Happy Father's Day :D

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!!!

We are blessed to have our earthy and heavenly Fathers, we should all give thanks!!

Today Hannah was dedicated to God. Really it's a declaration of our intent to raise her as a Christian and the Church also agrees to help raise her up in the Lord and set good examples for her.

Today was so special.

I Won, I Won!! :)

Yup, that's right as of yesterday afternoon I have not had one single ant in my kitchen. I checked outside and not one single ant eating the jam or sugar syrup either. I win, I win. Haha gotta love it when things go your way!!

The War is officially over and peace time reigns.

War Stats:

• Total Casualties: unknown ant total, 0 human loss
• Days of assault before War Declaration: 11
• Days of War time: 3
• Cost of War: about 5 bucks
• Victory: SWEET!!
  

The War I've Waged, an Update

Today I mixed 1/4 recipe of the sugar-water-acid solution. It's very thick, actually when first mixed it reminded me of the surprising consistency of my amniotic fluid when my water broke, but I digress. So I took the solution to where I had put the deadly strawberry jam mixture and put it around it. I thought that I'd just leave the jam there, after all who knows what other insects it might prevent from coming in the house--two days ago we had a huge carpenter ant enter the house via the same window that the sugar ants come in. But I guess I'd have to mix it with wood for it to appeal to a carpenter ant? I don't really know...but if I Google it...! :D

Again the little bugs were all lined up like some kind of tiny domesticated animals. Again I found it very cute. One thing I loved to witness today was one ant got her antennae stuck in the sticky, slightly dried strawberry jam. She had to tug really hard to get un-stuck and when she was free she suddenly flew backwards!! Haa Haa ha, LOL. Watching it was so familiar to things I've seen people do, in fact have done myself, that it just made me realize that, in fact, we even have behaviors in common with the very lowly animals on this planet. Probably everyone has gotten something stuck and nearly fallen on their rear ends when it surprises us and un-sticks.

I watched until some of the little guys (girls) had found the sugar solution and started drinking. They were immediately less 'drunk' looking than the one's the day before so I think it might work the intended way this time.

I did more Googleing regarding the time frame to expect zero ants coming into my home and got answere from 24 hours (already passed that mark) to a week. I'll keep the updates as long as there are battles to wage and a war to be won.

War!!

About two weeks ago I noticed that I had Sugar Ants in my kitchen. I've seen them before, the first summer we lived in our home, but didn't see them at all last summer--go figure *shrug*

Everyday it seems in the warm(ish) afternoons I have a parade of small black ants to watch. It does not matter how clean my kitchen is, they come anyway. I have to admire their determination and hope they represent. They are determined to come in my house and hope to find food. I know how ants are. They release pheromones as they walk around hoping to find food, they 'taste' the air, ground, and other objects for edible particles. If the ant happens to find a food source they will leave a different trail of pheromones on the way back to the colony to 'tell' the other ants where to find the food and what kind can be expected. The other ants then follow the trail back and --Viola-- they continue to come in increasingly alarming numbers, even if you have cleaned every crumb up off your counters. They still come. I've tried breaking their pheromone trail but they seem to be able to follow it even after I've just bleached the counter. Trying other household cleaners was just as ineffective.

I am a very soft hearted person towards animals, yes, even insects, spiders and bugs. I do not allow the killing of anything in my home, even spiders (they get 'escorted' out the door via a cup limo). So usually I would not wage a bloody battle against any insect in my home. In fact I've had spiders take up residence in my shower, they seem to enjoy the humidity and keep the mosquito's off us in the summer (or maybe that's not it at all, maybe they like the 'view'? LOL). I also enjoy watching cute Jumping Spiders hunt while in my house, they are my very favorite spider!

So, you get the point. I'm nice to creepy-crawlies. But these darn ants...I just cant stand them anymore!!!!!!!! They have to go. I did a Google of "how to get rid of sugar ants" *Lord Bless Google* and came up with over a million hits of different means of extermination. Boric Acid seems to be the very best thing for it. Today I picked up a bottle of it at the Pharmacy and mixed it with some strawberry jam. I smeared it on the outside of my house and waited with glee for the carnage to begin! He he he. I feel a little evil about that.

So I started checking the smear every half hour or so and after about two hours I suddenly found about 25 of my little victims all crowded around gorging themselves. They reminded me of cattle around a large feed trough, they were pretty cute all lined up. I felt a short pang of guilt about it, but, gosh they just have to go!! I also noticed as they started getting full the ones that were moving off were staggering around like little drunk sailors. If you listened carefully you could just about hear them hiccuping and calling out to their friends that they were going home to sleep it off. Ok my imagination is running amok. LOL. I touched a couple of them and they certainly didn't scurry off like normal so I knew the Boric Acid was having the desired effect. Hmmm or was it??

