There's a Mouse in my House

       

        I was hoping, planning for a good night's sleep. In my coziest pajamas I laid my head down on the pillow. Eyes shut, I took a deep breath. My body relaxed, but my mind was awake. I forgot to take my vitamins and to put on moisturizer before bed. I tried to quietly march off to the bathroom in the dark. After my last minute duties were finished I tried again. With my head on the pillow I took another big breath trying to let all the tension out of my body. For a moment I felt my mind relax but then it started moving through to-do lists. Like a camera roll my thoughts went round and around behind my eyes.

     Somehow I drifted off to sleep, because I was definitely startled awake by a rustling sound somewhere near our bed. I mumbled to my husband Brad, from my sleep.

"What is that popping? "

    What could it be? It sounded like popcorn in a tin bowl. I opened my eyes to a dark room no trace of the dawn. I listened but the sound seemed to stop with my sleep talk and Brad's mumbled reply.

    I rolled over and shut my eyes, happy to finally feel tired and restful. Next came another sound like something small was trying to eat through a tin can. In my sleepy brain I was trying to figure out why there was a tin can in my room. Did one of the kids eat some uncooked spaghetti O's and ditch the can under my bed? It seemed likely given the whole quarantine situation and their bottomless appetites.

"Brad, do you hear that?"

    We both knew it had to be a mouse, but we both dreaded having to get up and deal with the furry predator. We live in the country. This is a problem we have grown accustomed to. But we never had one in our room in the middle of the night, and from the sound of it, this critter was close.

    Reluctantly Brad turned on the lamp. I reached over to look at my watch. It was 3:06 AM. I felt frustrated as my mind started to realize the gravity of the situation. THERE IS A MOUSE TRYING TO SLEEP WITH US! Suddenly I knew my restful night of dream-filled bliss was not going to happen.

   Brad started looking through the night stand drawers on his side of the bed. In the bottom drawer he pulled out a thermal shirt still in its plastic wrapping. We both nodded, that was the plasticy popping sound. After taking out a shirt and two pairs of pants he found further evidence, his Apple Phone box. It still had an extra cord in it and sounded like a BB rattling back and forth as he lifted it.

 "Ah ha, we found the popcorn," I said.

    A half eaten cold medicine pill was confiscated from the middle drawer.  I secretly prayed that the pill was lethal to rodents. In the far corner under a few pairs of socks he found a half eaten piece of gum.

"Hmmm..." he said and I nodded now fully awake.

    He put  his arm in the top drawer where he stored miscellaneous junk like phone cords. As his arm rummaged through it a gray mouse unexpectedly jumped out. I screamed. He jumped as he laughed mischievously.  And the mouse, the size of a small potato, landed on the carpet and scurried under our bed.

       Would I now have to sleep on the couch? Again I hoped that the cold medicine was lethal. Meanwhile Brad set up a trap to catch the furry little villain.  Because I was tired I just laid there. I knew I should be afraid of the mouse, but I was actually relieved that it stopped making noise. I shut my eyes only to instantly pop them back open with every little sound. To make matters worse Brad had left the room to exercise in his gym. IT WAS FOUR IN THE MORNING! He does that, because he is a Strongman.

   I tried to to be strong. I covered up my eyes with a pajama top I pulled out of the night stand on my side of the bed.  Trying to sleep with the light on, even with a night shirt over my eyes wasn't cutting it, I was too jumpy. Finally I resorted to the Salt lamp. I told myself, salt somehow makes the room more ionized or something. This will probably make the mouse hate this room and want to leave. Or maybe the frustrating little creature will get a stomach upset from its drug use and keel over.

    Either way, I knew I didn't get my goodnight's rest of uninterrupted sleep. I guess it just goes to show me, I should never plan for a goodnight's rest because then its bound to get messed up.

 One Day Later

    I wasn't quite finished with this blog. I needed to go back and fix grammatical errors and read through it to make sure it made sense. It was getting late so I went to bed. Before I went to bed, I decided to take Zzz Quill so I could hopefully sleep through any mouse troubles.

    Groggily I woke up late this morning. After drinking a cup of coffee, Brad had made for me, I sat up in bed. I looked down as I put my cup on my night stand situated four inches from my pillow and face. There on the night stand I saw 10 little black mouse droppings.

"Brad," I called out. "You got to see this."

    The tiny terrorist had left a half eaten cough drop. What is wrong with this mouse? Does it have a cold? Or even worse, the Coronavirus? And why can't it just die already!

    Before I went to bed the night before, I know that my night stand was clean. Sure it needed a good dusting, but it was clean. The Zzz Quill obviously had worked because I didn't hear the mouse eating a cough drop next to my face!!!!

I just have to say (from the 80's) "Grody to the Max!"

   "Dianne calm down," you might say. If only I had a kind little soul, like Cinderella. Then I would name the little critter. After all, it seriously wants to be my sleeping buddy.

But NO! FOR THE LOVE, NO!!!

I want that mouse dead, D-E-A-D!

                                                               to be Continued....                       

 

Into the Unknown

      The high note was piercing through the rafters into the unknown. The smooth voice was male which surprised me, because the song was normally sung by a woman. Instead of a stringed instrumental the electric guitar ripped through a solo rift. The Show tune cherished by every girl under the age of ten was instantly transformed into an eighties want to be epic ballad. I pictured the silver voiced singer wearing tight spandex pants and sporting a long permed mane.

