Jeepers Creepers!

E gats friends!  I came on today and realized I didn't post at all last week.  Unacceptable!  Actually a LOT of things happened in my life last night and I feel like I need to catch you up on everything!  Unfortunately, there probably won't be any pictures in this post since I'm not sure what they would be...we'll see as I write this...

1. Mice Infestation...
   
Weekend before last, I went downstairs to do some laundry and what do I find, but lots of little mice droppings covering the floor around my washer and dryer and even on my dryer.  Let me tell you now, I HATE MICE!!!  I'm afraid of mice, and I'm not afraid to say it.  So what did I do?  Well when I was getting groceries that day I took a turn down the home section and picked up 2 packages of 2 mice traps apiece.  Each package was $1, so $.50 a trap. 

Sunday or Monday night I set all four traps and caught three mice that night.  Mom can vouch for me, at this point I was on the phone with her asking her how the heck I was going to get rid of these mice, because there was NO WAY I was getting close enough to those mice in order to get rid of them.  Well, after a lot of screaming and whining (I was off the phone by this time) I sucked it up and used my BBQ tongs to pick up the trap and toss it.  No, I did not reuse these trap.  Yes, I could have.  But that would have required actually figuring out a way to unsnap the traps and get rid of the actual mouse.  At this point that was not happening.

So, at this point I was down to one trap.  I moved it to a different area and headed back to work.  No mouse until I came home for lunch on Wednesday.  The trap was gone.  I mean literally, the entire trap.  Now, all I could imagine was that I had a mouse that was barely trapped, like maybe only with one leg, dragging this trap around my basement.  I search and couldn't find it anywhere.  So off to work I went and discussed it with coworkers and we figured it must be under my washer or dryer.  So I sucked it up and was as far as possible as my long stick would allow me to be.  The mouse ended up being dead and under my dryer and was found. 

Next I went and bought 6 more traps and set them around and caught one more mouse.  Then the mysterious happened.  My traps were set with peanut butter like usual, but when I came down to check the traps, the peanut butter was gone, but the traps weren't set off.  I re baited them about 3 times, but never caught a mouse. 

So Plan B began.  I went and got sticky traps and set them up yesterday.  Nothing until I came home for lunch today and on the traps I found 4 mice on 3 traps!  I surprised even myself and picked up the traps while the mice were still alive!  Anyway, I put them in a trash bag and smucked them with a log so they wouldn't just starve to death in my garbage can outside.  I figured that was the more humane thing to do anyway.  So, so far I've killed 9 mice and think I finally have them all.  I guess we'll see in the next couple days.  I'll keep you all updated.

2. 5 Week Results

On Saturday we had our mid way testing for Farrells and here are my results.  I lost around 5 pounds, but overall I lost 14 inches!  Super exciting!!!!!  Not only that, but I increased the number of pushups I can do in a minute from 28 to 47.  My situps in a minute increased from 6 (I know, super sad, but I HATE situps) to 12.  And finally my mile run went from 13 minutes to 12 minutes.  I'm excited to see what happens in the second half of the program becuase they say that most women actually see more results in the second half than in the first half of the program!

3. Neko's injury

Last winter Neko slipped on the ice and partially tore a ligament in her knee.  She recovered and we doing amazing and wasn't having any issues.  Until last Wednesday.  Wednesday after work Neko wanted to go outside, so out she went.  I got ready for my kickboxing class and when I let her back in before I left, she wasn't stepping on her back leg again.  So she's been layed up for the last fews days, locked out of the bedrooms during the days so she doesn't jump on the beds.  And it's working and she's almost back to normal now!  She's getting short runs outside and seems to be doing fine with them so soon she'll get longer outside, which will be great for her and me since she's driving me nuts being stuck inside!

4. New Job

Probably most exciting of the week is the fact that I am getting a new job!  I know, I just was promoted - but some things just end up happening!  I'm still going to be a financial analyst at Sanford, but now I'm going to be working solely with the World Clinics.  I'll be working with lots of different foreign currencies when setting up new clinics in different countries.  I'm transitioning over to my new department around the first of the new year and will be in a different building and everything.  I'm so excited for this new move!

Okay, super long post - but as you can see it was a super busy week.  I'll try to be better in the future! :)

Fall is in the Air!

