Found it!

One of the freelance writing jobs I've done was to write a 1500 word short story - on anything. I was told it was to go into a book -- perhaps it will eventually, but I just came across the file on my computer and wondered about it. So, I did a google of the character names, and found it!

Since I don't actually own the copyright to it (even though my name is on it) I couldn't publish it here, but nothing says I can't link to it.

Won't you go read it?
You can rate it and/or leave comments if you feel like it.

I've never been good at fiction, but I was pleased with how this turned out.

It's called  Love 2.1

Better Mouse Trap - Easy Pest Control With Major Appliances

Original Use: Getting whites white, colors bright, and everything smelling fresh.
A-ha! use: Germ Free Mouse Killing

I am not a squeamish person. I'm not one of those women who squeal in fear at the mere sight of a mouse in the house. Or spiders, bats or snakes, for that matter. I just deal with them.

I am, in fact, the designated exterminator of the family. Have been for years. Not to disparage my husband - I am fairly certain that he, if it came down to it, could slaughter mice as ruthlessly as I. But, I do know that he once felt very badly for accidently killing a rabbit. Since I once drowned a chipmunk on purpose and it didn't bother me, I just take care of our little invaders, and do not insist that he kill anything.

If asked how many mice I've killed, I could not give an accurate answer. In my first 35 years, I could probably have given an answer using the fingers of one hand. Or even the fingers of one finger. But to count up the little mousy deaths that have been marked to my account in the ten years since we moved to The Big House In The Little Woods, it would take both hands and both feet, plus I'd have to borrow the hands and feet of a second person, and at least one hand of a third.

I have searched a long time to find the best method for doing in the persistent pests, preferably with a minimum of yuckiness.

The most laughable attempt was the idea I had for the mice who were infesting my downstairs pantry. I took a 2 liter soda bottle, taped it securely into place at a steep angle, with the opening at the edge of a shelf that they'd been very interested in. I'd smeared peanut butter around the inside of the mouth to lure them in, and the way I had it set up, I was sure they would not find their way back out. They did, leaving droppings behind as evidence of their cleverness.

Most disgusting was the clear plastic "mice cube" - it traps the mouse but does not kill it. So, the little guy (or gal) who can't get out again, is scared witless, and proceeds to urinate and defecate because he doesn't have anything else to do. The package that this trap comes in claims that it's re-usable, but in order to do that you either have to let the mouse out (so it can come back and play again, I suppose) or figure a way to kill it. I opted for the latter, by dropping it into a bucket of water. I think I heard it scream. And, after you kill the bugger, you still have to get it out of the trap, then clean it. And, after that, you find out you should have just tossed it in the trash, because after the terrified intruder has used it as his potty, even after you cleaned it out, no other mice are going to come near it. At least, that's how it worked (or didn't) for me. Too expensive to toss out, but useless to try and clean for re-use.

We briefly tried poison, because my kids were old enough to leave it alone and we have no pets to get into it. We stopped that after a mouse went and hid away and died, and got rather pungent before we could locate the remains.

I was a little fearful of wooden traps, because when I had tried them before, I hurt myself trying to set the stupid things. So, I tried some all-plastic easy-set traps. Baited with peanut butter, and set in place, I trapped precisely ONE mouse with that failure of a design. They are, indeed, very easy to bait and set, with no danger of finger-pinching at all. However, aside from that one anomalous death, which I suspect was a suicide, they absolutely fail to spring when the mouse goes for the bait. It's like a little mousie diner. They bring friends, stay for hours, order seconds of peanut butter....and they never leave tips.

Glue boards are another product I tried. If you place them right, they catch mice. You will find, stuck in the glue, a mouse. Dead? Not so much. Live, trapped mousies, desperate to escape, will do ANYTHING. I've had them drag themselves, and the glue trap, under shelving units, under appliances, into other rooms. Sometimes, the beastie will exhaust itself in the effort and just give up and die. Then the game is to find where it's got itself to before it gets smelly. Others, even more desperate, have gnawed off appendages so they could escape. One time, I found two in the same trap -- presumably the second came to offer moral support to the first, and ended up in the same predicament. I dispatched them quickly, despite their pleading looks. The glue traps are okay when used as suggested, but I've found a better way to use them. More on that in a bit.

