I'm too tired for this!

I just about had me a heart attack just now. I updated to the newer version of Firefox (my drug of choice, thanks) and I thought that it lost all my bookmarked links. That's all of you, y'all. A nightmare, really. Then I realized that they'd just hid them in a folder. Bad Firefox. Don't play with me that way.

We're officially back to school as of today. Unofficially I was back yesterday, but all staff returned today. The only time I sat down was to eat lunch(more of a working lunch) and during our long drawn out meetings. Painful, really. Tomorrow begins dealing with tough parents, and will be the 3rd day in our painful scheduling process. We've got 3 teachers and 6 para-educators to schedule over 3 different grade levels. It's an exhausting process. I think I'll turn in and get a good nights sleep. Well, right after I set up my coffee fix for morning . . . . a woman has to have priorities!

A

Seriously.

Seriously. I still have crickets.

Seriously. Summer is over, I have a scheduling meeting tomorrow and inservice and classroom time scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Seriously.

Seriously, I walked around the back of my apartment today and stopped to check out some of the items left by previous tenants. A nice table top gas grill? I think I'll open it up and see what shape it's in. And peering back at me are several pair of beady little eyes. After steeling myself up to knock over this newfound mouse condominium, I discovered that these prolific little buggers are, well . . . prolific. Seriously, more than a dozen? Seriously. And they all RAN. FOR. THE. BUILDING!!! Had you been out back of my building today, you'd have peed yourself laughing! One dove into the window well of the basement apartment, so I had to fish him out with a stick, well, at least chase him out. He later ran up the side of the stucco building, right up to the roof line, where he stopped and hung out for a while. Others ran for my weber grill that was laying on the ground and others ran for my potting soil and still others ran for my neighbors fake lawn indoor/outdoor carpet in the natural shade of grass green. I chased them all away from my immediate area anyway(read: I REALLY hope I chased them all away!).

Seriously. I have just added more certainty to my suspicion that I was shorted a weeks worth of pay from summer school. I'm in the odd position of being a recent employee, but not a current one for that district, so I can't access my pay stub online like I used to be able to do. I was also in the position of needing to fill out a time card for a position that I should have been punching the time clock for. I think one of the weeks got lost. Seriously? How cool would that extra added little bonus be now? It would have probably been cooler if I'd been able to use it to buy food this last month. SERIOUSLY!

Anyway, I'd seriously better go now. Seriously. I've got so much to cram into this last night of summer . . . see you again real soon! SERIOUSLY!

A

Three's Company . . .

Fall is almost here. I love Spring, blooming flowers, the much awaited green of new grass. Yep, my favorite! Fall is a close second, with the cooling nights, cooling days and turning leaves. Beautiful! Winter is not my friend. It's far too long for this Wisconsin girl. Disproportionately long compared to the other seasons, if you ask me. Summer? Hmm, summer vacation, boating, fishing, fans in the windows bringing in any hint of a cool breeze? Still not my favorite. Heat and me just don't get along too well. I tolerate it, and can even enjoy it, though, with certain accommodations. Accommodations such as: 1. Ice cream. Ice cream in the morning, ice cream in the evening, ice cream at supper time. Yummm! 2. An air conditioning unit available for days above 90 degrees or so. Some times I don't use it, just knowing it's available is comfort enough. 3. Swimming, fishing and pontooning. Out on the river has become my preferred location. 4. Extra showers. Yes ma'am, er, sir? I like to take a good shower in the morning and hose off again in the evening, right before bed. How ever can a person sleep when they are all sticky and hot and stinky? I sleep so much better when I'm clean.

The last point brings me to the subject of this post.

I arrived home from church and settled in to check my internet and watch me some Olympics. I grabbed the bucket of ice cream from the freezer, dished up and went to the sink to rinse my sticky fingers. I looked expectantly at the sink, finally seeing the too familiar jump in the sink when I started the water. I have crickets. Nope, not the sport, I don't play cricket for Pete's sake! And no, these are not pet crickets! It seems that my new apartment building is infested. Yes, infested. Like- if I set up a camera I might get a five generation picture! I hosed the beast until it drowned and maneuvered the carcass until it went down the drain. Have I mentioned that these are no ordinary crickets? Not the little noisy black ones(thankfully) but the big brown house crickets, or were they field crickets? Doesn't matter, except that they come inside and are very big. Big enough that you'd be best to take caution if you plan on squishing one of them.

Finally getting sleepy I went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. Pulling the shower curtain aside, I saw one little critter sitting on the cool porcelain. I reached over and turned on the hot water, grabbed the fly swatter that has taken permanent residence by my bathroom garbage and batted the little beast into the stream of hot water. Down the drain it went. With a sigh of relief, I turned the water to a reasonable temperature and climbed in. I'd begun to get wet when I noticed a familiar tangled shape of legs and antennae through the interior shower curtain. Ugh! I was fine with just one. But TWO? And when another cricket dropped down with the second bugger? With the running water, they were jumping for dear life! And let me tell you friends, when there are more of THEM in the shower than me? I picked up the nearest weapon I could find . . . my comb. For some reason this didn't seem to be effective. Now- lest you're all worried about this post going X rated, imagine me wearing my swimming suit, because don't we all bathe in our swimming suit? Oh, and imagine me tall, blond and skinny, okay?

Back to the point. When I realized that two of them were not going to be as easy to drown, I leaped out to grab my fly swatter friend! Standing outside of the shower (in my swimming suit of course) I batted each of the little critters, in turn, towards the scalding water now coming out of the spigot. Hey, perhaps I was playing a form of cricket? After several hits, one went swimming down the drain, followed by his little friend (or not so little?). I was free to continue my shower in peace. Alone. Boy, events like this make me glad that I live alone! How do you explain jumping around and squealing in the bathroom in the middle of the night to a roommate or spouse?

Anyone have any tips to get rid of these little beasts? I really do prefer to shower alone!

Sleep well my friends! Hey, what do you all do to survive the heat and critters?

A

YaAAWWWNNnn . . . it took hours to finally get my wireless working and hours more to even come close to catching up on all y'alls blogs. Updating mine will wait(you're not surprised, are you??) until another day.

See you soon!

A

Ahhh, at last!

I have internet at last! The phone company came today to hook up my phone line so that I could hook up my internet! They told me that they didn't need access, when in reality they did, and so they were able to come back this morning! I haven't figured out the wireless portion yet, but that'll have to wait until Sunday! I'm off camping for the weekend at our church's yearly "all-church campout" and so I'll be seein' y'all on Sunday! Have a great weekend!

A

Hello my Darlin!

I'm so excited that I'm gettin' the internets on Wednesday I'm just about peein' myself!

See you all again soon! Real soon!

A