I meant to post this yesterday, but I went to Hershey Park with the family. Which is another blog post for later. For now, Happy Belated Mother’s Day, and here is something oh-so fun to watch. (And yes, I know it is old. But for Mother’s Day it’s worth bringing back.)

I’m just taking a break from writing a paper for my creative arts class. It is something that I could have written two weeks ago, but put it off, and put it off some more, and now it is due at class tomorrow. Since I have no time to write it tomorrow morning before class, I get to stay up late and do it tonight. The paper topic is rather boring. I had to go see something live, and had to evaluate it. I could have done something fun like a play, but instead I decided to go to Gettysburg National Military Park. Why? Because it was the easiest thing to do with the kids. After all, they loved it. Cannons, cannons everywhere. Joe loved it too. I mean what man doesn’t love all things war related? Me, not so much. I got to ooh and ah over the bronzed statues which were probably made via substitution and notice all the relief sculptures. Yep, these are the kinds of things I get to say in my paper. Oh, and I get to talk about how the monuments made me feel. Which, by the way, I discovered it is really hard to actually feel something, when you are very aware that you need to feel something just so you have something to write about. Ok well, it is 11pm. Time to get back to the paper.

Now that the summer months are coming, I’ve gotten into the habit of making iced tea every morning, so by lunch time it’s nice and cold. Now, there are many ways to make iced tea. The two best known ways are to boil the water, add the tea and let sit for a little bit, then pour into a pitcher with more cold water, and finally add sugar. The problem with this method is that sugar takes awhile to dissolve properly in cold water, and the sugar that isn’t dissolved just settles onto the bottom of the pitcher. Think about when you are at a restaurant and your order iced tea. Usually it comes unsweetened, and when you put the sugar in the glass you stir and stir and stir, and you still have a bunch of sugar sitting on the bottom of a glass. The second method is known as sun tea. You take a glass jug of water and put some tea in it, and sit it outside for a few hours, then you bring it in, add more water, and sugar. Again, you have the same problem with the sugar not dissolving, and to top it off you are risking bacteria. I just don’t like either method.

There is a solution. It’s simple, actually, it’s simple syrup. Start a small pot of water to boil, and when it starts to simmer add in your sugar. Me and my family prefer a generous cup full. Stir the sugar until it dissolves and the [now] simple syrup comes up to a boil. Take off the heat and add in 6 tea bags of your favorite tea. Around here we like sweet ginger peach tea. Red raspberry tea is also good, as well as chai tea. Currently I’m planning on experimenting with green tea and honey tea, as well as anything else I find in the tea section next time I go shopping. I have a lot of teas. Once the tea has sat for awhile, which I leave it anywhere up to an hour depending on the kind of tea and the strength of flavor, squeeze the bags and pour into a 2 quart pitcher. Fill with cold water until you have 2 quarts, and put in the fridge. With this method, you really are only using the stove for about 5 minutes, which puts the kabosh on the worry that you might heat up the house. Also, the boiled water should have killed some of the bacteria in the water and in the tea, so no worry there. Finally, no sugar settling on the bottom, just cold, flavorful, and yummy sweet tea.

A few months ago I started noticing a squirrel on our deck. Eventually, I came to learn that this squirrel had made himself a home above these boards that were stored under our deck. Since the squirrel would run into its nest every time the kids and I were outside, and there was no way of knowing whether or not there was baby squirrels living there, Joe and I just left them alone.