Finally, out of desperation, I asked someone who had no trouble using wooden traps to show me how to set without losing a finger. It wasn't that big a deal after all, just takes a little patience. So, my trapping started to go better, which was good, because they were starting to drive me crazy and really get into things. But, what really worked best was when I combined the wooden traps with the glue board traps. I started placing them together - a wooden trap with one or two glue boards placed right up against it, depending on where it was located. A generous helping of peanut butter bait on the wooden trap, with a bit smeared on the glue traps as well, and the occurrences of stolen bait with no dead critters went way down.

Why does this work better than just one kind of trap alone? Simple - while the mouse is trying to avoid, or to escape, one trap, they're not paying attention to the other one. Trying to get close enough to eat the bait off the wooden trap, it gets a leg or tail stuck in the glue. Then, trying to
get loose from the glue trap, it springs the wooden trap, usually bringing a swift end to the whole thing.

No matter which method I use, it's a terribly germy affair, and afterward I feel a need for extreme disinfecting.

But, quite accidentally, I've found an astonishingly clean way to kill mice.

Recently, I was changing a load of wet towels from the washer into the dryer, and was rather startled to find a mouse lying at the bottom of the wash tub after the last towel was out. I realized that it must have gotten scooped up inadvertently, along with the towels, which had been lying in a pile next to the washer.

Poor little guy.
Death by drowning, I'd wager.
Though it could be that he was just...agitated.

Does this mean I'm a real writer now?

Just about two weeks ago, I got an email solicitation to become a writer for an online company. Careful - okay, suspicious - person that I am, I assumed it was a scam. But they weren't asking for money or any credit info. They just wanted my name and email, and a link to any online writing I had done. I did some googling to check out the company. The guy whose name was attached to the business looked legit, so I bit.

Within 24 hours, I got a reply saying they had set up an account for me, and that I should log in and see what was available. Also, I should take an assignment within two weeks. I did, and I did.

I looked around for at least a week, wondering if I'd find an assignment that I could understand. A lot of them required some technical know-how that I knew not. After a while, and still having some doubts, I found an assignment that sounded like something I could manage, and then I told my husband about the whole thing. He said that if I didn't think it was a scam, it sounded like it was worth a shot. I hurriedly claimed the assignment before someone else got it, and then set about getting it finished in the next few days, in amongst everything else. It was harder than I thought it'd be, but I got it done. Then I waited. Then, I asked questions about how long it takes to get paid. I groaned inwardly when the response said it can be up to several weeks. Had I fallen for a scam, after all? Although I'd checked it out as well as I could online, I still wasn't sure.

Now, I'm sure.

I got an email from Paypal today saying that I had received payment for the assignment. It's real! It's not a scam! Can you see my smile from where you are? I'm sorry if it blinded you.

I've taken another assignment that is supposed to be finished by Monday evening.

This isn't big bucks - most definitely little bucks. I received $50 for a minimum of 4000 words. This next one pays $20, but it's easier I think. The upside is, I can work on it when I want to, don't have to drive anywhere, and, I could work in my jammies if I wanted. I think I did, for part of that last one.

This is somewhat exciting to me. I got paid...to write. How incredibly, amazingly, awesomely cool is that?

So, I'm thinking...can I now legitimately change my profile so it says "freelance writer" rather than "wannabe writer"?

What say ye, oh readers? (All three of you!)

It's alive! Alive!

My refrigerator, that is.

There was some serious doubts about it this weekend

On Friday, I noticed that it seemed to be taking forever for the water in the ice cube trays to freeze solid. Everytime I checked, there was still water moving around inside them. And the ice in the bin was a bit...well, wet. And the cold packs (you know, the kind for headaches) were just really cold and not what you could call frozen. The freezer compartment was still quite cold, just not actually freezing. Well, it is probably close to 30 years old, and we got it third-hand from DH's brother, who got it from their parents.

As for the fridge part, the best I can say about that is that it was cooler inside there than it was in the kitchen. A bit.

