Snakes in a House

Oh lordy ~ what a day.

Last night my om called me, in a full blown panic attack. She was sitting on her screened in porch when she heard the slither of a very large snake across the ceiling and the vent above her head.

Let me just say at this point, my mom is categorically TERRIFIED, PETRIFIED, PHOBIC of snakes. She has been battling snakes outside for a while now. She claims to have seen a 7 foot snake in the yard recently. Quite frankly, I’m surprised she hasn’t moved yet, that’s how scared she is of snakes.

So now she hears this snake slithering around above her head. She then realized that there is a heating vent in the wall of the living room that has never gotten repaired after a bout of remodeling. Now she’s CERTAIN the snake is going to climb down the wall and out the hole and … well who knows what. Safe to say, she’s not going back in the house.

Luckily it’s not the middle of winter, and her porch is quite nice, and not really a bad place to be. She calls me and wants to know what she should do.  Hell if I know. I wanted to tell her she should have let my husband kill the damn snake when it was still outside.

Here’s the thing about my mom.  It’s something I love and admired about her, and yet the same thing that makes me not understand her at all. She wouldn’t let any harm come to the snake. We couldn’t just kill it and be done with it. Noooo, one of nature’s creatures, it must not be harmed.  I get that, really I do. However, for the entire spring she was afraid to leave the porch because the snake was living under it, and at times would enjoy climbing the screen, just to remind her he was there. Now she can’t leave the go in the house because the damn snake’s inside! So the snake is all kinds of happy and my mom is a prisoner in her own home. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

So today she is supposed to be coming over to look online for some good snake traps. They have apparently picked up these little glue trap things and I don’t know how well that’s going to work for this big of a snake.

Oh I forgot to mention ~ we kind of thought she was exaggerating about the size of this snake. However, my husband redid her roof after a particularly bad hail storm, and when they pulled the sheeting off the roof he found not one, but two huge snake sheds. He said the bigger one was at least 7 foot. So this means that snake as been up there all along ~ and there are TWO 7 foot snakes running around over there, or the snake has been coming and going at will, living a happy life in her attic. Either way sucks.

So back to the trapping. These little glue traps are like a pizza box with a strip of glue on them. The snake slides in and gets stuck. Then I guess you  spray the snake with Pam and it can loosen itself off to be released (and come right back ~ oops did I say that?). I think this snake is way to big for that ~ but they’ve read somewhere you can get a piece of plywood and put a few of these traps together to make a bigger trap. oh who knows.

There’s a site we found online that has “live traps” for snakes. They’re pretty similar to live traps for any other animal, but they have a funnel instead of a door so they can’t get back out.  They have a variety of sizes of traps. The biggest one is the only one that will fit the supposed size of this snake ~ and it’s $150!

WOW ~ as a marketer ~ I get to thinking, this is a desperate market ~ those who are terrified of snakes and have one in their yard or house and NEED to get rid of it. hmmm. . . that gets me thinking ~ anyway ~ I digress.

So I don’t know what’s going to happen, I talked to her this morning, and she sounded exhausted. Hopefully this problem will find a resolution soon, I’ll let you know how it goes ~ if you have any hints I’d be glad to pass them on.

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Hanna’s First Fishing Trip

What you have to know about our “family” before I tell you this story is my husband and I love to fish, but we are TERRIBLE at it! lol. We fish and fish and fish and very rarely catch anything ~ which is why we really haven’t even gone in years.

For Hanna’s birthday my mom got her a fishing pole of her very own, so she was excited to go fishing.

We went to the pond of a neighbor farmer today, and the first cast Ryan (the husband) threw out, he caught a nice sized bass. That’s a GOOD sign.

We proceeded to catch a nice catfish, and another small bass ~ that Hanna reeled in. Then as she was reeling in for the last time a nice little perch jumped on her hook, so she reeled that one in on her own pole.

What a fun fun afternoon ~ minus the gnats that were eating us alive. Here’s Hanna and her first catches ~ maybe she’s gonna change our fishing luck from here on out ~ wouldn’t that be great?

Hanna’s First Fish

Hanna’s Second Fish

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Multitasking is BS

It’s really interesting how the world works sometimes. The other day my husband and I were in the car listening ot some radio show, and they were talking about multitasking, and whether it was really possible. He said yes, and I said at the very bottom line no. You can not give 100% of yourself to 2 things at the same time.

With that said, let me tell you I’m the QUEEN of doing a million things at once. I mean, hello, I work from home, and have a (now) 3 year old daughter. You have to be able to do more than 1 thing at a time if you’re going to keep it together.

I’m also the kind of person that values go go go!!!! Get it done, get it done right, get it done right the first time. I was rudely awakened by my amazing EFT coach that not everyone thinks this way lol, and it may not be the healthiest way to live my life. hmm. who knew?

My business partner and I have been trying to put together something/some way/ some plan that will help us get more projects done while still tending the projects we have already created. I have found myself working from 6 am when Hanna wakes me up until 10p when I decide to go to bed, so I can get up and do it all over again.

I love working from home, but I’ve found myself having difficulty getting focused, and following through on projects I have been looking forward to working on.

A couple days ago, Andrea (my business partner) came across this video she was pretty jazzed about. I hate watching video, it’s hard, there’s interruptions, always noise in the background, I’d much rather just read it. But this was a video. Not only was it a video ~ but an HOUR LONG video ~ jeez Louise!!  She was really excited by it, so I made time first thing the next morning to watch it.

OMG! It was quite amazing. I had at least 5 light bulb moments while watching it, and it helped me realize a lot of what I’m doing and allowed me to see the EFFECTS of how I was behaving, not only on me, but my family, life and WORK as well.

The one thing that stood out in my mind the most was this: (and I’m paraphrasing)

Most people live life like a marathon. They never give their all into any one thing because they have to reserve energy for the rest of the race.  If you look at sprinters they give it ALL for a short period of time. They can do this because they can see the END. The finish line is only 100 or 200 meters away.

I must admit I am definitely living life like a marathon, and I see I am not giving 100% to anything!! Not my work, not my daughter, not my husband ~ everything gets a little of my energy so I can reserve some for the rest of the race.

My second huge lightbulb moment was this: You can’t control time. What you can control is the level/type of energy you bring to the time you have.

HOLY GEEZ!! Ding Ding Ding.

So needless to say ~ I bought the book the guy in the video wrote, and I’m working on changing things. I’m working on becoming a sprinter.  I’m working on creating concrete rituals that allow me to refuel not only my physical body, but my spirit, my emotional and mental energy as well. I’m learning how to build in recovery periods, to renew my energy during the day.

Phew, it all just happened in the last couple days, but it was a true moment of clarity. I could see the big picture of how I was working or not working. I could remember days when I was in the flow ~ and could see things I had done during the day that made them different than days I just pushed pushed pushed through the day.

I particularly like this video and book because it’s not airy fairy theory, but real, concrete research and things you can do to begin to make the changes in your life.

I’m still at the beginning of my journey, but I had to share. If you find yourself agitated or irritated, frustrated, low energy, tired, depressed ~ in your life, your job or your work carve out an hour for yourself and watch this video.

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