My Death Mugs Bring all the Gnats to the Yard . . .

I feel certain that y'all are going to get mighty tired of hearing about my gnat situation, but I just can't help it - they have been the bane of my existence this spring/summer!!!!!!!   And when something annoys me so - - I blog about it.  You might suffer as a result, but that's just the way it's gonna have to be.  Anyway, a couple of weeks ago when the gnats came back in full force (causing me to increase the number of death mugs placed around the house), I emailed the homeowner's association to see if anyone else has complained about gnats.  I started to think that maybe someone was dead in the building and that everyone was being swarmed with gnats as a result of the decaying body and that once the body was removed, the gnats would disappear.  Unfortunately that was not the case.  One board member said he wasn't having any trouble with gnats, but another board member said she did have gnats in her unit.  The non-affected board member (male of course) said to put beer in a cup and cover it with plastic wrap and then poke holes so they go in, but can't get back out.  Whatever dude, I've been using death mugs in my house for like weeks!!  The affected board member said "cool, I'll try that."  I wished her luck.  A couple days later the board sent out a reminder that the exterminator would be making his quarterly visit to the building and that if we wanted our units treated individually we could call and get on the schedule.  I called immediately to get on the schedule.  Like with any such visit, there was a three hour window to wait for the exterminator - my three hour window was 9am to 12pm.  So I took the morning off and waited.  Like with any such visit, I reached the 12pm mark and had not seen hide nor tail of the exterminator.  It was just me and my gnats - so we kept waiting.  It was at this moment that I decided I was not going to go into Conference Room C that day and I emailed the Ladies of the Conference Room and let them know I was taking a mental health day to deal with my gnats and the stress resulting therefrom.  Finally, the exterminator knocked on my door.

Exterminator:  Hi, what seems to be the problem?

Me:  I have gnats.  Lots and lots of gnats.

Exterminator:  Mind if I take a look around?

Me:  I insist on it. 

[As we walked through the house I explain all my gnat research to him and how I learned to make the death mugs and how it worked at first but now it has gotten totally out of hand and I wondered if my death mugs might not be helping the situation. Basically I ran my mouth the whole time as I followed him through the condo.  It's what I do - I fill awkward silence with constant chatter.  Finally, we reached my bathroom - the epicenter of gnats in my condo - where three active death mugs were located.]

Me (holding death mug full of dead gnats out to show him - while multitudes of gnats swarmed around our heads):  See, here's what I made to catch the gnats.

Exterminator (peering into the death mug):  Look how many you caught!

Me:  Yeah.  But there are still a lot of gnats in the house.  They just keep multiplying.

Exterminator:  I think you should probably stop feeding the gnats.

Me:  Uh. . . . what?  You mean get rid of my death mugs??

Exterminator:  I think so.

Me:  Huh, Ok.  These gnats are driving me CRAZY though.  I have to get rid of them.  It's either me or the gnats.  I can't stay here a second longer with all these gnats!!!!!

Exterminator:  There are worse problems to have.

Me:  Well, yeah . . . . but this ranks right up there don't you think?

He didn't respond to that.  He was probably raised by wolves or has only 30 days left to live or something.  My gnat situation didn't seem to impress him. 

The exterminator then sprayed some bug spray in all my drains and said to just wait it out that they should start to go away after a few days. 

That was 7 days ago and while the gnats have dwindled some since I stopped beckoning them to my condo with the sweet sweet smell of vinegar, they are still here.  I battle them every night.  It's an all out war zone in my bathroom before I go to bed.  I stand with my bug spray (it says "safe to use around kids and pets" on the label so I figure it's OK to use) and I spray them individually as they land on the mirror or fly by my head.  Sometimes it's rapid fire spray if I catch a bunch together.  Sometimes it's one shot and you're dead.  Sometimes if they land on the mirror I just smack them.  Or I spray them with Fantastic.  Or I spray them with hairspray.  This goes on every night.  Sometimes I kill 10 or more.  I have had a headache for over a week now and this morning I saw that Earl the Cat had vomited on the hardwood floor sometime in the night.  War is tricky business.  There are often casualties.  It's to be expected.  But I think Mr. Exterminator was right, there are worse problems to have.  I think I will cease fire for a couple of nights and see what happens.   If they don't go away, I will pack Earl the Cat up in the cat carrier, check into a hotel and call the exterminator back to napalm the condo. 