All this when I've got people coming over bright and early on Saturday morning for a work party, and I'm making breakfast and lunch for a total of 11 people. Everyone took the dearth of ice pretty well. I stuck the juices in a cooler with ice packs (the kind for keeping food cold, which were kept in the deep freeze in the basement, and therefore actually frozen). So, Saturday went very well, and nobody seems to have gotten food poisoning from not-cold-enough food. Oh, and I also treated my fridge like a big cooler, by sticking some frozen water bottles (again, from the deep freeze) in and around the food. Worrying about what was wrong with the thing and what to do about it had to wait until Sunday. So, the work party was great. Friends who come to help with outside work that we just can't manage alone are simply wonderful. It's even better when they're enthusiastic about it! Nine big trees were cut down and didn't hit anything important, brush was mowed, rocks (small boulders) were moved, firewood stacked. A good and safe time was had by all.

Saturday night, as I lay (laid? lie?) in my bed, then the recliner, then the bed again, trying to sleep, I considered what to do about the fridge. DH's response when informed about its condition was to say that we're not getting another used one, and we're not buying a new one until we know what the kitchen is going to look like. (Did I mention that we've never actually built a kitchen in the house? No? We haven't. I'll have to write about that sometime.) So, great. It's been 10 years so far. Can I live without a fridge for the next ten? Peachy.

Then I had a big duh moment. I think I even heard Homer Simpson's "D'oh!" when it occurred to me that it had been maybe a little too long since I'd cleaned the coils. Like, about nine years too long. There it is again -- did you hear that?

So, on Sunday - I wasn't about to do it Saturday night when everyone else was asleep - I went about the job of cleaning the coils. Well, I tried. Then I remembered that the reason I had neglected it so long. The design of this appliance stinks. Rather than them being at the back, like the fridge my mom had when I was little, it has the coils in a little stack under the fridge, very hard to get to, and impossible to get a vacuum into to suck out the dust bunnies.

Well, I'd just recently purchased Flylady's dryer cleaning kit, and it was still in the box, because unlike the ladies whose testimonials get published in the Flylady emails (which I do get everyday, but usually ignore) I still fail to get excited about cleaning, even when it involves shiny new cleaning products. I thought it was worth a shot -- the kit had a vacuum attachment that was long, flexible and flat, which might do the trick.

It didn't. Grr.

So, I used the long, long thin brushy thing to shove in between the coils and loosen up what I could, pulling it out as far as it would come and using the vacuum to suck up whatever it could reach. It didn't seem much, but I really couldn't get any more to come out.

It took over 24 hours for it to recover, but recover it did. Ice froze. Food got cold. I don't have to keep perishables in coolers for ten years.

And, now, before it does actually give up the ghost for good, I'd better figure out what my kitchen should look like.

So, who wants to help me? Ideas, please?

All wrote out

At 2 a.m.-ish today, I finished a online writing job that I agreed to do on Wednesday. The company sure seems legit, so I checked with my husband first, and he thought it was worth a shot.

Woo-hoo! My first-ever paid writing. Fifty bucks for ten articles, 400+ words each, using specific keywords so that they'll show up on search engines. It was harder than I thought, but got easier toward the end.

Now, we'll see if they pay me. If so, I'll do more. I'm also learning something about online marketing while doing this, so maybe I can help DH's business out. Bonus points!

Let It Be

One of the few things I absorbed by osmosis during countless hours sitting in public school history classes was the phrase laissez-faire which, literally, means "let do" or in Beatle-ese, Let It Be. This laissez-faire thingy is the doctrine that says governments should pretty much just let well enough alone - more specifically, that it should not intervene in the marketplace, and just stay the heck out of our lives. Now, this is a form of government my little Libertarian heart could sign up for. It would preclude things like government takeovers of private companies. Oh, I am so sorry. Did I say takeovers? They're bailouts, not takeovers. For now, at least.

Anyway. Up until a week ago Sunday, I have had a laissez-faire attitude of sorts toward all things arachnid. I even had a stated policy, which was, "If a spider in my house is big enough to startle me, it must die." Otherwise, I just let them be. After all, spiders eat bugs, and anything that eats bugs that find their way into my house should be just fine by me.

So, what changed? One of my web-spinning houseguests decided to try a different dish.

Namely, me.

Truthfully, I have no idea when it happened. I just know that on Sunday morning, during Bible class, my arm started itching like mad in two places, and both spots were in Can't Get A Good Look At It Without A Mirror areas. I just assumed it was more poison ivy, which I have on one or more spots at any given time lately, since we're working on clearing out our woods. Annoying, but not a huge deal. Not life or death.

