The Return of our Unwanted House Guests

Well, it seems as though the masked bandits have returned.  Yep, you remember those bandits that woke us up in the middle of the night, in fear that a burglar was on our roof?  Well, if you want to get technical, it was actually Chris who woke me up in what I assumed was a drug-induced trance.  But that's just if you want to get technical.  Moving on.

{ slightly dramatic?  probably, but this photo makes me laugh, and no, I didn't take it. Obviously. }

Late last week, around dinner time, I was in the kitchen and I swear it sounded like someone was walking around on our back deck.  I yelled to Chris and he dropped what he was doing to come out and listen for himself. Again, we heard distinct footsteps.

So what is my brilliant idea?  Turn on the back porch light and open the blinds so we can see the culprit! Luckily Chris had the common sense to stop me and suggest we go look from our upstairs window, with the burglar being none the wiser, of course.  The result?  Nothing out there, and since we had snow the past few days, it was clear that no one had been there, as there were no footprints in the snow.

{ side note - please tell me we are not the only ones that jump to the conclusion that we are being burgled every time we hear something outside our house?! }

Hm... strange.  Well, upon returning back downstairs, we heard it again, very clearly, followed by scratching/scraping on the side of the house.  Creepy!  We figured out that it was something under the deck (strange, as it is an enclosed deck).  Those darn critters had found an entry point somehow and were likely seeking the warmth of our house/basement.

This happened around dusk every evening for 2-3 nights, so we had to think of a solution.

We decided to take some advice we received, and put a camping lantern under the deck.  The only bad part was that Chris had to unscrew the panels from the side of the deck in order to get it under there.  All the while, I watched from the warmth of our house, fingers crossed that the raccoons wouldn't attack him!

Not to worry, though, he took his trusty baseball bat with him.  See it sitting on the railing up there?  Well, I really wish I had been recording his mission, because as he was unscrewing the panels from the deck, the bat fell onto the ground, and scared him so bad he nearly jumped in the window!  I was laughing uncontrollably by this point, which Chris did not find amusing.

Anyhow, he managed to get the light under there, and it seems to have done the trick.  No more scratching around under the deck.  I wonder where they will pop up next...

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly...

It is my intent with this blog to keep the content upbeat, lighthearted, and fun.  In my everlasting quest towards self-growth, I am trying to become the person who embodies this quote:

It is easy to be happy and optimistic when things are going well, but when the going gets tough, how can we grow and become stronger, more resilient human beings?  Well, my friends, this is probably one of the biggest challenges I face, but I have faith that I will get there eventually.  In the mean time, I am growing through every attempt at achieving this.

What is the point of all of this?  I think, in addition to the funny and exciting adventures, it is important to also share the struggles.  It is easy to look at others and think they have it so easy, they have the perfect life.  But in reality, everyone faces hard times, and I think (I hope!) that these commonalities can truly bring us all closer together... if we let them.

The past few months have been a quite tough for us, and in an attempt to add a bit of humor to this post, I will share a story with you that might have a really cheesy metaphor or two involved.

Last night, I was home alone (Chris was still in Philly), and I decided I was going to tackle the paint job in our downstairs half bathroom.  We had a few different colors painted in stripes on the wall, and Chris and I had both agreed on our favorite color for the space.  So, I did all of the prep work, changed into my "painting clothes," and opened a fresh can of paint. 

{ this is obviously not our small bathroom, but it is  the color we chose to paint it. what do you think? }

It was difficult working in such a narrow small space -- it is a half bath, afterall... but I managed to get a nice first coat on, and had moved on to the tedious part of painting around the crown moulding.  This required me standing on the small countertop, and once I had covered the area with its first coat, I gracefully (at least that's what I keep telling myself... gracefully...) took a big step down to the floor from the counter, small paint jug and paintbrush in hand.  

For those who don't know me, I am known to be a bit clumsy (In fact, Chris calls me clumsy clogs. Charming, I know..), and although I landed just fine, my momentum pushed me backwards just enough to knock me off balance.  Luckily the bathroom is small and the toilet was right behind me (lid down), so I allowed myself to fall backwards onto the toilet, putting all of my concentration on not spilling the paint.  I was pleased with myself for about three seconds for not spilling, before I noticed that the toilet had quite literally, sprung a leak. 

I started freaking out, grabbing towels from the laundry room (which did little to stop the several inches of water that were accumulating in the small bathroom), and realized that I had no idea what to do.  Now, I pride myself on being good in a crisis, I can usually figure it out.  But I had no idea how to stop the water from pouring out and I literally lost it. I was definitely not 'dancing in the (toilet water) rain...'

Now here's where my cheesy metaphor comes in.  I had spent the past few months 'holding it together' through some stressful times, and right along with that toilet, my cool, calm and collected wall, had cracked. The tears flowed more dramatically than the leaking toilet and I frantically called Chris, though I knew he was two hours ahead and likely already asleep.  Voicemail.  So I called my always-good-in-a-crisis Dad. Despite being in a board meeting (so embarrassing!), he answered and somehow deciphered what the problem was through my frantic sobs.  He told me how to turn the water off behind the toilet (I know that I should already know how to do this, but I didn't. I do now...), but despite turning the water off to the toilet, it was still spraying everywhere.

