April 8, 2024 Monday--5am

Good morning!

First of all, I have to thank Elizabeth for informing me there are sugar ants and grease ants!  I have never heard of grease ants in all my 73 years.  Thank you, Elizabeth!!  I googled and learned about them.  They are smaller.  Check.  Can nest in the spaces between walls and they'll come out from the baseboards.  Check.  Have smaller nests so not as many of them.  Check.  They like fat and are not that interested in the sweets.  Check.  After the first two days they avoided the honey borax altogether.  The only place I'd see a dozen or more of them at a time was in Allie's food bowl.

I guess I have only had the sugar ants in the past.  In fact, I had never heard them called anything but just plain ants.  Never even heard the term sugar ants before.  But they all liked terro and sweet stuff, I knew that--lol!  Anyways, I asked Leah if she had any peanut butter (that or vegetable oil was the suggestion I found online for grease ants) to mix with borax.  Yes, she did.  Leah actually had heard of the term "meat ants" before...which would be the grease ants going after the fat in the meat, I guess.  Boy!  You learn something new every day!

Monday.  I did the monthly banking, made some online orders for April, walked the rent check down to the office, and swept off the patio.   A sure sign of spring for me...the noisy, cowardly grackle bullies returned--LOL!  

Tuesday.  Keanna came to clean.

Wednesday.  I knew the peanut butter borax was going to be dropped off...searched for some way to put it out and yet keep it away from Allie.  AHA!  A couple of my ink bottle boxes were the perfect solution!!  

The Pilot Iroshizuku inks come in a box with this built-in flap that fits over the bottle cover.  I cut off the flaps from the top of the box...and saved the big flap to put the peanut butter borax on.

I did laundry.  Spent all afternoon setting up letters.  Am a bit behind again.  Nothing new for me--lol!  Set up another 13.  Have sent off 4 of them already.  (Notice how my newly downsized ink journal fits right inside of the fountain pen tray--love it!!)

Dagan dropped off the peanut butter that night and luckily the two cursive workbooks I ordered for the boys had arrived early so that I could send them with on the car trip.  One for Ian--with really silly sentences to copy that make little sense.  Perfect for a nine year old.

And a beginner book for Liam...letter by letter...to words and some funny sayings too.

I added an assortment of old pencils and a little sharpener in a bag, too.

No idea if they used them at all on the trip or even wanted to take them with.  But I do think they might like them at some point.

Meanwhile--smearing peanut butter on the box lid, I slid it inside and closed the flap.  These made the perfect ant traps!

I could put them right next to where the ants actually were...

...and Allie paid no attention to them at all...

...except to sit and watch the ants going in and out of the box in the bathroom--lol!

But that bored her after a couple of days.  (She never could stomach watching them in the pantry next to her food and water.)

Status:  There are less and less ants, but there are still a few coming for the peanut butter at this point in time.

Wednesday night after Dagan left...

Well, you know I had been waiting for the order to arrive so that I could set up my smaller bullet journal...there was still one part of the order that hadn't come yet...but I was just too excited to start...

Made the mistake of thinking I could just do a little bit...maybe just get the pages in order except for the tracker pages that were still coming...maybe just enter all the birthdays...maybe just...

I was up till 3:30am, I think it was.  Couldn't stop.  Having too much fun! 

Thursday. 

McFamily left for their eclipse adventure in Ohio.

Yes, I had overdone it by far so I was exhausted and hurt all over...but was SO VERY HAPPY to have everything done I could do in my bullet without the last order.  Look at the difference in size!

I got all the appointments, birthdays, and various stickers and such for the rest of the year in there!  

It is so much smaller that I can keep it right next to my chair.

Maybe I can get rid of the weekly planner tablet I have had on my lap desk for years--lol!

I know--it's ridiculous to be writing stuff twice just because there was no room for my bullet by my chair...where I inevitably think of things to add to my lists--LOL!  (You know I will still have post it notes nearby.)  We'll see how this actually works now this coming week.  I am so not a digital girl.  Will I actually miss writing thing down more than once?  Possibly--LOL!  I have loved putting pen to paper since I was Ian's age.  I used to copy poems and things just to be able to write by hand...in cursive, of course.  And lists!  Been a list maker all my life.  I might well have been a scribe in a past life--lol!   

Meanwhile, we have had such high winds and dry conditions we had fire watch warnings for part of the week.  The grackles are here all the time.

The two partridges come in the evenings.  I know it's the same two because the one is the limper.  I am always glad to see the limper is still doing okay.  :)

Friday my other order arrived and the new downsized bullet was completed.  That was all I really accomplished for two days.  Yup--overdid it.  My own fault...but no regrets. ;)

Sunday it rained most of the day. 

More orders have come.  My next project is transferring the two travelers-style notebooks that have resided next to my chair on the other side for years.

They live in the wooden holder--the front and the back slots.

This is my goal for the coming week...

...to transcribe the information from these two Field Note size covers...

...into these two small binders.  One is for budgeting and wish lists and such.  The other is for various lists--like all the lists needed for the move, for example.  

I have wanted to switch over to binders for years.  Then I can divide into sections vs different notebooks and moving pages around or removing them will be a breeze!  This will be new, too.  Not downsizing but in form.  More tedious fun for me, eh?  LOL!

Sunday.  Robin!  Another sign of srping.

With all the rain the grass was just starting to turn green!

I noticed a robin hanging around on the planter box staring in the apartment.

Well, it wasn't staring in the apartment--ROFL!  There was a nice big, long, juicy worm climbing up the glass patio door!  

Trying to escape all the robins out on the grass, I imagine--lol!  I saw 4 or 5 of them hunting out there all afternoon.  But this unlucky worm...got tossed out into the grass for a grateful robin.  Circle of life, worm.  Circle of life.

This!!  This really cracked me up!  Still does every time I see the picture!  I caught Allie dozing off over her big water bowl!

Do you think she was a little happy to be (very temporarily, but she doesn't know that) luxuriating on a carpet while eating and drinking without any ants bothering her?  She was dozing off.  Like a drunk over a porcelain throne.  

I had moved some food in a small dish over many days ago as soon as I saw them crawling all over her kibble...but I hadn't moved her water.  They hadn't been on her water dish...other than one I found swimming in there early on the ants showed no interest in her water dish.  But Allie had quit eating her food altogether...so I had made another spot for her to eat.  I guess she was relieved I finally moved her water, too.  She didn't like the ants in her food at all...but she must not have wanted to even look at them close by to get a drink--ROFL!  Oh my!  She is so funny!

Don't worry.  She had water all this time because I made the mistake of tossing a cup of water for her in the shower one day because she was sitting outside crying for me to take a shower so she could run in after and lick the walls.  After that--she begs me nearly every time I am in the bathroom.  LOL!  Never give a cat an inch, I tell ya. ;)

Anyways, McFamily will be coming home on Wednesday.  There are less and less ants.  (Did you all know about sugar ants and grease ants?)  Grackles fight on the patio.  With all the rain there's a bit of green grass Robins are hunting in.  I have new binders to organize and many paper chats to be had.  I hope you have a delightful week ahead.  Till next time... :)