My daughter took a good look at my arm after worship service, and immediately pronounced them to be spider bites. There looked to be a total of about four - three in a cluster at the elbow, and one on the forearm. Each bite had two black dots, spaced exactly the same, in the center. Both areas were hot to the touch, very itchy, and beginning to swell. The area of inflammation on the forearm was much larger than the visible bite.

Since I didn't even know I'd been bitten at the time it happened, I had no idea what kind of spider got me. Or when it happened. Or where I was when it got me. I just knew it happened sometime before I started scratching my arm while trying to pay attention to what Franz was saying in front of the class.

When we got home, we looked up spider bites on the internet, and I began to freak out just a little when it turned out that the marks on my arm looked pretty much exactly like the pictures we found of brown recluse bites. Then, when I looked up info and pictures of the brown recluse spider, I found out they look exactly like spiders that we have ALL seen inside and outside our house. I had always thought that the brown recluse was tiny, and that those spiders, those really big spiders, that we sometimes come across look exactly like the photos of the brown recluse.

Peachy. Just peachy. I began to have visions of my arm being eaten away by the venom, just like in the photos someone was thoughtful enough to share online.

Well, we determined from what we found that a trip to the hospital would probably be futile, as all the message board discussion seemed to indicate that doctors would prescribe antibiotics in case of infection, but they couldn't do anything to stop the necrosis caused by brown recluse venom. We have our own natural antibiotics that we use for infection, so I didn't need to go for that. But what about the impending tissue death? My arm, by this time, was in a lot of pain, not just itching like mad. Actual pain. With hard, swollen lumps in the bite areas, hot to the touch. And the bites were beginning to develop into little craters.

As I started my downhill spiral into full-blown panic, my amazing girl went into full-blown herbologist mode. She found recipes in books and on the internet, for poultices to draw out the toxins. We already had what was needed. Yeah, we have a bunch of herbs, and tinctures, and alternative medicine stuff, and once I even successfully treated a case of pneumonia with what I've got, but when I'm the one who needs it, I can't think straight. When she leaves home, I'm done for.

We used a few different concoctions. One idea she got from a website selling a brown recluse bite kit. We had all the ingredients on hand (tinctures of lobelia, plantain, and echinacea, and some activated charcoal powder). Mix it up, smear it on gauze and tape it in place. It stung at first, from the alcohol in the tincture, but then it stopped, and it was soothing for a while. When the pain returned, I removed it and slapped on another poultice, made from some various herbs my daughter had ground up along with some flax seed. I mixed it with a bit of water and some of the tinctures. Again, it was soothing for a while, but then the pain returned. The third one I used was some chopped up plantain that I went outside and picked. I thought of that one on my own, because I've used plantain to soothe skin irritations on a few occasions.

For a few days I rotated those poultices, and also took some echinacea tincture by mouth, along with colloidal silver in case of infection. After a couple days, the bites stopped getting worse, and started to heal, and now I've just got some scabs, and a slightly tender area on the forearm. The end is in sight.

And so, the question remains: was I bit by a brown recluse? It's possible. But, whatever kind it was, I don't want another one of them to bite me, or anyone else in my house.

So, spiders: beware! My doctrine of laissez-faire has been repealed. You have all been declared to be enemy combatants in the war against domestic arachni-terror. No lawyers, no trials, no questions asked.

My new doctrine is: Stomp On Sight.

Consensus - A Very Short Story

Bella adored her garden.

And now, finally, after all these years, she could spend every day - every waking moment if she felt like it - tending to her flowers and vegetables.

Mud-encrusted knees moved cautiously between the plants that would soon be sprouting Hardy Boy tomatoes.

"Better get more canning jars at Save-Mart. We are going to have a bumper crop this year," she reflected out loud, reaching to one side to firmly push back down into the dirt the well-manicured index finger which peeked up through the soil to point accusingly at her.

"Oh yes – a bumper crop."


This very short story is a drabble - a form of mini-fiction consisting of exactly 100 words. Try your hand at it!

"And when they bring them out in my size, they look like clown shoes."

To whom should we attribute the above quote?

a) Ronald McDonald
b) Paris Hilton
c) ThatBobbieGirl

Give up?

No wonder -- it's a trick question.

Any shoes Ronald wears look like clown shoes, because, well, he's a clown. Or, rather, if you look closely at the latest incarnation of McDonald's spokesperson, she's a clown.

The correct answer, of course, is both b) and c).