I realized that the whole point of this is for them to take their full stomachs back to the colony, share it with the others and ultimately feed some of the poison to the queen, thus efficiently dooming the entire lot of them. Without the queen, no eggs laid, no eggs laid means no more increased population. But my ants were already feeling high from their meal and I stated to see them freeze and die almost immediately. I over dosed them. I needed them mobile enough to lug it back for the others but and at the same time not kill them right away. So back to Google I went to ask: "recipe for sugar ant killing, Boric Acid". Right away I got a 2/1 sugar-water ratio with 2 Tablespoons of Acid per two cups of water. Wow my original recipe was a Tablespoon of Strawberry Jam to a teaspoon of Acid. Uh yeah, mine was too strong *roll eyes*

Boy does killing ever require a lot of thinking. Sheesh!!

Tomorrow I'll go out and remove my strawberry jam mixture and replace it with a proper sugar water solution. And hopefully this will be the final battle of this war dramatic ant war.

It's Ok to be Vulnerable

I have many, many faults. Sometimes I feel like hiding my faults from others, but the older I get the more comfortable I am with others seeing them. In the past I only felt safe with my closest family members knowing that I was not perfect. Being imperfect was not a safe place, ever, when I was younger. I know I am not the only person ever to feel this way. It's also a sad way of living your life. I spent far too much time hoping people around me would not dislike anything I said or did and I counted a day as a good one if I went through the day without a disapproving look from someone. So I did a lot of hiding.

But everyone has to grow up. I'm still in that process, but have come a long way from that fearful little girl I once was. I'm not boasting about myself, so please don't take it that way. I just have some thoughts that I'd like written down.

I think that one reason I have such a great relationship with my Mom is that she sees my faults. I can tell her things about myself that would make others judge me harshly and forever embarrass me because of the judgement I see in their eyes and actions toward me. But not my Mom, she sees my faults and will tell me what they are. That is one of the hardest things to do--be honest with someone enough to see their faults and then be able to tell them what you see and still have respect and love for that person.

I'm not implying that I love it when someone tells me that I was wrong in some way or that I've sinned. I'm normal, it hurts and makes me angry at first. I still find myself going back in time to my childhood where I felt that if I did something wrong and was found out I'd lose that person's love. So my knee jerk reaction is to be angry and reject their point of view.

What I am saying is that if you try and see only the good in someone, by putting 'blinders' on you can only ever see part of who they are. People are a whole, not just good, happy, rosy people. Everyone has thought, done, said things that are less than what we know is appropriate or good. People who put on these blinders are very sad to me. They are people who cannot ever know another person because they are unwilling to see the entirety and depth of the person. It is very sad indeed. I also have to ask these questions: Why is it so important to only see the good things about people? Why can't we be more accepting of other's faults? Is it because it they have a need for everyone around them to be perfect because they are afraid of their own faults and therefore vulnerability?

Back to my Mom. She knows my many faults. I have found it rather cathartic to be vulnerable with her by telling her and accepting her telling me my faults. It was a weight off my shoulders to be so open with someone and learn that she did still love me. And the same applies to her faults, I love that I know that she is and will never be a perfect person. Sometimes I've complained about that, but in retrospect if she were perfect I don't think I could love her as I do because I would not feel ok to be vulnerable with her over my own shortcomings. It is give and take.

My husband tells me all the time that I 'share' too much with people, I over explain things. I think part of that is me trying to take others guards down and show them I'm not perfect because I wish that I could have a vulnerability with most everyone I care about. I laughingly will tell people embarrassing things about my past, or tell them about a lie I told so that I can be open to them in that way. I just wish more people were open to that as well. If we are not willing to be vulnerable to other meaningful people in our lives then when are we going to be comfortable being vulnerable with God?

The really sad thing is that God is the ultimate when it comes to matters of the heart like I'm talking about. He will not reject you in a vulnerable time, he already knows everything any how. So how silly is it to hide from him in the same way we hide ourselves from each other? So maybe it's easiest to start admitting our faults to God before we can practice this type of honesty with other human beings? I don't pretend to know the answer, I would think it would be different for everyone.

In being a parent I hope that Eric and I can maintain a level of honesty and vulnerability towards our children because I never want our kids to think that they have to hide from us. I hate dishonesty, and so I hope to show my children that they are loved and accepted for who they really are and not just for the person I want to see. I want to have my children grow up never having to be afraid of losing love from others like I did. I want to be a vulnerable person for the sake of others.

