God Bless the Internet and the United States of America

Reason #1044 to love Google: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/how-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet

To the dead rat in my holiday crate

Disclaimer: This is a true story about finding dead rats in my garage. For those of you readers who may be disgusted by this (I am when I think about it) and never want to visit my house, please remember that we all have the equivalent of a long-dead rat somewhere in our lives. And if you don't, you’re either in denial or we can’t be friends because you are too damn perfect.

Dear Willard,

As I searched through my garage on Christmas Eve, looking for Josh and my stockings, I stumbled upon a crate full of holiday decorations. At first I was excited (paydirt)!

And then I saw the droppings.

And then I saw grey fur.

And then I ran in the house and said to my husband, “There’s something that I’m afraid to look at.” And God bless him and the United States of America, he confirmed my nightmare as I stood convulsing with the heeby-jeebies on the threshold to our kitchen. And then he removed you, and threw away the crate and everything. He said your corpse was light; you had probably been there for a long, long time.

I know that after we had the exterminator run you and your kind out of our attic and garage last April, we should have done a full clearing and shop-vacced the crap out of our garage. But then spring turned to summer and early pregnancy, and morning sickness, and blah, blah, blah Monkey Brain, and since there was no more scratching in the walls or on the ceiling, we kind of forgot about you and yours.

And then, Josh found the baby rat dead in a box by our underused Bowflex (Really, universe? You think I’m going to work out in that space without having panic attacks?). And then we cleared out some garage space and found a crate with evidence of you and your family. Clearly you were hungry if you felt the need to eat half of my heating pad. And while I appreciate how easy you made it to sort through that crate (EVERYTHING IN THE TRASH!!!), we didn’t have the energy to go through every crate and box that has been sitting in our garage since we bought our house in July 2008.

And then, the Christmas spirit had to take hold of me and I wanted to find those damn stockings. I’m really glad they weren’t in your crate; it would have sucked to throw out my mom’s hard work.

I hope it wasn’t long and painful. Josh and I have been wondering, were you clocked by the rat trap near our water heater and then wandered around in a daze until your little body just curled up and died? Please tell me that there are no more of you, because there is a baby tub on a high shelf that I am really scared to pull down.

Sincerely,

Monkey Brain

New Windows

Today we replaced our old, ugly and drafty aluminum windows with new, energy efficient ones that will lower our heating bills and increase our curb appeal. This is the type of thing that makes me feel like a real “grown-up.”

While marriage and parenting make me feel pretty grown-up, home ownership is just a different animal. There was a time in my life that I couldn’t really do the basic functions of the over 18 set. When my peers were doing things like paying their credit card bills, attending classes, finding summer jobs, I was tanking my credit and hiding under the covers of anxiety and depression. Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve slowly taken on the various tasks of growing up, and each new milestone kind of makes me feel like Jacob when he first figured out a Melissa & Doug puzzle, hands raised in the air with a big grin: “I did it!”

For some, things like home improvement may seem like a simple thing. For a Monkey Brain it can be somewhat excruciating to corral the millions of different directions that a MB wants to go. The non-MB may look at it like this:

1. Research contractors
2. Obtain bids
3. Review and select bid
4. Schedule installation
5. Have windows installed
6. Pay contractor
7. Claim tax credit

Here’s the typical Monkey Brain version:
1. Research contractors
(Go to Yelp.com and proceed to get distracted by shiny objects such as restaurant reviews, other home improvement projects, oh, let me check out Ikea’s curtain selection. . .)
2. Obtain Bids
(Receive bid, add to mail “pile” for review, ignore mail pile until it starts to fall over like a tower of Jenga, review and sort mail pile, return bid to mail pile. Repeat until husband says something to the effect of “Don’t we need that tax credit in 2009?”)
3. Review and select bid
4. Schedule Installation
5. Pay Contractor
6. Claim tax credit

Items 3-5 are pretty much driven by the contractor, and item 6 is the responsibility of my financial advisor/husband, so once 1&2 were done, it was easy peasy.

And while in my professional life I can project manage the shit out of anything, much of that energy is saved for work so my Monkey Brain freak flag can fly when I’m at home. But when you add other people (husband, kids) and stuff (mortgage, car payments, home maintenance) to the mix, there’s not much room for Monkey Brain.

It’s a simple thing, but a task that I never thought I’d be able to complete, what with all the follow through and methodical planning involved. But I did it. It took longer than the average Josephine, but I did it all the same.

Caitlin: 1, Monkey Brain: 0.