    The song moved me literally all over the room. Air guitaring and trying my best to sing a long I danced. My kids laughed at the sight of their middle aged mom transported back to 1987. The year I was 10 and pretty boy bands were all the rage. A time when MTV was big but also banned from my house, so I went to my neighbors house to watch it.

Music somehow has this affect on us.

     Come on, I know you do it to. You could be minding your own business just washing the dishes when a song comes on the radio that just makes you sing out. Looking to make sure no one is around you have even went for it, that high falsetto note, so high it makes dogs cry.

     Music has a way of transporting us to time periods in our lives. In just a few bars of a song we find ourselves remembering the seventh grade dance, what we wore, and how we felt. We remember the day we unwrapped our first CD player.

     Many studies have proven that classical music helps the human brain function at a deeper level. There are also studies that rock music kills plants....wait, is that why I can't keep them alive?

    I would venture to say that music is the background of our lives. Have you stopped to notice it? Like wallpaper it is hung up all around our daily existence. Think of the elevator, or Walmart at Christmas. It is supposed to pacify us when we are put on hold with the insurance company. We all gather around our TV's to watch it at the Super Bowl Halftime show.

    I can almost see Julie Andrews on the grassy hilltop singing, "The hills are alive with the sound of music."

   This is how my heart comes alive. As I sing to God, my source of life. The melody can be rocky or a classic hymn of praise but when the message is gratefulness my heart feels whole. My soul feels happy.

   I have sung solo, or in a group. I have led choirs, and I have sung through sign language. I have written songs, and played them on piano, bass, and acoustic guitar. I have whispered them to sleepy babies. I have sung them to foreign people in a language I did not know.

   For me, singing about my God is sharing Hope. Do we know that we are loved by God? For most of us, even if we did know it, life has a way of convincing us otherwise. But I believe He does love us whether we are rockers or crooners. Whether our world is painted with baby Shark do-do-do-do's or Axle Rose's na na na na na's.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

     So whoever you are, I want you to know that you are loved. By the way, I'm singing that right now in my PJ's, with my frumpy just woke up hair, and my best Pat Benatar voice.

Unseasonal

    

      I don't know what to call this season...It started the week after we got home from the Cruise to the Florida Keys. In the airport people were wearing masks over their mouths and noses. I laughed at the young guy with a name brand face mask, like this foreign Flu virus was trending with the Rappers. I washed my hands but I didn't sweat it. Certainly it wasn't as big of a deal as the media was making it sound like. After all, this is America we are invincible, right?

    In one week's time everything changed. National events like "March Madness" basketball games were cancelled. Disney World shut its doors, and school was postponed for a month. The Governor of our state repeatedly announced restrictions. First it was no meetings of more than 200 than it quickly changed to no meetings of 10 or more people.

   Everyone was worried about toilet paper and hand sanitizer. For a few days I frantically cleaned my house as my youngest complained that his chest hurt and his head felt warm. Twelve days after coming home from the Cruise I wondered if he contracted the virus. Suddenly the world shrunk to the size of my baby's face and the way his chest heaved in and out as he took his nap and... the cough. Was it wet or dry? I Googled it? I texted friends whose children had the Flu what did their child's cough sound like? All I could see were the doorknobs, light switches, tables, and toilets. Meanwhile, the fever lasted one day, two days, three days. On the fourth day he had an even harder time breathing so I took him into Urgent care. We were given masks to wear.

   The Cruise, our last family vacation before my oldest, Isaiah, was to graduate, no longer glowed in my memory. It was evidence of contamination. The doctor checked my baby's lungs, she swabbed his nose for the Flu, it was negative. She checked his ears, no infection. She checked his throat but he didn't have Strep. Finally after the chest x-ray she shared her concern that my little guy showed signs of COVID-19, but they wouldn't test him because they needed to keep the tests for more serious cases. I was calm at first, but the closer we got to our home the more I panicked.

   That night we thanked the Lord for the cool rain. We opened the patio door off our bedroom so Judah could rest on our bed and breathe in the air. His breath was labored but the doctor released him because it wasn't serious enough to be hospitalized. But I was very nervous. I wished there was medicine to help, but all I had were prayers.

   It was hard to pray in the dark with my toddler sleeping. I leaned in to hear each breath as I tried to string-a-long a prayer.

  "Lord, I know you hear me, please touch my baby."

  I felt so small lying there. Waiting. Hoping. Breathing.

  The cool air helped his lungs, but I stayed awake most of the night listening to him breathe. The next day he was a little better but he still had the fever.  My hands were already raw from cleaning surfaces and washing them while singing the ABC's, but I was even more cautious. On the sixth day Judah's fever finally broke. Thankfully he was on the mend.

   The point of my story is...We are not invincible, but we are also not alone.                                     

    With school and Church closed my eyes are some how opened to reaching out in new ways to the people around me. It has been a long time since I have talked on the phone, but I have started calling my family more frequently. I have checked in with my friends and neighbors more closely. My days are shut in but turned toward my family in a closer way.

    I don't know what to call this season. Perhaps it's an alarm going off to wake us all up to how fast the Merry Go Round of life was spinning us. That Merry Go Round has almost stopped and we are all looking around.  In this social distancing time I am learning how to reach out and also how to look up.

    No I don't know what to call this season, but as I think back to that stormy night. As I  laid in bed letting the cool mist fill my bedroom, I prayed...

    and God heard.

     "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7