…not even a mouse.

Oh wait, yes they are. And definitely at night.

We used to get mice at our old house in the Ohio suburbs, too, especially at this time of year when they want in from the cold. So it was no surprise that we’d get them at the new house, which is in a rural area.

But it turns out that country mice are smarter than suburban mice. At the old house, I’d use tip-traps to catch them, and they worked fabulously. We did not have our pantry food in airtight containers or anything, they’d go for the peanut butter in those traps every time.

But here, they’ll go right on past the traps conveniently on the floor and climb up the pantry shelves for the good stuff. We even tried a different type of live trap. No mice, at least not in the traps. They were continuing to enjoy our pantry, however. We bought airtight pantry containers and put everything we could in them. The mice still managed to find the few items that wouldn’t fit, moving on to my protein shake mix when nothing else was left out of a sealed container.

My husband got tired of dealing with it and bought some guillotine-style traps. These at least kill them quickly, unlike the old-fashioned kind, or <shudder> glue traps. They’re now his problem.

What I’ve Been Reading

Mice haven’t stopped me from enjoying some fiction! With all the extra to-dos that the holidays bring (though I’m not getting stressed out about it), I was in the mood for a nice light, contemporary romance. Always Remember by Sheila Seabrook fit the bill perfectly! What I really loved about this story was how the heroine was living the life someone else (her mother) wanted for her, and came to realize that what she wanted for herself wasn’t as out of reach as she thought. Recommended!

What I’ve Been Writing

<sigh> Once again, not much, even less than last week. I did get a couple of nights in, but that’s all. Just over 500 words. This WIP will never be finished at this rate. But I remind myself that it’s the holidays, will all the extra to-dos (that are worth it, for friends and family), and that we’ll soon be back to normal. So this week, getting any writing in at all will be a plus. I’d like to get two days in before our daughter and her partner arrive on Tuesday. 

This past week was also the end of the quarter for ROW80. I was still buried with the move when the round started, so I didn’t set any goals. I wrote less than 5,000 words this whole quarter. I used to write that much in a week without a problem! Of course, I also hadn’t moved house since I began writing, so maybe I’ll cut myself some slack. 😀 I’ve seen plenty of folks already stating their 2020 goals, but I’ll figure mine out next week.

What about you–have you had mice in your home? How did you handle it? Have you read anything good lately? And how are you doing on your goals, whether writing or otherwise? I love to hear from you–please share in the comments–and have a wonderful holiday!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.