Aunts Galore

1) My Aunt Char was always said to have a good head on her shoulders
2) Aunt Ruth, Char, and Grandma Wright (90th b-day party)
3) My French Aunt Odile
4) Lastly, my long lost Ant Formicidae

I woke two or three times between 4:30 and 5:30am. When I finally got out of bed , I felt rested and ready to begin my Monday. After a quick check of the coffee maker and after choking down my One-A-Day, I pushed through my usual regiment of exercise. Ykraps and I were out the door by 5:50am taking our morning stroll. During our walk, I noticed a group of three women whom I’ve seen walking together a lot lately. I assume they’re walking for the exercise, but thus far it’s doing nothing for their extra big derrieres. :)

I could hear the coffee calling as we walked up the drive and into the house. I needed my caffeine fix. I read the Daily OM & meditated before getting down to fixin’ food. I noted being nearly out of several key staples despite Mindy grocery shopping just the day before. When she came down after readying for work I asked her about it. She was aware of most. Wal-Mart, while they have excellent prices, is almost always out of two or three of our dietary staples. And they don’t really care! We had enough of everything to get through the day, though.

Before I left for work, I took the time to water the backyard flowers really well. In addition, I loaded the proper yard tools into the Trooper to complete the yard chores I plan to do for Gloria just in case Mindy & I decided to meet there after work, but thus far that‘s up in the air. I also loaded dad’s cornhole boards and bags and dropped them along my way to work. He snuck up on me just as I was unloading them out the back. He startled me. We chatted only briefly before I headed to work. It was a beautiful spring morning – oodles of sunshine and warm temperatures.

Work was hectic – like any good Monday. I was able to get away for a run at my usual time – 12:45pm. It was about 76 degrees and sunny when I left. What a great day for a run! When I returned to my office I devoured my packed food. I was hungry. The afternoon was busy, too. I left the office for home at 5:15pm. I already knew that Mindy didn’t want to meet at her mother’s. Instead, she wanted to spend our alone time together at home, or at a restaurant. I chose home.

When I arrived home Mindy was looking down her nose at me as I entered through the garage. I wasn’t sure why. She pointed out the reason. When she opened the pantry big black ants were everywhere. And when she investigated further she found hundreds of the big juicy ones crawling in Jacob’s box of Golden Grahams. It was out on the deck while she was pulling other items out. I told her that we would spray but that we’d have to take EVERYTHING out, not just the lower stuff. After we walked Ykraps together we returned to get cracking on the pantry/ant issue.

While Mindy unloaded the entire pantry (what a huge oredeal) I napped on the deck chaise. I must have slept for about ten minutes. It was a good sleep, too. Once she had it emptied out, I gave it a scrubbing with Clorox cleaner and hot water before spraying. While in there I noticed a couple of Closetmaid clips broken. I went to the basement to get some new ones. Now that I saw it, I couldn’t bare to put everything back without first fixing the problem. I sprayed just the floor and baseboard inside the pantry. I decided while at it, to spray the entire perimeter of the kitchen again, too. After that I went to the basement and sprayed along the I-beam, their preferred path of travel. Not fifteen minutes went by before we had hundreds of dead ant carcasses lying belly-up on the basement floor. I must have hit their nest. In a sick way, both Mindy and I were excited to see the abundant death all around us. For whatever reason, they just recently attacked in full force. Not sure, but I’ll bet we haven’t seen the last of these little beasts.

The kids arrived home just as I was spraying. Every inch of kitchen surface was covered with food items, including a couple of nearby laundry baskets. I just couldn’t believe that all of this was stuffed into the pantry. The process of putting everything back would be a long arduous one. After Mindy bathed and tucked in the kids she got cracking on the put-away process. In the meantime, I watered the house plants and updated my blog.

We didn’t stay up much longer. After updating my blog I poked around on Salt Fork’s webpage looking for availability at the camp grounds for some family summer fun. We went to be bed around 9:30pm. We put the DVD, What Dreams May Come back in and watched from where we (Mindy) left off. I saw it ‘til the end. I’ll watch it again, though, all the way through. I think I missed about 45 minutes in the middle.