Please can i have this?

Mom.
This is what I want for christmas. :)

Where to rest your rump.

Ben and I have been sick the last couple of weeks --- I have lost control of the house. So - all .... ALL of today was dedicated to cleaning the house. Not straightening - cleaning. And I didn't even get to the 2nd bedroom and basement!
**Let me just side track here and shout out in wonderment to my mother - how did you clean our HUGE house in a day? I BARELY finished the kitchen, front room, laundry, bathroom and one bedroom. You had all that times 5.

Anyways. One of my projects was to clean a rug. Two days ago - Ben and I were gone longer then usual during the day and Mr. Reg had an 'accident' on the rug.
To get to it, I had to unload 5 shelves of a book shelf and move it off the rug, spray it down with a hose twice, scrub with a soapy brush, spray down again - hang dry (hang damp more like) , shove it in the washer, hang dry and spray with febreeze, bring inside and sprinkle with baking soda, vacuum it up..... and I go to put the vacuum away and look whose fat butt is sitting on the rug...

2 minutes later I get the towels from the dryer and leave them on the front room floor for 30 seconds to come back to......
WHAT IS WITH YOU?!!?!

Invaders

Ben and I are united in the effort to keep spiders out of our home. We take the defense against these invaders very seriously. Much like Robert Neville in I am Legend - (it is that intense and that scary..)





.. and like the clip.... yesterday - one got in. (I'm sure there is more then one in the house - but this one is huge). Ben and I were just hanging out, watching 30Rock... and I spotted it. The kind of big that you can see every leg from across the room.

Smaller then silver dollar - bigger then a quarter size.
I was not okay. Ben - trying to stay cool and calm just says "I'll get it with a paper towel" (which is what he usually does with the little ones). In the mean time I rant on about how THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE and I CAN NOT LIVE IN THESE CONDITIONS WITH SUCH LOW SECURITY and laundry list of things I would do the following morning to insure we would not have another breach.
Ben walks across the room with paper towel hand.... and freezes 4 feet shy of the beast. Then turns to me and says "That's a really big one. I'm kinda freaking out."

A plan was quickly put together - removing all things it could run under and escape from us. Ben questions --as we pull away pillows and blankets in a 10 foot radius... 'why do we have such primal fears of these things!?!'

Armed with squirt bottle of bleach set to stun and a tall glass vase to trap it (and be able to see that we've trapped).... we review the battle plan before moving in -- I was to shoot it with the chemical, causing it to run right and corral it towards it's glass prison. Bleach proves to be a paralyzing agent lending itself easy to capture .... this time.

As I have always done - I slide a book/paper/magazine - and in this case a book AND chunk of cereal box until the vase and carry the prisoner outside to the front porch.... where it will sit as a reminder to other invaders what happens upon entry.

I've done this trap-them-under-a-cup/vase/mason jar-then carry-them-out-side-to-burn-up method all my life. Especially in my teenage years - at any one point in time during the summer there would be a couple of mason jars on the back porch with shriveled insects in them. I'm sure I'll be questioned about this when I get to the judgment bar -- why I torched heavenly fathers creatures.

Once detained and secured - investigation on what type of creature follows for the next 1/2 hour UNTIL Ben runs across you tube videos of spider bites. WHOOOAA!! Time for bed.
Ben gets up and walks towards our bedroom. I ask him, as he crosses the lanolin floor in his bare feet.... 'are we going to be okay? ' He replies ' of course we are.... '

... but then steps on a rubber band - which scares him so bad he nearly busts through the roof and does a mad sprint to the bed.
I really laughed for the next 15 minutes.

True story.

Sneek Peek

Ben is working at a local grocery store. I went to visit him and snapped a picture of him in his 'element'. Isn't he cute?
We have rotations to finish through May 2011 and his last 6 weeks will be in Logan! Coolness. After that we're (hopefully and probably) off to do a residency for year - most likely out of state.

In other news , I am a proud new Mommy to a ksl found washer and dryer.
I've been going to coin and parents for nearly 10 yrs! I totally deserve it :) They certainly aren't new. During the spin cycle - I need to sit on it to keep it from walking away.
Here is the question of the day. ...
Why are laundry rooms the scariest room in the house? I mean... what the heck is this stuff???

A roof over your head.

Chickens are totally moved in. Have been for a couple of weeks and they are really doing great. They've learned to 'roost' on their own and we are looking forward to eggs in a couple of weeks.

Ben comes home from work and checks on them every day. Winny is much more okay with being held and loved then Bentio - she's too in dependent.

Get out of there Reg. This is just a picture I wanted to show - this was the last thing we needed to do - the roof. The whole coop is 9 ' by 4' (ish) and ben wanted one solid piece. How are we going to get that home? Then, we were really smart and tied it to the roof with the doors shut so we had to climb through the windows. :)
As a side note - if you haven't seen the new mormon messages - you must see these. Very well done!

BLUE RIBBION WINNER!

Ben would tease that he's putting his bread in the fair but not tell you how he did. Rude huh. He won BLUE RIBBON for his french bread - plus some special cooking award. (see the red oven mitt?) And Red ribbons (2nd place) for his White bread and rye bread.

Anyone want to put in an order? :)

Judgement Day!!!

Hey, its Ben here. I know you aren't used to hearing from the other half of A Copacetic Life, but here I am. To what do we owe this appearance? you ask... Well, its due to the intersection of a couple of my favorite things, food and the fair.

Last year, some of you may recall, I entered a white bread in the state fair and won a second place ribbon (I still carry it around on my backpack). This year I have decided I can do better than that, but I have a major pharmacy assignment due a week after the state fair starts so I doubt I'll be able to do much then. Substitute the County Fair!!!

This morning I entered 3 breads I baked yesterday into the county fair. They are being judged right now. In one short day I will find out how I compare to other bakers in the county. The suspense is killing me.



This is my rye bread, the top is my french bread and pictured below is my (failed) White loaf bread. Wish me luck.