The menagerie

The current baby quilt (Fishy, Fishy) is inching towards completion. It doesn't help that I realized that I cut one of my templates and therefore sixteen pieces wrong, and unfortunately they're all too small instead of too big. I realized I never posted a picture of James's quilt, so here it is on my bed:


(Please ignore the mess on the floor. That's Eric's side.) I like the watercolor technique a lot, now that I know better how to use it.

The kitchen is finally almost clean, but the mice are still around. This despite the twelve (no kidding) traps we laid out around the kitchen. I'm quite tired of having the contents of my pantry piled on top of the chest freezer (for one thing, bread and flour go in there, since there's not enough room in the regular freezer) and of having vermin in the house, but we're not sure what to do. Today I saw one skitter across the floor and climb up a hole between cupboards, and I swear it did it on purpose to avoid the glue trap that would otherwise have been in its way. I moved the trap directly below the hole but I have a feeling the mice are too smart for us and we'll never get rid of them. Until I give up and call in the poison, anyway.

Eric's job may be in danger again...his principal told him that he's giving too many Fs and not enough As, and he should do something about it. Anything. Or else. He's told a couple of people at work and they're highly displeased, but not shocked, so apparently his new employers aren't as much better as his old ones as we'd have liked. He was potentially going to be out of a job next school year anyway, since there are statewide education budget cuts and he's a new teacher, but now we're pretty much planning on it, and working out what we'll do if he doesn't get another teaching job at a different school (which, with the budget cuts, is looking unlikely). We did this last year and were okay, but of course we'll have a baby around this time...but if he stays home and maybe picks up some community college classes to teach at night, we'll be saving some $6000-$7000 on childcare anyway and earning a few thousand. And we've been saving money. And I'm working on the freelancing, though not as much as I should. We should be okay; I just wish adulthood weren't so complicated.