Wrap Ups (I hope)

Ever wondered about the termites? The writing? The smokin' beans?
This hodgepodge post is the wrap up.

First though, every post is more fun with a picture. Here's a four generation picture from this August. The girls had just taken a bath. I bet you can't even come close to guessing how old my grandma is.

So I never finished the termite story. I lost steam and couldn't keep going. It got to the point where I didn't even want to write about it. I just wanted it to be done. I walked around the days after the treatment grieved to see the little demons were still happily mentioning the wood in my garden and muttered things like, "Die little bugs, die." I was sick of hearing people proclaim surprise about having termites in Michigan. And a little angry at the termite men for making a giant dusty mess in the basement, which led to more anger when they said the termiticide might kill a few of my plants growing next to the house. While I gladly pictured the bugs dying, I tried not to picture my plants dying or to worry too much about that chemical deep in the ground potentially affecting my veggie garden. They assured me it was safe. But by late August I had adopted Tom's pessimism and didn't really believe them. But I willed myself to move on and we ate the veggies and we cleaned up the basement (thanks to my husband who is a super fast, super thorough and amazing worker), and eventually even the termites in the garden disappeared (I prefer to think they suffered a slow, painful death). Yesterday we had our first post-treatment inspection and we passed. I'm glad but it's hard to cheer. That was a big chunk of change to spend on bugs!

The day after the Smokin' beans post I bought Febreze. And candles. I sprayed rugs and walls and curtains and furniture. I'm not a lover of fake good smell so I also planned a few full proof slow cooker meals. After all, how many smells can one house hold? The Febreze appeared to work for about 24 hours. Then the smell returned. Muted. But still present. Desperate I googled "burnt beans." Gotta love the Internet. Not only did I find a whole slew of ideas about the burnt bean smell and how to deal with it in one of those post a question and random members will answer, I found camaraderie (wow did I spell that wrong the first try) and comfort in the knowing that others had burnt not just food but beans and most of them had actually left the house! Whew. But their ideas sounded like a lot of work. Rolling up my sleeves I made a plan, but then the next the smell was gone. It lingers in far corners sometimes, but mostly it's been forgotten.

I'll post more about my time without kids later, but have I told you that I've writing about an article a month for the local magazine? They pay me pennies but it is so fun. All the issues are online so here's a link to the most recent issue. Flip to page 35 and read the green article. You can use the buttons on the side to zoom in. This is an article I pitched. I had to redo it three times because my vision and my editor's vision ended up not being the same. So the article isn't quite what I wanted but I still hope it blesses someone. Still, I got paid, right? Now I am writing an article about how to keep a busy family eating well. Right up my alley. Too bad all the ideas have to come from the interviewed expert. It's still fun.