"Most Likely to Succeed"

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a good holiday season. Ours went remarkably well this year – no illnesses, everyone likes their gifts and we were able to hang out a lot with family and friends, but still had plenty of time to just relax.

The new excitement this year is the kitten we are babysitting for a friend. She just arrived two days ago, so she and our cat are still trying to adjust to each other, but no fur has flown yet. I think that is a good sign.

Anyway, at the end of the first day Puka (“Pooka” – it is Hawaiian, but I don’t remember for what), was very tired. She is a sociable cat, which our cat is not, so my kids were thrilled to have a pet that actually wanted to play. I helped her find her bed, which she happily flopped down in.

Our ten-year-old Aspie hurried over to the piano and began picking out the sweetest rendition of Brahms Lullaby. He has never played the song before, never even seen music for it and has only been studying piano for a little over a year. He may struggle in some areas, but music is not one of them! It was so sweet to see him sharing his gift.

My husband and I had a wonderful time this past Sunday at dinner and a show in quaint Excelsior, MN - it’s my parents’ annual gift to us adult kids.

The show was cute, cheesy, funny, and had a surprisingly good message. The main character, Opal, believes the best in everyone, always. And in the end, she wins out.

At first I thought, well, that was a cute ending to the show. But then I realized, that is what God has asked of me: to always believe the best in those he has in my life to love. And that is what He has promised me: I will win out in the end if I follow that way.

I’ve got a long way to go, but it sure was a fun way to be reminded of where I should be heading.

Thanks, Opal!

A blogging mom that I follow had this on her list of things she’s lovin’ today: Seeing maturity in my kids.

Just this morning I was feeling like life is finally more fun than frustration, more peace than chaos. Some of it is due to my better listening to God, but a lot of it is due to the little people in the house starting to grow up.

Oh, there is still a long way to go for them, and me, but I sure am lovin where we are!

My husband said the show hit too close to home to watch. So I never caught any of it last year. But last week, it came on just as another show we had been watching ended. So I thought I’d give it a try.

Wow, after 3 minutes, it had to go off – it was that good! The show, “Parenthood,” has captured perfectly what it is like to parent a boy with Asperger’s syndrome. Anyone interested in experiencing my life, tune in.

However, as my husband and I generally watch TV to relax and escape from reality for awhile, that show is not for us.

But I am so glad that show is out there. Kudos to the creator’s of, “Parenthood.” You have done well!

The mouse warning system just went off tonight. I noticed that the cat was extra interested in the space under the sink today – I noticed the cupboard door open several times, and only she leaves that door open. It is warped from decades of splashing sink water, so doesn’t close tightly. With just a few swipes of the paw, she can get in.

Her food is in that cupboard, but strangely, she never gets into it. However, that is a favorite spot for visiting mice to stop. She smells the mice, and, “Pop!” goes the door. I wished she would catch the mice. When we first took her from my sister’s farm as a half-grown fuzzball, she was quite the mouser. But after several years of good food, she now likes to watch mice, but has no desire to catch them. The last time she tried, the mouse stood up to her and nipped her paw – that was the last time I have seen her get near a mouse.

But sometimes the cat just misses her gallivants in the basement rafters so opens the cupboard door in hopes that the board that my husband erected has been removed from the opening at the back of the cupboard that led to her basement playground. Did you get that? The back of the cupboard was open to let the plumbing from the dishwasher get to the sink plumbing. The openings in the floor for the plumbing is so large that the cat could slip through the back of the cupboard and under the dishwasher to the basement rafters. She loved crawling around up there. You could always tell where she had been from the spider webs in her whiskers, and the musty, coolness emanating from her fur.

However, we had to put a stop to the fun, when she became heavy enough that she was falling through the drop ceiling panels. She never got hurt, but it tiring replacing panels. Also, I was worried that she would drop a panel and herself on an unsuspecting visiting scholar that we host every fall in our basement bedrooms! So the hole at the back of the cupboard was boarded up. But the space around the pipes is still the size of a mouse freeway.

So I have more reliable alert system in place. Under the sink, I have an unset trap with peanut butter on it. Every so often I shine a flashlight beam on the bait holder to check on the peanut butter. The past several checks have shown a full dollop still there. Tonight, licked clean!

I used to be very good at setting mouse traps – I spent a week one summer trapping rodents in the Superior National Forest along with several other biology students. Every morning we would go out and set traplines of, yes, mouse traps. After lunch we would check the lines we had set the day before. However, now that I have a husband, I must say, I have gotten soft. I put some peanut butter back on the trap, and he just went down to set it – thanks, Hon!

Here’s hoping there is something dead waiting for me tomorrow morning…