So my Dad told me to go grab my (law enforcement) neighbor for help.  This next part is even more embarrassing because I am pretty sure I had mascara running down my cheeks right along with those tears, but my neighbor happened to be playing with his young daughter in the front yard.  To make a long story a bit shorter, he came to my rescue and figured out that the tank on the back of the toilet had popped a screw (bolt?) and that was allowing the water from the tank to come out the bottom.  Several towels and one flower vase full of water later, the water had stopped.  

My neighbor assured me that that was what neighbors were for, before giving me a hug and wishing me luck with the rest of my paint job.

Well, the painting was just going to have to wait because I had no energy or motivation to continue with that for the rest of the night, and I had a lot of cleaning up to do first anyway.  I managed to collect myself and do damage control -- cleaning up all of the water (using every last towel in the house), toss the towels into the washer and throw myself in the shower before I crashed into bed.

Tomorrow's a new day, right?  Wrong.  Chris texted this morning to tell me that the return flight I booked for him to return from Philly was accidentally (by me!) booked for September 18th, not today.  Wow.  I feel the rest of that wall coming down sometime in the next 24 hours... 

Praying for sunshine today... I am not sure I am capable of dancing in the rain right now...

An Unexpected House Guest...

Okay, so this morning, around 3:30am, I got a bit of a surprise.  I woke up to Chris turning off the fan in our bedroom (this is a constant battle with us - I like it on, he likes it off!), and I figured he was trying to be sneaky by turning it off when he thought I was sleeping. 

I sleepily asked him what he was doing and he responded, "I need you to get up quietly."  

{ Let me back up slightly to explain that Chris sometimes takes sleeping tablets on occasion due to insomnia.  Well, he took one last night and sometimes they make him a little loopy if he stays up and tries to chat after he has taken it. This usually offers some good laughs in the process. So I figured the following conversation was just loopy, drug-induced nonsense and was trying my best to ignore it and fall back to sleep. }

I ignored his request for me to 'get up quietly,' and repeated my question, "what are you doing?"

"I might have to go up on the roof." Followed by him walking to the corner of our bedroom and kneeling down to peek under the blinds of our window.

"Okay, crazy, you took a sleeping pill last night remember? " Followed by me making a concerted effort not to fall back to sleep in case he really did make it up onto the roof, knowing that could be all kinds of dangerous.

"Sarah, there is someone, or something up on the roof. Listen."

I will admit that even this didn't make me snap to attention because I really did think Chris had lost his mind.  So I just closed my eyes and pretended this wasn't happening, willing myself to fall back to sleep.

Finally, Chris stood dead still in our room and it was then that I heard it, too: heavy, creaky steps moving around above our (2nd floor!) bedroom.  

And just like that, I was awake and alert.  Chris wasn't crazy, there really was something on our roof, and it sounded way too heavy to be an animal.

"Chris, what do we do?"  

"Come on, let's get out to the car."  So I followed my baseball-bat-carrying husband down the stairs ever so quietly, so as not to disturb the axe murderer on our roof.

"Should we call 9-1-1?" Chris innocently suggested.

It wasn't until we pulled out of the drive to get a better vantage point of the roof (hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time), that we noticed our law enforcement neighbor's garage door was open.  At 3:30am.  VERY suspicious.  Now we were really worried.

"Okay," I agreed, "let's call 9-1-1."

I am pleased to report that the local police arrived within about 2 minutes of us placing the call, and it must have been a slow night because before we knew it, three patrol cars were creeping up the cul-de-sac with their lights off.  One of them hopped out of the car and started off towards our side gate, where the friendly neighborhood cat, Louie, greeted him in true Louie fashion.  (despite our fears, this made us laugh, because this cat is literally everywhere!)

A few minutes later, the officer came over to our car and told us the news.

"You have a hole on the back of your house where the wall meets the roof, and I think you have a raccoon in your attic." 

A hole?  What?  We haven't noticed anything!  How could we have missed it?

{ what raccoons look like in Chris' imagintion. }

We waited for a few minutes while the other officer attempted to wake our law enforcement neighbor to make sure everything was okay.  When we got the green light, he walked us around to the rear of the house and pointed out the hole.  It appears to be the place that the attic gets ventilated (do attics get ventilated? I have no idea... but that's what it looks like..). It appears as though said raccoon pried it open to get inside.

{ what raccoons look like in my imagination. }

My question... how in the world did the raccoon get all the way up there?  Those things are like ninjas!

{ did it climb the gutter up, or simply scale the side of our house? }

Looks like it's going to be a coffee day, as I was unsuccessful at falling back to sleep after all of this excitement.  

Hopefully we can get rid of this sucker later today, because... what's the saying? Three's a crowd, raccoon.  Three's a crowd.