Whether you like it or not ... I will keep you posted.

To Dad . . . .

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO THE BEST DAD EVER!!! 

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!

Me, Dad, Lisa

Just me and Dad

Lisa, Dad, Me

Just me and Dad

Lisa, Dad and Me



And Earl the Cat says "Happy Father's Day" to his Grandpa Pete too!!

 
 And Happy Father's Dad to all the other Dads (and soon to be Dads) out there too!!! 

Painting I did for Contractor Jenny

Locked Out . . .

I walked out of my condo at 8:00am this morning and got halfway to my car when I realized I had left my keys on the dining room table.  Car key.  Condo key.  Sitting on the table.  In my locked condo.  I can assure you, that realization stung like a sore-assed duck on a salt pond!!!!!  I called Lawrence (three times in a row) and got him out of a meeting. He couldn't find the spare key he has of mine so I called Mel. While I waited for Mel to drive into town from Alpharetta with a spare key, I sat down on the doormat in front of my condo, read my book on my iPhone and emailed with the Ladies of the Conference Room.  At some point Earl the Cat realized that I was sitting on the other side of the door.  I think it confused the crap out of him.  He started to meow at me.  Then he sat down against the other side of the door.  I know this because I heard his hefty arse plop down.  After a bit, he started to reach his paw under the door.  He was trying his darndist to get to me.  Earl and I held up our respective sides of the door until Mel arrived at 9:30am.  He never left my side.  I guess he's still trying to make up for clawing me.  Or he was just curious as hell as to why I was sitting on the other side of the door as opposed to driving off like I usually do.  Mel and I grabbed a quick breakfast at Java Jive and then I headed on in to Conference Room C. 

If you are my friend on facebook you will have already seen one of the pics below.



Just chillin' on the doormat . . .



Earl the Cat reaching out to offer moral support.  Darryl wonders if he wasn't
really just trying to swipe at me.  I said I was nearly 30% sure he was offering support.



I flipped my iPhone upside down to capture this pic of Earl the Cat
with his face plastered against the crack under the door.



Yeah, right.....

Behold my view from the floor as I did my exercises today.  For the first time in a long while (well, since he eviscerated my head with his claws during a previous workout) I actually allowed Earl the Cat to be in the living room and not locked in the bedroom while I did my exercises.  When he saw what I was doing, he jumped up to lounge in front of the TV and menorahs.  He NEVER sits up there!  Ever!  Even when I started my sit ups (which is when the last "incident" occurred), he continued to lounge.  He even looked aloof.  He averted his eyes.  He did not look directly at me.  His body language said to me "I don't give two hoots what you are doing down there on the floor."  "I can be trusted while you do exercises."  "I am not the least bit threatened by your strange exercise noises or your bright red face." "Oh, are you exercising?  I didn't even notice."  Yeah, right!

Don't worry folks, I didn't take my eyes off of him for one minute.  He remained on his perch the whole time I exercised, but I had the flip flop close at hand in the event he made any move to pounce.  I don't trust him as far as I can throw him - and he's a "substantial cat" (we don't use the word fat in our house anymore) so I can't throw him very far.

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, but I just haven't felt inspired to blog lately.  I almost felt inspired when Mom fell off the treadmill during "girls weekend" after accidentally pushing speed 4.  She was walking at a nice leisurely speed while the rest of us gals were watching TV.  All of a sudden we hear a winded voice say "Amy!"  We all look over and she's like double-timing it to keep up with the belt and looking distressed.  I said "push the down arrow to lower the speed," just as she disappears from our view.  We all jump up (well, maybe it was just Lisa who jumped up - she was closer) to make sure she was OK.  Once we made sure she was indeed OK, we could not stop laughing.  In fact, I am chuckling right now just thinking about it.  But for some reason, I didn't blog about it at the time.  I was almost inspired to blog when Diane and I went out to dinner at an Irish pub I just discovered down the street.  That night we had the worst service ever!!  We ordered Irish brown bread and they brought us crackers.  We ordered a meat and cheese plate and the cheese was moldy and the meat looked like bologna.  Diane ordered shrimp and coconut soup and there was no shrimp in it.  Boy were we batting 0 that night.  Then, Diane topped off a fine evening by breaking out in hives after dinner and having to go to the hospital for an IV.  But for some reason, I didn't blog about it at the time.  So, while I didn't feel inspired to blog about those crazy incidents at the time, I felt they deserved a mention in this blog.  Mom will probably kill me for blogging about her treadmill incident.  I'm sure she was hoping that would stay under wraps.  Diane is probably just happy that she didn't come home from the hospital that night with the flesh eating bacteria that is going around here in Georgia. 

