Damn Mice

I have a LOT to do today.

The sun is shining, it's SO gorgeous out. The house needs to be cleaned, of course, laundry done, and sugar snaps need to go into the ground. I want the yard cleaned, I want the everything done, and I start my day each day multitasking- poking the blog with a sharp stick, returning blog comments and catching up on hops and coffee, while nursing the baby for a marathon hour long session.

It's what we do, each day. Not today. Today I settled into the couch with a steaming cuppa only to see the dreaded yellow exclamation point over my internet connections.

At this point I have to marvel at how far I've come in the last two years. While not completely and totally tech savvy, I can work around a router and modem with no assistance. A quick glance at the cords behind the modem revealed the problem: A mouse had EATEN the damn cord down to the copper.

I'm at my wits end with these things already. I've killed over a dozen since we've moved in. I've tried peppermint oil, potato flakes, and snap traps, with various degrees of success. We live in a half double, and so, we need the mice to be gone from both sides of the house. I'm loathe to bring it up to the neighbors, I really like them, and there are five or six things I'd like to mention to them, the biggest being the mice situation.

*big, deep, sigh*

How does the conversation go? Is there a good way to bring this up? "Excuse me, Lovely Mr. Neighbor Whom I Adore for NOT playing Guitar Hero at 3 AM while Smoking Pot Like My Old Neighbors, Do you by any chance happen to have a rodent problem? Because you're sharing it with me, and I don't want to put down poison and accidentally kill your cat that moans outside my front door in the cold."

Ugh.

I guess the point of this is, if I promised you a visit to your blog or a vote in your contest or an entry in your giveaway, I'm about twelve hours behind, and I'll get there before too long, I promise.

And if you have any ideas on how to execute a rodent mass murder without harming plants, animals, children, the ozone, or small orphans in a far off country without child labor laws, I'd be glad to hear them.

What I want from you as a blog reader.

Dear Bloggers,
I don't really feel I rank among you as of yet. In fact, I'm totally amazed at the amount of people stopping by...even if I am totally promoting the living daylights out of this thing.

I read a lot of what you guys write-I look at your amazing blog designs with greedy eyes and wish I had an eighth of your talent.

But I have a wish list. A big, long one. As I sit here thinking of cute and clever ways to say dog shit for my next post. (Seriously, anybody got anything?) I'm visiting blogs and returning comments.

I'm amazed at the amount of things that don't work. Buttons. All the time, buttons. I WANT to like you on facebook. I want you to like me on Facebook. I want a giant like fest. I'd love to follow you on twitter, unless you tweet four hundred links to all your reviews every day and don't return the follow love.

What I don't want is to hit the button twelve times and have it not do anything because it's not configured properly. I've done this. It's embarrassing, I know. But still, I would want someone to tell me. So, I'm telling all of you. Please. Go click all your buttons.

Set up your contests so that I can enter them. If you post on a hop, and I see you've got a contest, I'll enter it. And if you've got extra entries available, I'll do them. I figure, I'm helping you out, and Karma might be good to me. Please don't tell me to "like" something and not leave me a link to whatever it is. I only search once, if I can't find it within the first scroll, I move on. Less comments for your giveaway.

Write original stuff. Or semi original, or quasi original. Or maybe even just a note about the content that you are linking too. I want to say something nice to you. I do. A list of links doesn't help that process.

Yeah, I still can't think of a nice way to say dog shit. This is just getting embarrassing.

Well, blog hoppers and friends, wish me luck. And go check your buttons. I'll be watching.