While this article in the New York Daily News quotes Paris Hilton as making the above statement, I personally have said the EXACT same thing on a few occasions myself, when shopping in frustration to fit my gigantic feet.

So, is this mere coincidence? I don't think so.

More likely is that Paris Hilton is one of my biggest fans and always reads my blogs, and she was quoting me.

I must say, I am so flattered.

But, I hope she doesn't start stalking me.

Dead girl barred from prom

Found on FoxNews.com

The parents of a British teen, who died suddenly two months ago, received a disturbing letter from the girl's high school saying she needs to improve her attendance or can't go to the prom, the Manchester Evening News reported.

I feel for these parents. I can't imagine the pain of losing a child, but I do understand reminders of loss. Still, I think the fact that this made world news is a bit of an overreaction to something that was not done maliciously. It was a technical error. A real, but all too frequent excuse these days, because too many people who are using computers aren't smart enough to realize that the computers don't do what you want them to do -- computers do what you tell them to do. You have to be smart enough to realize what it is you're REALLY telling them.

Along those lines...I still get mail for my mom and dad, and they've been dead for 10 and 11 years, respectively. Some days they get more mail than I do. The best mail they get are offers for life insurance. It used to bring tears to my eyes, but now I just shake my head and toss 'em in the bin.

Occasionally, I've been quite tempted to apply for the offered policies on their behalf, and to include with the application a letter asking if this insurance will bring them back, or how can we collect, seeing as they've already passed on? Just to see what kind of a response I'd get, ya know?

But, they'd probably take it all seriously and I'd just end up getting in trouble for insurance fraud.

You Should Have Control Over Your Own Body

Yes, your body belongs to you. You have the right to control your body. So control it.

But, rights come with responsibilities. YOU are responsible for your actions, and for the consequences of the choices you make.

Control your urge to have sex that might result in a baby that you don't want.

Yes, it's a baby, not a "pregnancy."

Self-denial and self-control are not popular these days, but lack of these traits leads to much pain. You do not live in a vacuum. You bring troubles on yourself and those around you when you lack self-control and when you deny yourself nothing.

You have been lied to.

The sexual revolution told us that sex is separate from love, from commitment, from responsibility. If it feels good, do it. Don't concern yourself with how your actions affect anyone else.

Commitment has been cheapened.

You see what is going on around you, but you don't understand it. Why have kids started killing other kids? Why is euthanasia now considered anything other than reprehensible?

Because life has been devalued. How? By a ruling of the Supreme Court.

There is nothing more innocent than an unborn baby. Making it legal to kill a person who has never had a chance to do anything wrong demonstrates a societal belief that life doesn't really mean very much after all.

And we don't have to spell it out to our children. They get it.

Once they are old enough to ask what the word abortion means, and someone explains it to them, they understand that you could have snuffed them out before they were born. That sends a message, loud and clear, about the miniscule value the community places on a single human life.

From that point – from the time a society starts thinking that it's okay to dispose of unborn babies because they're unwanted or inconvenient -- it doesn't take a great leap of logic to decide it’s all right to start disposing of older folks for the same reason.

Or disposing of a fellow student because he picked on you.

Or disposing of your co-worker because he ticked you off.

As much as your body belongs to you, your baby's body belongs to her.

Its time to take responsibility for your OWN body and your OWN actions, so that another innocent life does not get sacrificed on the altar of convenience.

Don't make a baby you don't want to keep, love, and raise. And if you refuse to practice self-control, what makes it right to kill the baby that YOU made as a result of your failing?

Notice I didn't ask what makes it LEGAL, but what makes it RIGHT. They're not the same thing.

Where did you get the idea that you shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of your actions?

Perhaps, it was from the same ones touting the “if it feels good, do it” lifestyle?

They lied to you.

Every action results in a consequence. Sometimes, the consequences of sex, even so-called “safe” sex, is the creation of a human life.

If you make a baby that you do not want and cannot raise, how can you possibly justify depriving that child of life because of your "mistake"?

Let someone who wants a baby take her and love her. No, you probably won't know what happens to her. If that thought troubles you, make the necessary sacrifices and raise the child yourself.

No, it is not the most convenient or comfortable thing to nurture a baby to term when you don't intend to keep him or her.

And it’s not an easy thing to do - to give your child to another mother because you know you can't provide for her.

But it IS the responsible thing to do.