Fall is in the air!  (or maybe not in this last week's case since temps have been in the 80's all week)

So it was high time that Fall decorations came out around my place!  These were the first decorations I bought for my house after I moved in.  I love them, but think I might need to pick some more up soon.

There's two that are my favorites...

First would be the swag that lies along the top of my mantle.

Here's a close up pic...

The other would be a cornucopia that I got and filled it with fall flowers and it sits on my dining room table.

Other decorations are placed around my house...

These go well with all the leaves in my backyard that need raked...anybody volunteering??

Dump Cake

Okay folks, last week was a little crazy.  I was in my friend Amanda's wedding in Crofton, NE Friday through Sunday and the week was crazy getting ready for the weekend.  So sorry for the fact that there weren't any blogs last week!  I did think of several ideas for my next few blogs - so be prepared!

Every year for my birthday, my mom would make my FAVORITE cake - dump cake!!  It doesn't sound appetizing, but let me tell you - it's absolutely delish!  So when it was my turn to bring treats for my coworkers birthday and since she LOVES chocolate as much as I do, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make dump cake.

Here's how to make my best ever birthday cake. :)

First, bake two 8" or 9" chocolate cakes.  Cut each cake in half so that you have 4 layers of cake.

Next, put one layer on a plate and put a layer of cherry pie filling (I use light) on the first layer of cake.  Now, I usually use an entire can of pie filling for each cherry layer, but you can use less - Mom usually uses 1/2 a can for each layer.  If you're going to use an entire can for each layer, try to get as little juice as possible - otherwise it will just ooze out and mix with frosting.

Here's my picture of my cake at this point...

Now place another layer of cake on the cherry filling...

Now comes the first layer of frosting!  I use cream cheese frosting because it's my favorite.  If you're good at frosting you can probably get by with one can of frosting.  I haven't frosted a cake for quite a while, so it took me about 1 1/2 cans of frosting.  I also find that it's easier to frost the sides at this point instead of waiting until the end too.

Another layer of cake goes down next...

Another layer of cherries...

Place the final layer of cake on top and frost the whole shebang one last time!  Here's what you end up with.

Even though mine didn't turn out the looking the best I promise it tastes AMAZING!!  Just put sprinkles on it and enjoy! :) 

Backyard Mini Makeover

So I've been meaning to finish a backyard project, but now it's not looking good that I'll finish it until next spring.  So I'm going to show you all what I've done so far, and if I get it finished - I'll show you that!

Okay, here we go.  When I moved into my house, the backyard was gorgeous and big...except for one empty area under a tree in the backyard.  It was just an area of dirt that ferns grew in.  Well as tree limbs fell down during the last two years or once we cut down a few lilac bushes from the backyard - I would pile these up on the dirt area.  So in other words, this became my dumping area for all my odd and end limbs and compost in the backyard. 

Then this year the weeds took over the area and it looked like this...

Or a closer look would be this...

So the first thing I did was to work my way through this pile.  I pulled up all the weeds.  I sawed up the larger pieces to use for firewood later and burned all the smaller pieces in my fire pit.

Afterwards this is what the area looked like.  (I know...that retaining wall needs replaced...that might be a next year project that you'll see a blog about!)

Now it was looking better, but still needed more work.  Next I raked the entire area and gathered all the little sticks and piled them into an old swimming pool of Neko's that had to be retired due to a hole in it from last year.

When I was done I have quite the pile for my fire pit this fall.

And the area looked pretty good!

Next I went out and purchased landscaping fabric to cover the area.  I used wire to make half-circle shaped thingys to secure the fabric into the ground.  My thumb was so sore after this step from pushing the wire into the ground.  It was not fun.  But it looks so good when it was done!

Now I just need to put the edging in (see those black circles by the bottom of the tree?) and I hope to get that done next week when it warms up since the edging needs to warm up in the sun supposedly.  And then I've been working on hauling rock over from my neighbor, Shirley's, yard.  She has rocks that she wants gone and said I could have them if I help her dig them up.  I think I've hauled about a half a dozen over so far and got the area about 1/3 covered maybe?  That's why I'm saying that I'm not sure this project will get done until next spring. :)

Here are a few more pictures of the area cleaned up...

And guess what got added!!!

That's right...I moved my bench to this area to see if I like it there...the verdict is still out, but I love looking out to this nice cleaned up area instead of the weed mess!