Elusive critters

Nature is out in full force right now. I saw two different animals in the past 24 hours that I can’t recall spotting in quite a long time.

Yesterday it was a fawn walking by the side of the road when we were on the way back from the movie theatre. It was so small and cute! And hopefully not future roadkill.

This morning it was a coyote crossing the street on the way into work.

I wish I could have gotten pictures of both, but I didn’t have my camera on me. Plus who had time? I was lucky to see either one at all!

Stinky

It sure would be nice if we could get some fresh air in the house without cigarette smoke as a bonus. The neighbors on each side smoke. I don’t get it, if there’s more non-smokers than smokers, how come the smokers always live next door to us? Man, I can’t wait to move! I know it’s years away from now, but I long for the day we have no neighbors within smelling distance, surrounded by nothing but nature. I’ll take the early morning birds chirping incessantly to the smell of cigarette smoke any day.

Our “pet” squirrel

She’s our unofficial pet. One that doesn’t make a mess, but provides entertainment. As soon as she sees us, she runs up to the door. She was raiding the bird-feeder this afternoon when she saw me and then jumped up on the screen! Then when I opened the door to toss her some unsalted peanuts, she tried to come inside. She’s very daring. After snacking, she decided to eat lying down. What a character!

Squirrel on screen
Lazy

Adventures in Target

I often wonder if the security guard at Target thinks we have no lives for as often as we shop there. We had to go there twice this weekend because we forgot a few things the first time around. Actually, most of the stuff we forgot we bought at Walmart early this morning. Yep, another trip to Walmart in less than a month. Scary, I know! But I needed to return a shirt so what could we do?

One of the things we needed, for the first time ever, was ant traps. You see, we had a little invasion a week ago. Apparently ants really like jellybeans and when Joe put his hand in the dish to grab some, he noticed there were creepy crawlies everywhere. It was pretty nasty, especially because when he started killing them, some of them hid inside the cd cabinet and made appearances for days afterwards. Every time I walked by another ant was crawling around up there! That will be the last time I use the Easter candy dish for actual candy.

We needed apples, so it was back to Target we went. You see, the apples we bought there yesterday were mysteriously absent when we unpacked the groceries. Since Joe couldn’t recall if the cashier forgot to put them in the cart or he forgot them in the cart, we just bought another bag this morning. Now, you have to know that whenever we visit Target on a Sunday morning, Joe gets coffee. I usually stop in the restroom while he gets it, and then meet him when he’s adding sugar/cream. From there we make a right and start our shopping in the Produce section.

This is important to note because today Joe started walking to the left, which confused me. “Where are you going?” I asked. His response, “the guy has my change”. Then the liar walked over to the counter and came back with a hot dog! I was beside myself. The little shit ordered a hot dog with his coffee at 10 am when he knew I was making us breakfast as soon as we got home! Plus he had already eaten a Ding Dong on the ride to the store. I swear, his eating habits are starting to mirror Doug’s (from King of Queens). Remember his pre-dinner Whopper? Hilarious!

Which reminds me of a little conversation we had a few weeks ago. We were driving home from picking up dinner from Burger King when I was teasing Joe about how much food he got. He remarked, “I’m just working on putting on my winter weight” and I replied, “Um, I think you’re already there”. Luckily my husband has a sense of humor or I would have been sleeping on the couch that night.

But in all seriousness, we’ve let the eating get out of control again and we’re going to ease back into watching what we eat and exercising. Since we both love to eat, we’re focusing on the physical first, although I have made a vow not to purchase anymore cookies and to at least cut back a little on the bad food. So we took a walk in the park this afternoon. It was the first time we’ve been outside for recreation in months and it was nice, especially because most of the park was deserted.

Then we came home and I made a meatloaf. Oh the irony!

New library

Yesterday we registered at the new and improved Wheaton library. They just expanded it and re-opened to the public less than a month ago. The main reason we decided to sign up is after taking a little self-guided tour, it looks like a really nice place to take the kids when they are visiting. Since it’s a little further away, we probably won’t use it as our main library, but will borrow CDs and other materials we can’t find at ours.

Let me tell you, the library is huge inside! I haven’t been to a larger library since visiting the Harold Washington library in Chicago. There are three levels with books as far as the eye can see and they have a very respectable audio/visual section.

The entire lower level of the library is all kids’ stuff. The most interesting thing we found was the bank of computers pre-loaded with educational software. There are two tables with six computers each. One table is for preschool and kindergarten aged children and the other table is for 1st-5th graders. They also have a ton of computer software that can be checked out. All the shelves are kid-height which is not only logical, but really cute. They keep the books geared toward the youngest children closest to the entrance which makes sense since those kids usually have to be carried or pushed in a stroller.

Everything in the library is organized well with plenty of places to sit and relax with a good book. Even the lighting changes depending on the area. The kids’ area is brighter than the adults’, yet the lighting is thoughtfully reduced in the computer areas. I love that they thought of everything! Kudos to whomever designed the layout of the library. Now if only someone could re-design their awful website!