Unfortunately, they leave us alone and we’ll leave them alone unspoken pact didn’t last very long. Yesterday the squirrel seemed a bit agitated. When the kids and I were having lunch, the squirrel had run onto the neighbors deck to hide behind their recycle bin, and I could hear it growling and barking at us. That should have been my first clue, but I guess I just figured that the squirrel was still keeping its distance and eventually it would go back to hiding under the deck again. Fast forward to dinner time. I was in the kitchen making dinner, and Zoe was sitting outside on the deck playing. Now, I’m going onto a side note tangent here as I’ve had to explain this to many people who think I’m some neglectful mother. I did not leave her alone, as the deck is located right outside the kitchen. A lot of times I use the deck as an extension of the kitchen when I’m grilling. Also, there is a sliding glass door which allows me to see out to most of the deck, and I would step out and check on her regularly when she walked into the areas in which I couldn’t see. With that said, I had once gain stepped outside to check on Zoe when I saw that she was sitting down with a squirrel a foot or two away from her. Then suddenly I watched the squirrel attack Zoe, by jumping onto her and scratching her. I reacted by screaming “No! No!” at the squirrel and started stomping toward Zoe to scare it off her. By the time I reached her, the squirrel ran to the other side of the deck and I scooped Zoe up and brought her into the house. Shortly after, Aidan had stepped out onto the deck and I saw the squirrel run to him, I pulled him inside and then the squirrel turned to me. I slammed the sliding door closed, and proceeded to freak out over my 18 month old daughter being attacked by a squirrel.

As I was looking her over I started to calm down. There wasn’t any bite marks, and most of the scratched were skin surface. One of her legs was the worst, but it wasn’t bleeding or anything. I went ahead and cleaned the scratches with some alcohol, and called the doctor. Unfortunately they were closed, and the weren’t answering their answering service. So I checked on webmd and found the article about rabies. Since it said that squirrels almost never have rabies and there is no known case of squirrels spreading rabies to humans, and Zoe seemed her happy self by that point, I decided that the matter could wait until the doctor opened tomorrow.

Tomorrow (today) comes, and I remember that the doctor doesn’t open till 11am. Zoe still seems fine, so her, Aidan, and I go out and run a few errands before heading home for lunch. After I give Aidan and Zoe their lunch, I call the doctor. Expecting them to schedule an appointment that day so they could look at Zoe, I was a bit shocked when they told me to take her to the emergency room instead. This presented a problem, as we all know emergency rooms can take several hours, and Alex was due to be home in a couple hours. I couldn’t be sure I could get out in time to be there to get Alex off the bus. Joe ended up coming home from work early so he could be there to get Alex, and I took Aidan and Zoe to the emergency room.

Boy, was Zoe ever popular! Not only did her good looks and charm make people turn heads, but she was “the little one who got attacked by a squirrel.” Apparently, getting attacked by a squirrel is pretty rare. I kept hearing the comment “How did she get attacked by a squirrel? You just don’t hear of squirrels attacking people.” In short, I had to explain to everyone under the sun that we have a squirrel living under our deck and how it happened. This includes animal control, as even animal control found it surprising. A couple hours later Zoe was discharged. The doctor at the hospital decided that she didn’t need a rabies shot, but she did need antibiotics to prevent infection. They also slapped some ointment on a few of her scratches, and gave her a sticker. All in all, nothing her doctor couldn’t have done in his office for a lot less time required, but at least she was taken care of.

Zoe is still doing fine. Joe and I have decided that since they didn’t give her a rabies shot, we are going to keep the squirrels around for a little bit longer to keep an eye on them for any signs of sickness. We are also going to keep them away from the kids, even if it means not letting them out on the deck and in the backyard for a little while. After a week or so the squirrel nest will be taken down. Sorry squirrels, but our kids come first.

It’s the final two weeks of the semester. This week I get to finish up putting together my health project, write the last of the papers that are due (I think there are 4 total between the 3 classes I’m taking), double check that I’ve taken all my quizzes in sociology and do the ones that I haven’t completed yet, study for my listening test in creative arts, and see about doing any extra credit work that I haven’t done yet. Next week is finals week, so it’s study study study, write the essays, take the multiple choice portion of the tests, and I get to put together my oral presentation for creative arts.

The good news? There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, until I start my 8 week summer class at the beginning of June. Nevermind, a two week break isn’t a light. It’s just depressing.