Not much to update you on regarding the goings on in Conference Room C.  The gig seems to be coming to and end and the Ladies of the Conference Room are in agreement that we are about ready for it to end!!  I have promised to do paintings for Juniata and Jenny's daughters before the gig ends.  The one I did for Juniata is below.  I am still working on Jenny's.

Painting for Juniata.  I named it "Artie the Elephant"

 

The "meat" from our Meat and Cheese Plate (bleh!!)



Unfortunately I don't have a picture of Mom falling off the treadmill



Girls on the Run

Not a whole lot has been happening since last I wrote.  I have been fairly successful with the 10 pounds in 10 days diet.  Although I didn't lose a full 10 pounds (most likely because I did take a red wine break in the middle there and I took a couple of "liberties" with the meal plan here and there), I'm pretty sure I lost close to 8 pounds in the first ten days.  The exercises (once I put Earl the Evil Cat in the bathroom with the door shut) seem to be easy enough (assuming I am doing them right) and I only skipped a couple of days of exercise (I had good reason thank you very much).

Anyway, I went home to Asheville this weekend to participate in the Girls on the Run 5K with Maya's 3rd grade class.  She has been training for the race at school and Lisa, Sarah and I joined in as her "running buddies."  I didn't expect that I would be able to run the whole 5K (as I have NOT been training to run a 5K), but I figured I could run for a spell and then walk.  The 4 of us stayed together for about 5 seconds and then Lisa, Sarah and Maya left me in the dust.  Being Asheville and all, the course was quite hilly and so my pattern ended up being run down the hills and the straightaways as much as I could and walk up the hills.  I finished the whole thing in about 40 minutes.  Lisa, Sarah and Maya finished about 5 minutes ahead of me.  I felt pretty good about the whole thing.  Participating in the 5K made me feel a little less guilty about being totally off-diet for the whole weekend!!!  On Sunday evening after I got back to Atlanta, Lawrence and I walked for 3 miles, so I was definitely getting my fitness on this weekend!!!! 

I took Monday night off from exercise (I felt I was entitled) and then got back on the scale this morning and it looks like I didn't gain any weight over the weekend.  I am still maintaining my 8 pounds. I am going to do the first 10 day diet over again (staying as close to the 950 calories a day as I can) and then start on the next 10 day phase where my calories move up to 1200 per day.  I'll keep you posted.  So far so good.  Obstacles on the horizon are (1) Mom, Lisa, Sarah and Maya coming in town for a girls weekend - JeJu Spa and Disney movie planned and (2) next weekend in St. Louis for a graduation party.  I will likely be off-diet for both weekends so I will be struggling to be as good as possible during the work week so I don't fall off the wagon totally!!!! 

Conference Room C is a bit quiet right now.  It looks like we are winding down on this gig, but we still don't have a drop-dead date for when it will officially end.  It is both scary and exciting to think about what comes next (hopefully something will come next).  I will totally miss the Ladies of the Conference Room, but maybe we will do another gig together soon!!

That's all I have for now - not too too exciting, but I wanted to give a fitness update since I so rarely have any fitness to talk about!!!!


Maya before the race

 

All the Girls (Sarah, Lisa, Maya, Me) and Micah

 

Me and Maya

  

Before the race



No sign of me . . . . they left me in the dust. 



 

Maya chowing down on some oranges and water after the race



Dear Mom . . .

To the best and most beautiful mom in the world (then and now) -

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

I love you more than words can say!  Thanks for always putting me in pigtails and for loving and supporting me no matter what.


Yes, that's me wearing the bell bottoms standing up, with Mom

 

Lisa, Mom, Me

One of my favorite pictures of Mom, EVER

 

Me (in red), Lisa, Mom



Lisa, Mom, Me

Me (outside), Lisa, Mom and Granddaddy in the back

 

Just me and Mom



Me and Mom - Striking a pose

We still looking good, yo!!!!!

 And Happy Mother's Day to the rest of you moms out there too (and soon to be moms).  Love y'all!!!!