Drama.

Ah, July. The ninth, even. Summer spins like she does. The last few weeks seem blurry. We’ve been busy. We made a weekend trip to the cabin and then the next weekend, we spent four days in Anderson Ranch with our cousins. And all the time in between I’ve been a little crazy. Just ask my boys.

No, don’t ask them.

In the middle of June, I bought a bunch of shrubs and bagged mulch from Shopko for our backyard and apparently they were infested with a bug called a springtail. They infested the entire yard and the interior and exterior of the house. I first noticed them because I started finding them inside in the bathrooms, since they like moisture areas in the house. I did some inspecting and our entire foundation and all dirt all around the house was crawling with these things. They are tiny and harmless, really, but because they are so small they can come in any crack in the foundation, and through the windows and up the siding. And they multiply like crazy and are extremely resilient to pesticides. I entered major panic/obsessive compulsive mode and all that's included in all of that. It was horrid. Fast forward two weeks, lots of chemical pesticide (which is a crisis for me in itself), two different pest control companies, several trips to lowes, a discovery of a leaking plumbing issue that lured the bugs inside our home, and several anxiety attacks later, we finally have them under control (I think). And by me saying ‘we’ I mean to say that God directly answered my pleading. I wanted them to go so badly and by some miracle, they seemed to have done just that.

Of course, we had to rip everything out that we planted, including all the mulch. Shopko returned all of it and gave us our money back, and on top of that, they reimbursed us for our pest control cost -- $200. I really didn’t expect anything to come of it, but I’ve been thoroughly impressed with their customer service.

I can’t believe I’m writing about this so casually now, because last week, I was in a bad way. Tears and tears and tears and prayers and tears. And lots of Doterra. And a handful of blessings. I made it through! Logically, I knew/know this should not be that big of a deal, but I just could not cope. It was ridiculous. I made the horrid mistake (over and over again) of googling these bugs and I read so many horror stories of them infesting the walls and getting into furniture and them never ever leaving. And on top of it all, neither pest control company had ever treated for them and apparently they are very resistant to pesticide because of how long their legs are. Add my period to this whole mess. Add the discovery of a mouse in the house also, plus a tore open ceiling and a not-working bathtub, plus a lagging body from the chemical pesticide (which I also googled and determined I had developed cancer from it). It was the end of my world. Poor Mr. Keller.

So, last Thursday morning, I went to the nursery and bought a bunch of diatomaceous earth powder (8 lbs to be exact) and I dumped it all over our deck and swept it in the cracks. I bought three gallons of vinegar and one galloon of dish soap and mixed it all up in a sprayer (natural pesticide). I sprayed the heck out of the whole house! I bought eight mouse traps. We set those up in the house. We packed our bags, loaded the boys and the bikes in the car and got the hell out of dodge. It was the best thing we could’ve done. We needed that trip so badly. We didn’t want to come home.

But….when we did, the bugs were gone! And I mean gone. I haven’t seen one. It truly is a miracle. We also caught that nasty mouse, which, unfortunately, must’ve gotten trapped the day we left because our house was RANK when we walked through the door, and we ended up having to get the carpet cleaned yesterday where the mouse sat. So now I’ve just been scrubbing and cleaning, and regrouping and feeling more human again, and not the lunatic I’ve been the last two weeks.    

Other dramatic things: Mr. Keller got a fierce bout of food poisoning after our family reunion at the end of June and was out of commission for two days. He was so sick. It broke my heart. The rest of us were spared (the power of prayer!). Last week, we had dinner at the park one night, because we all needed to get out of the house and just as Mr. Keller and I sat down to eat, Danny pooped on the slide. And……he wasn’t wearing underwear. Can you guess where I’m going with this? I also only had three wipes left in the car, so that was interesting. And disgusting.

I feel like I could add more to this dramatic entry, but I will leave it at that, and hope and pray the rest of our summer is less traumatic.

The end.