Nesting

...

I felt like these pictures needed to be introduced with nothing more than themselves. Normally nesting has this fabulous cozy quality to the word that makes me think of moving into our new house and getting ready for this babe. But now, I cannot hear 'nesting' and not shudder. Because this rodent has been nesting - under our dishwasher, just as I expected.


That's right, nesting. As in with the insulation from our dishwasher, 8 pairs of my underwear from out of my laundry basket (including one pair that was not mine...anyone missing some?), 4 or 5 socks, a shirt that I just wore this past weekend (ew recentness of rodent being in my laundry!), all the steel wool I kept putting back there, and elephant sized droppings!

Freshly vacuumed out with the fabulous Dyson wand and equipped with enough poison and large rat traps, we are praying to catch this thing and its family TONIGHT FOLKS. Stay tuned.

Updates

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming...

Let's just breeze through this rats' nest in our bed scandal okay? After all, we are still sleeping in this house and in this bed. Here's the skinny: One night a poor innocent pregnant lady was cooking dinner for her husband after working a 9 hour day, baking 2 dozen muffins and needing to pack for her 6 hour drive to a 22 hour course for work over the weekend [poor girl, I would not want to be her]. When she finally went to pack for the weekend, she pulled her bags out from under the bed and found stuffing on the floor behind them, looked up and found a dishtowel hanging from a hole in the box springs. She promptly sat down on the floor and sobbed. Her heroic husband and scared friend came to the rescue (armed with a BB gun). They upended the bed and found a nest of dishtowels and stuffing from all corners of the box springs formed into a nice little nest. They took solace in the fact that they had not heard said rodent in said nest in several weeks and prayed their way into a mostly restful night's sleep. THE END.

...we wish.

Then the same poor pregnant lady (you remember her, you pitied her earlier in the story) had in a frugal and organized fashion packed snack size zip lock bags for herself of her homemade chex mix for her long drive and 3 day conference; and put them in her purse on the guest bed with the door closed before having that restful nights' sleep. On her drive the next day she reached back to get one and...it wasn't there. None of them were there. Not chewed through with crumbs in the bag, just all taken out of the purse. By the rodent. UGH.

Then the exterminator came over. Again. Today. PRAY we have stories of death and destruction to tell next week!

Onto happier updates. Since that was enough drama for last week, our only other updates are of the house, and we will let those tell themselves in pictures.

Easter Saturday - April 11th

Footings Poured & Foundation Built

Monday, April 20th (after rain delay)

Floor Joists - Me in the middle of the house

Tuesday, April 21st (yes ONE day later!) - Framing of the 1st floor completed

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

This is the Emergency Broadcasting Network. This is not a test. We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this important announcement: The Bruces are incapacitated as they have just found the nest of the rodent. In their room. Under their bed. Technically. In their bed. In the boxsprings. Full of washcloths and other things to come. They are currently dismantling their bed and might be spending the night at a hotel. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming once the emergency has been resolved. Next week's news: the foundation for the house is up, we're into week 10 and the pea is now a fetus. Beeeeeeeep.....

Progress

progress(n): (a) a journey or expedition; (b) a forward or onward movement; (c) gradual betterment

We've got a whole lot of that going on around here folks. Definition (a) probably best describes our little piece of earth. Every time Terry and I walk the mile and a half to our new little piece of earth where things are moving right along, I feel like it's 1492 and I am Columbus sailing the ocean blue! (Thanks mom for that rhyme!) From our loft when we first got married to our rodent-infested house [yes, still infested. on this week's wanted list: flowers out of the bathroom, steel wool that we stuffed in another hole near the dishwasher, a dish towel stuffed behind that steel wool with many holes in it (see picture), and two - yes two - more pairs of my underwear, but I digress] to this new plot of land and building a house. This has been a definite journey and will continue to be an expedition.

Here is the untouched land - it looks so small to me, I kept wondering how they would fit a house on this (granted, it's not big, but still)

Then, they cleared the land on Thursday - oh that's where the house will go!

Then, they dug the footings for the house today. Progress folks, progress.

But that little piece of earth is not our only unchartered territory. So is definition (b) "forward or onward movement." This is how this little pea feels - or at least how we feel about this little pea. Moving forward and onward in life to what comes next, and for us now, this is family. Remember the manatee you saw at week 7? Well at week 8 (and 3 days) we got to see this.

It's okay if you can't tell what everything/anything is, we couldn't either at first. Head on the left, turned to the side and looking down. The dark empty spot is the brain (takes after its daddy!) you can see one little eye lid. The white spot is the heart, and then you can see little arm and leg buds. And that little white spot was pounding. 171 beats per minute loud and clear and music to our ears. And now we are moving through week 9 and things keep growing and changing - including my waistline which has added 4 pounds which I'm feeling when I button my pants!

