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No longer on the river and, again, an empty nester. Back to living on Fleming Island and making some more friends!

Friday, June 15, 2012

It's been a long time

Boy, I was so glad to wake up this morning!!! Before having dripping water sounds, real or imagined, ruining my restful sleeping, it was mice. Now, I have only encountered two or three in my life but for well over 30 years, one of my greatest fears was encountering a mouse. Well, in my dream this early a.m., I kicked it up a notch!

In the dream, my now former spouse was house hunting for us. He found a place to buy and put things into action for us to purchase it. I showed up at the door one day and asked the sellers if I could see the place, since I had not yet seen where I was moving. This was NOT the house I would have chosen but I did not hate it either. It had potential!

The sellers let me look around, as they continued packing to move. My spouse was there and got busy painting a wall in one of the rooms. (I hope the sellers don't mind!) As I was looking around, I noticed the double front doors didn't exactly meet in the middle, but I loved the thick worm wood-looking doors. I asked if him if there was a way to mount the thick doors onto new doors, to preserve the look. He said he would have to get with Doug about it.  (Doug was actually our very first lumber salesman when we moved here in 1988. Where did THAT come from???)

The lady of the house was showing me the built-in shelves in a hallway, with curtains rather than doors over the shelves, and the walls made of concrete blocks, which means addition. A cut and paste house. Somehow my family was there,  too, looking things over. Some of my sisters were going to look in the basement. All of a sudden, Jill got a very strange look on her face and I said, "What???"

She was white like the sheet covering the open shelves, and carefully said, "You know what used to scare you so bad in other houses??" I said, "Oh, no, you saw a mouse??" and she said, "Well, it wasn't a mouse..." Rat!! Deal over---I was out of there, freshly painted wall or not.

The seller reluctantly admitted that yes, they had rats once in a while...I said I was out---surely we could get out of the deal since I had not seen the house before the contract was written, etc. I would never sleep again knowing that even if we eradicated the place of rats, my ears would be awake all night, listening for the scurrying or rooting around varmints do when others are sleeping. Oh, yes I would! 

I never did get to the second floor to see the bedrooms or bathrooms which likely would have been deal breakers as well. I wonder what my spouse was thinking when buying this place, one in such need of renovation and tweaking. Decorating touches are one thing, rat eradication is quite another!! So very glad I woke up and didn't have to see this adventure as it played out!