Just simply live...

I don't have a TON of time right now to do anything except what has been chiseled into my day planner and appropriately positioned on my iCalendar. Between the family, work (I still work at the hospital, but also contract with the health department), school (I don't think I announced this here, but I'm getting my M.A. in Communication and Leadership at Gonzaga and it's a great fit!), the farmers' market, various other community activities and normal life stuff I keep wondering when I'll run out of hours in the day. I keep looking toward the light at the end of the tunnel to realize I'm not in a tunnel. My life is so beautiful and crazy right now.
Last night I watched a mouse die in my dining room. I despise mice in the house. I enter into the stereotypical behavior of jumping-on-the-couch-and-screaming , but I especially never, ever want to watch one die ever again. It's these strange moments of reality that make me appreciate - through the craziness- that my life AS IT IS RIGHT NOW is so, so beautiful. (This time I realize it's beautiful because I am alive. As opposed to the mouse, who is dead. I'm sad about that. No, I'm happy about that.

...I don't know how I feel about that.)

Jackson was fascinated with the mouse. I told him it was sleeping and not to touch it. Or come within 3 ft. of it. Meanwhile, I was frantically trying to wrap my brain around the idea of removing the mouse with my own hands. Mine, not Chris's. That's where the brain block occurred. I considered leaving it there until 9pm when Chris would be home. I even started making dinner while it lethargically occupied the middle of the dining room floor with Jackson on one side and our dog, Maus, on the other, both intently studying its every non-move. (I had let Maus in to see if she'd show an interest in removing it for me. She didn't. Her name is more of an ironic nod to her enormity.) Finally, I mustered up enough courage to spastically throw a tupper-ware container over it.

We all stood there staring at the blurry outline of the mouse through the transparent container. Maybe we were waiting for it to suddenly get up and say, "You know what? This is ridiculous. I'm just a mouse." And then walk out the front door by itself. I would only be so lucky.

And then my wise 3-year-old looked at me with pitty and slight irritation and said, "Mommy, just do it."

And so I did.

If this post sounds familiar to you it's because I just realized I have previously lamented about mice and my busy schedule. I apologize for not writing more often. I feel like I have a lot going on, but the trick is finding things you would actually be interested in hearing about. Apparently I think you want to hear about mice.