We took Meadow's advice...

...and moved the couch. Apparently I am crazy because there was no dead mouse underneath.
And just for good measure, we also moved the tables, the piano and the thinking chair. No dead mouse underneath (and when I say "we," I mean Eddie, who strapped on some rubber gloves and did the probing, while I cowered in the corner of the kitchen and prayed that I wouldn't have to see any dead anything). So the good news is, we likely had only one mouse and that mouse has been long dead and disposed of. The bad news is that the living room still smells slightly funky and I don't know why.

But the second part of Meadow's advice involved a reward. And even though I technically didn't do the moving, I did want a reward:

So, less than a week after purging my closet of five pairs of shoes, I'm up a pair again.

Yes friends, it's rodeo time in Texas. On Friday, Bryce's school is having Rodeo Day, which means that the kids get to leave their staid polo shirts and khakis at home for the day and wear western gear. Bryce, as a Minnesota transplant, didn't have any western gear, which was just fine with me. But since his grandma was visiting, we ended up at Cavender's Boot City, a Target-sized store specializing in Western wear. Isaac hadn't even been inside the store for a minute before he secured an unbreakable grip on a stick horse. Bryce scored big time, walking out with new cowboy boots, a leather vest, a plaid shirt and another stick horse. Annie got a girly stick horse. My mother-in-law has been following my cowboy boot saga for the last few months and told me to pick out a pair (which is much easier said than done in a crowded store with three kids). I've been looking for some brown ones, but these were just too cute to pass up (and on sale, so even better).

Last night I checked on Annie in bed. Her horse was sleeping with her. Had I not had extremely vivid flashbacks to The Godfather I would have found it very cute.

But I could sleep easier knowing that we had neither a dead horse nor a dead mouse in the house.

--originally published 2/21/06