WHAT'S NEW

• Jeff and I have been in a nesting frenzy the last few weeks. I'm starting to feel that China is not too far off and want to get things finished up around here. Why I HAVE to varnish a bench on the front porch BEFORE Ava gets here I have no idea, BUT I HAVE TOO! =)
• I've been starting to look at the big ticket items for Ava (stroller, car seat, etc). I walked into a Babies*R*Us the other day and within minutes turned around and left. I was completely overwhelmed....Like I was a first time mom without a clue as to what I needed.
• Tried to hire someone to put new decking/railing and add stairs down to our pool on our existing (rather small) deck. The estimate came in at $12,000.....Yeah, BITE ME!
• Please tell me why in this crappy economy when so many people are out of work....You can't find anyone that wants to pick up any odd jobs around the house??!!
• The Quilt Lady is going to town on Ava's quilt. She wasn't able to work on it until now because she had surgery. I saw it the other day and I must say, it's going to be AMAZING!
• It cost me $100 to put gas in my car the other day and it wasn't completely full. Grrr.
• I had actually came close to filling out paperwork to foster animals. When the four dogs and four cats were looking up at me for breakfast the other day, I decided against it. Peaches says, "We're already doing our part." He's right.
• One of Jeff's patients thought I was his daughter yesterday. Yes, life IS good! =) I want to also add that she was only in her 50's, so don't think her eyes were bad or she was senile!
• I've gained back 5 pounds and need to get back on my diet. That darn ice cream place on the corner is now open AND selling Cake Batter Ice cream to boot.... It's been the death of me!
• I'm really hopeful that the July batch of referrals will be a nice number of days worth. It's getting exciting because so many of my blogging pals are SOOOO close to getting their referrals! I'm really hoping that December is our month.
• Another Michigan family is in China right now and just got their beautiful Elizabeth yesterday. Click here for a link to their blog.

I'M SCARED TO LOOK IN THE POOL

Our pool has been open for just over a month now. I had NO IDEA when we became pool owners that we would be fishing out all kinds of little creatures from the pool....Some alive and others not so fortunate. Every morning I take a quick look out the window to see if anything might be swimming (or floating) in the pool. I then walk down to the pool and peek into the little hole of the skimmer bucket to see if anything is floating around in there. Yesterday, there were two frogs in there. One was still alive, the other croaked (no pun intended ;). Then, I looked at the bottom of the pool and saw THIS crawling around.......A cray fish! Peaches had to dive in last night to pull him out of the pool. Thank goodness this little guy made it out okay.....And that Peaches already had a full stomach!

A couple weeks ago I found something that looked like THIS in the skimmer. He was not so lucky and I was pretty freaked out. I didn't know we had these guys in Michigan!!!

I've lost track how many frogs I've pulled out of there. More dead than alive. Very sad. I think the frog population is really dropping off in my neck of the woods.

We have lost three mice to the pool so far this summer. The third one was pulled out this morning. I was able to save one little mouse a couple of weeks ago. Poor little guy was so tired and probably was just minutes away from drowning. I'm so happy I looked out the window when I did. I think he was pretty happy too.

Just when I was dumping the remains of the lizard looking thing, I turned around and saw a baby red squirrel swimming in the pool!! Thank goodness, I was able to get him out. I wouldn't have wanted to find him in the bucket. He was such a cute little guy.

I know it's just a matter of time before we have a snake in there. I saw one the other night near the pool and made Peaches carry him off to the woods. I. Don't. Like. Snakes. I really think I might see if Peaches can set his alarm a few minutes early in the morning so that he can be the one on skimmer patrol.

PLOP PLOP FIZZ FIZZ OH WHAT A RELIEF IT IS

That was the jingle my husband was chanting when I checked my cell phone messages yesterday. We have been stressed. Really. Stressed. Work related kind of stressed. The kind that starts at work, but you end up bringing it home stressed. The kind that you can't sleep at night because you realize that you're making a bad business decision kind of stressed. The kind that make you sick to your stomach and produces hives stress, but you feel some kind of obligation, although everyone tells you that you shouldn't kind of stressed. The kind of stress that you pray will just go away.....And it DOES!!! Just. Like. That. The bonus in the whole thing.....It was a relief for all involved. Life is good.

JUNE REFERRALS

UPDATE: It looks like I jumped the gun on the 10 day batch. I guess I should learn after all this time that it's not over until the fat lady sings or in this case, the CC**AA updates their secret hidden box. The cut off this month is January 20, 2006.....It was an 8 day batch instead of a 10 day batch. Too lazy to change it on the school bus (BTW, the bus was in honor of the last day of school yesterday). We have 47 days to go..........