(c) gradual betterment. This would be because of each other and the 2 years of being married that we just celebrated on Tuesday. Our marriage has definitely been that so far - the gradual betterment of each of us, of each other, and of our marriage - already great and getting better every day.

Here we are 2 years ago; and here we are this weekend

That's a whole lot of love, and a whole lot of progress.

The Mr.

Hello World!!! (I say that with tongue in cheek) I think there about 5 people that read our blog on a regular basis. It kind of feels like we are Vertical Horizon in the late 90’s and we keep coming back to Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem to same crowd, but it’s ok because we play for the love of the music.

This is my inaugural entry to our Blog, so I will try to make sense and not say anything stupid or my wife won’t let me on again.

I am writing to update on our Rat/Small Creature drama that we have been experiencing recently. Some of you know that we have been dealing with this devil rat for almost 2 months now. We have had fun experiences of late night screaming and jumping on the bed (it likes to wake us up in our room at 3:30 for some reason) finding that half our kitchen has been devoured and finding little presents all over the house. This mouse is truly amazing and I think they should make a movie about it.

Just imagine the strength of Mighty Mouse,
the appetite of Ratatouille
and the smarts of Jerry.

It has successfully survived every kind of trap that we have set, been unfazed by the poison that an exterminator left in the crawl space and attic. It has eaten a whole host of food products:

A whole loaf of bread
A whole bag of marshmallows
Hershey’s candy bar

Bag of coconut
Bag of walnuts
Container of pine nuts (do you know how much pine nuts cost?!)

Can of breadcrumbs

Sleeve of graham crackers

Packs of Gum
Not to mention chewed through the water hose of the fridge and used our underwear as its bed.

The Exterminator said that it was at least a Rat based on the foot prints, well much to our surprise they have gotten bigger. We can tell because it goes into the fire place or comes in through the fire place so it gets ash on its paws and then walks on the black tile around our fire place. Yesterday we were driving through our neighborhood and we saw a sign that said Lost Ferret, holy snikeys I hope that is not the creature that have been enjoying late night romps in our house! Even worse what if we find it one day caught it our giant Rat trap that would be a tough call to the neighbor…

Anyway if anyone has any ideas how to catch/kill/maim a rat that has Wake Forest type test scores please due share. Apparently my Appalachian education has failed me on this one.

In the mean time this has been the Mr. over and out.

Terry Michael Jerome Bruce.

Oh yeah, into week 8, doing well - doctor's appointment Friday, get to hear the heartbeat!

Week 6

The other night I said to Terry while trying to decide what to get at the grocery for dinner that week..."Oh do you know what sounds good?" He quickly and excitedly responded with "What, what? Is it a craving, are you having a craving?!" "Well no," I said, "but just something that sounds good that we haven't made in awhile." "Oh," he said, sounding very disappointed then quickly getting excited again, "I can't wait until you have cravings and need me to go get something random for you at 10:00 at night!"

He's serious, I love my husband for reasons like this.

And this:

He came home from working out at the Y to find me just having woken up from a nap, snuggled in bed reading. I'm reading Anne Lamott's "Operating Instructions" - a journal she kept during her son's first year. I love Anne Lamott. She is blunt and rude and inspiring and full of a hilarious but heart-wrenching faith. However, you should not read this book prior to getting pregnant. She kind of makes you not want a child. :) Anyway, Terry said he had brought home stuff to make me a treat. A homemade smoothie (yogurt, banana, strawberries and orange) - yum. It was delicious and...well, heart. He came home and made me a smoothie.

Mostly week 6 can be summed up by naps, morning sickness seems to be fading, and when I sent this 3D 6-week picture to Terry, he said, "Awesome! We are the proud parents of a manatee!" We love you little manatee!

The Reason

I know...I know...

Let's just skip all the stuff about us not blogging like we want to.

I guess I would say it's 50% because we are busy and have so much going on, and 50% because we don't really have anything going on. At least not a whole lot that is going to keep you (and us) coming back here for more to read every week. Mostly I started this so when we were pregnant or when we had kids we could keep up with all our big family all over the place all in one spot.

Well folks.

It's time.

Early, but time! That's right - baby Bruce is making an entrance on November 11th! We are 5 weeks and 3 days right now and so excited/totally overwhelmed at all the big changes coming up for the growing Bruce family as we break ground on our new house in 2 weeks and grow a baby for the next 35 weeks!

Pictures will start coming soon, for now I'm pushing through these rising hormone levels accompanied by some serious nausea. Can't really call it morning sickness since it lasts all day, what a misnomer! That and the fact that I'm already more clumsy - I know, as if that were possible...and it's only 5 weeks. I might need to start wearing some body armor or protective padding at all times!

Grow baby pea grow! We'll be back in a week with more news. Really this time.