Thursday, May 28, 2009

Chipmonk

To begin: Why are all my recent posts centered around rodents? I would love an answer to that question. Oh wait....I know why....I LIVE IN THE BOONIES.

Moving On.

This epic story began Sunday morning, just before church. I was inside with the dog, the cat had already escaped outside. I opened the door to let the dog out and found myself standing on the front porch shrieking as the cat chased a CHIPMONK into my house. The dog of course followed, while I stayed on the porch...still shrieking...by myself. Picturing it? Yes, I am an idiot.

Well, before I even got my act together to run inside and at least find out where the blasted rodent had gone, the dog chased the cat back outside...no sign of the chipmonk. One questions: WHAT KIND OF HUNTERS ARE THEY!?!?!?! My dog and cat stink at the whole "stalking their prey" thing. So, I was left to go inside, having no idea where the chipmonk had gone. It literally could have been anywhere.

I had about 10 minutes before I had to leave for church, so I quickly glanced under the sofas and behind the piano...the most obvious places I could think of. I did NOT, however, check under the sofa chair that sits in the corner. Mostly because there was no way to look under it without fully tipping it over, and I surely wasn't going to do THAT to let the thing escape and run upstairs and hide in my bed (which is clearly what it would have done.) I left the door open during all this hoping that maybe it would miraculously find it's way outside on its own. I didn't find it, before I had to leave for church....so I just left.

Got back Sunday night....no sign of the chipmonk, the dog and cat weren't going crazy or anything, so I assumed that maybe it had in fact run out while I had the door open earlier in the day.

Friends came over for a cookout Monday evening. My dear friend Erin stayed late, and as we were sitting on the couch chatting at about 10:30 that evening, I heard rustling and scratching from....you guessed it, the sofa chair in the corner. I calmly looked at Erin and said, "The chipmonk is still in my house." She graciously agreed to help me out. So we set about devising a plan.

Our step-by-step thought process:
  • How do we know the chipmonk is actually under the sofa chair? We need to find out.
  • But if it is, and we tip the chair back, it's free to run anywhere in the house....therefore, we must contain it. How do you contain a chipmonk?
  • You build a SWEET FORT! That's right, we built an awesome barricade using plywood, coffee tables, end tables, boxes....you name it, and blocked off from the wall where the sofa was to the front door....so it was contained in the fort until it ran outside. Brilliant eh?
  • We didn't want to open the door until we knew it was there....so Erin in her infinitely genius wisdom figured out how to open the front door with a broom handle while still standing OUTSIDE of the fort. Erin....hats off to you my friend.
  • I patted down the curtains for good measure to make sure it wasn't there, then tipped back the chair. We didn't see it, so Erin came over to help me tip the chair alllllll the way back and pat it down with the broom. Still no sign of it.
  • We concluded we had been hearing things.
  • Erin began tearing down our fort (don't worry, we got pictures), and I righted the couch and began sliding it back into the corner when all of the sudden.....
The Chipmonk appeared out of nowhere right at my feet!!!! I screamed (again....are we sensing a pattern when I'm faced with rodents?) and yelled for Erin to get the door. Well she had a choice to make: fix the fort that she had started tearing down so it didn't escape, or open the door. She fixed the fort, but the door stayed closed, so it ran to the door, and promptly ran back to the couch.

We finally opened the door, I grabbed the broom, found the little guy hiding behind the couch (not under or in it again...he was too tired...and probably pretty close to a heart attack) and began sweeping him to the door. He tried to climb the plywood and escape to the kitchen, but I swept him down and out the door!

Hallelujah.

Let me just say....I don't like rodents. Period. Erin made me promise not to scream during this entire ordeal. I asked her "what if it climbs my leg?" She agreed that then I would be allowed to scream. Well...given that leeway, I screamed every time the curtain touch my foot or leg. I thought Erin was going to choke me.

Alas, the chipmonk is gone, and I can sleep peacefully knowing that the only animal I'll find in my bed when I wake up the next morning is my stuffed Owl. (Okay, I don't really sleep with a stuffed owl....but I do have one.)

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Raccoons

Another story courtesy of camp...

Took trash to the dumpster yesterday.  As I pitched it in, I noticed that as it landed, something moved in the dumpster....and looked up at me with beady little eyes.  Yep.  A raccoon.  Go figure.

Normally I hate raccoons.  All they do is cause destruction and spread grossness due to their ripping apart of trash bags and strewing about of garbage.  However, I'm not going to lie.  In this case, I felt kinda bad for the poor little guy.  Why?  Because the dumpsters had been recently emptied, so now that he's in there, he's going to be waiting until garbage piles high enough that he can get himself out.  Basically....he's stuck.  And I'm NOT going in there to get him.

The end.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

On trusting

Confession. I'm a planner...and when I don't know the plan I get impatient. I am an impatient planner. And while I'm impatiently waiting for the plan....I worry about the plan that I haven't even heard about yet. I know....pretty ridiculous eh?

I'm learning a truth that is new to me these days, and it is this:
I don't need to know the plan. And even when I don't know the plan, I can still be at peace.

How?

Because God knows the plan. In fact, He is the author of the plan, and the one who carries it out (Hebrews 12:2). He's known the plan in its entirety from the beginning of time and nothing is going to stand in the way of it's completion (Ecclesiastes 3:9-14). Not even me. Not my worrying, not my compulsive efforts to plan out my life....nothing.

So do I just sit back and do nothing? No. I still pray, listen, and take steps....but the fear that accompanies worry is gone!

That's the new reality I am beginning to learn.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." ~Hebrews 12:1-2

"What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him." ~Ecclesiastes 3:9-14

Monday, May 4, 2009

Success!

This past Saturday, I ran the Indy Mini! Woohoo! It was 13.1 miles, and my friend Sarah and I ran all but 2miles...maybe a little more that we walked. It was so great. I had 2 goals going into it: 1. Finish and 2. Don't get forced to ride the bus (they have a bus that you have to ride if you can't keep pace.) And we did it!

There were 35,000 people there running and walking with us. It was incredible! We saw so many different people:
  • Father and son (I saw these 2 with matching shirts. On the back it had their names, and on the dad's it said "20th mini" and on the son's it said "1st mini." How cool is that?
  • Firefighters. We saw groups of firefighters in full gear: masks, hats, boots, air, and everything. It made me wonder if they were completing the mini in memory of someone or just to build community among their team.
  • A group of teenage girls dressed up as ninja turtles (AWESOME)
  • An older man running, and pushing his wife in a wheelchair.
It really was an incredible experience. There was also just a great sense of community among the runners. Obviously the people at the front of the pack were the seasoned runners, able to finished in just over an hour. So many of them, after they had finished running, came back out and lined the course to cheer everyone else on. There was one girl in particular that was so great! We were 1/2 mile from the end and were taking a short break before we finished running. She saw us from the side and started cheering for us by name (our names were on our Bibs) and encouraging us to keep going and start running. So cool that someone who had probably finished a good hour before us took the time to come back and cheer her fellow runners on.

I know I asked myself many times if I was crazy for doing this....and to be perfectly honest, yea I think I kind of am. But I really did enjoy it, and am excited to keep working and hopefully run again next year and set and accomplish some new goals!