonged to a gym the last three years I lived in St. Paul, and I really fell in love with the frequent gym visits/workouts. I think there's something encouraging about joining a new gym, too because I haven't gotten into a routine yet. Its all new and foreign which I think will leave me more willing to try new things and add variety (which is "always important"). wahoo! oh, funny random side note, i love daily mass on EWTN. There's a priest there this week (not sure for how long) who is just phenomenal! I really enjoy his homilies. So as I hopped on the treadmill this afternoon, I was flipping channels (cause the treadmill had its own tv monitor!!) and came across daily mass! I was actually excited to get to exercise and kind of go to mass at the same time- talk about multi-tasking! ;) ;) I'm sure the people behind me thought I was crazy as I smiled at the monitor and laughed as Father made jokes.

So that's all for now.. I'm also excited because Andrea and I are going to do something tonight.. I'm off for a few days because I work nights this weekend and she's out of town the next few weekends, so I'm happy we get to hang out tonight!

I think that's probably plenty to chew on for now, eh?

Thanks for checking in, for your prayers, love, and concern.

Love to you,

Laura