I'd hate......

.....for any of you to think i have an idyllic life. I don't. As a matter of fact, this week alone, my house has been invaded by mice, my face is all broken out, and i have just bought my fourth coffee pot this year. Serious! We have had FIVE; yes count them, 1,2,3,4,5 mice in our kitchen in the past two months, three of them in the last few days. They make me crazy! I am an obsessive cleaner and a total neat freak, so they about send me over the edge! Not to mention i am usually home alone when they rear their ugly heads and then i have to valiantly deal with them, without scaring my little four year old and giving him a lifelong fear of tiny little creatures that crawl up your legs, and poop in your cupboards, and chew up your muffin mixes........I have learned that a salad tongs and elbow high gloves and a big pot and a paper bag and a long meat fork are great weapons, although it is hard to juggle them all while balancing on a chair that is shared with a child who is stroking my leg saying, "don't worry mom, be brave... you can do it..." Anyway..... i know they are harmless and that is what happens when you live in an old house on the edge of the woods, but seriously, i feel like they have ganged up on me.

And the coffee pot...... i am not a morning person and my mother recently bought me this mug.

Few truer words have ever been spoken. Even Aidan has come to understand the realities of living with a mom who is not a morning person. One morning he asked James if he "could make Mommy some coffee so her head will work."

But I digress..... so back to the story of this week. When we bought our house the previous owner had a Black and Decker Space Saver Coffee maker, and i killed it when i ran CLR (or something like that) through it last spring. When shopping for its replacement i felt obligated to buy another Spacesaver, partly i already had huge holes in my cupboards from the old coffee pot, and also to conserve precious countertop. To make a long story short i bought THREE of them in a two month period, until finally one seemed to actually work. True, it was slow, and sputtered, leaked, only partially emptied the reservoir, and served up lukewarm coffee, but at least it was off my counters. Now a normal person probably would have saved their receipts after such a horrible experience, but not me. I did email the company, but after many fruitless Google searches for a good, safe under the cupboard coffee maker i finally gave in and purchased this lovely pot. And now i have a good reason to repaint the cupboards while James is in China next month....... so maybe it isn't such a bad week.