Having a Bad Day? Listen to a Baby Laughing Will Make it All Better!!

So the last few days for me have been not so great. I'm having major hormone issues, and at the same time non-hormonal issues that seem to get so magnified by the hormones!! I really hope this bad PMS does not keep up for long, I'll have to change my pills.

Eric and I had a long talk yesterday. I'd love to give details, but for the sake of our relationship I'll let those remain private. It was one of those talks that I hope other couples have, I think most probably do. You know the kind I'm talking about, the talks where you actually communicate on a level where you feel you've really been heard and you know your spouse got to get some things of their chest as well. It was a very good conversation and one that has left me a little sad, but at the same time energized. I pray that we remember the conclusions we came to with this discussion. It was good. :)

I've been wondering lately when Hannah would start to laugh spontaneously. She laughs often enough if I tickle her. It's so incredibly cute!! But tonight she was on the couch with me and I started to sing her the ABC's, she loves it when I sing to her. Anyway, I decided to sing the alphabet to her by saying the sounds three time each in order. She really got a kick out of it (don't ask me why) and she laughed at me!! She thought it was really funny especially when I got to "G" and "E". For the first time I was not torturing a laugh out of her, she was just giving them. It was so darling I can't even tell you. What a special moment to cap off a couple not-so-great days.

God has a very special way of telling you to hang in there when you need it and I think that's what he did for me today with Hannah. I'm especially glad Eric was home to be able to see it and have the same joy that I did. It was so special.

Who Am I and Who Are You?

Recently after some unwanted excitement on a dog forum I'm on I've been doing a lot of thinking about the computer relationships that I have with groups or individuals. In the past I've been a member to up to four dog forums at one time. The first one I was on was about three years ago when I met Julie at Vom Banach and was purchasing a pup from her. She invited me on to this forum where the owner lives in the Netherlands. Cool!! And interesting and international place to chat with other like minded people right? Wrong!!

Within a couple weeks on that forum I started to see patterns in people's behavior. It seemed simple enough to me that this was, in fact, these people's personalities. I was caught off guard at some of the bluntness and down right mean-ness I was witnessing. I felt bad for these people's families!! :( I also noticed something about my own behavior. I was being more blunt to these strangers than I normally would have been. I didn't put much though into it at the time but now I realize I was falling into the "its-ok-to-be-blunt or rude-because-you-are-not-in front-of-these-anonymous-people" trap. Another thing to complicate the entire forum board is that we are talking about a group of dog breeders/trainers/owners. That right there should sent up red flags to the general population, my opinion is that most hard core dog people are a bit 'off'. Ha ha. So the forums are basically anonymous groups of very passionate/opinionated dog nuts. Just the kind of thing most sane people would avoid. But not me.

I've learned a lot about people in this process and also learned some about myself. Some of it not very flattering some of it good. I've learned that I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt more than I should...and then again I also like that part of my personality because I find sometimes giving that person a little "leash" is the correct thing to do. At least if I find out I'm wrong I can still feel OK because I feel good knowing I gave the person a chance. I've also learned that, while I give most people the benifit of the doubt, that I can, on occasion, make harsh snap judgements about others. I don't know why that is...just some people clash so much with my own personality that it's hard not to sometimes. The worst part is that because of the bluntness that goes on on forums is that I've been called out for some of my behavior publicly. In reality my 'behavior' was not terrible, but yes sometimes rude and uncalled for. Another thing is that because of a few posts people make judgments about you that are not true at all, but gosh to they stick!! I'm also guilty of this to a degree. The sad thing is that I know that even my worst opinion of some of these people, in the back of my mind I still save room for the idea that I don't really know them and they probably are not like this in real life, or at least I hope they are not.

There are very few people I've ever known in my entire life that I have a bad opinion of that I do not save room for the possibility that I might have them pegged wrong.

So the question stands: Who Am I and Who Are You? The internet is not the place to decide either of those. I cannot convey the whole of who I am to anyone on the intertnet. Their are far too many variables. Same thing goes for 'You" out there. I cannot find out who you really are as a person. Too many variables. Too many egos. Too many bad days, too many off days, too much venting, too much taken the wrong way, too much trying to kiss butt, too much attempting to be a different "you", too much trying to be the authentic "you" but people don't believe it. Just plain too much.

I prefer real relationships with people. I have my best friend Julie, my very good friend Gisela and others too. These people I regularly see in person or speak with on the phone. They know who I am in real life, not the unreal life of the internet.