Furniture, Camper and HAMSTERS

Although my adoption paperwork has gotten far more coverage, I have been plugging along in my effort to clean out, get rid of and make the house more organized. I have been selling lots of stuff on Craigslist, and buying a few pieces as well. Today I moved in the "new" dresser that I bought Julia. I paid a whopping $25 for the dresser and a matching night-stand. I took Julia's chest of drawers for the new child who is going to share a room with Elijah whether he or she is a boy or girl. 

Tori and Julia now have two beds and two dressers that were bought at four different times and none of them truly match. They are all generally the same color, other than Tori's green dresser and I think it all works fine. 

I put a camper on Craigslist that has been a thorn in my side for quite some time. A few years back, when we had to evict our night-mare renter from our home, he left behind a "fixer-upper" (piece of junk) pop-up camper. Once we took a look at it, I did not want JD to even bring it home. He had grand plans of removing the camper portion and turning it into a trailer to haul our ATV (that now doesn't even run, but that doesn't apply to the story.) I agreed on the condition that he park it behind the barn where I or anyone I know doesn't have to look at it, because I knew it would take him 10 years to ever actually do anything with it.  Anyway, he parked it behind the barn and it was all fine until we had a friend who wanted to borrow our other junky trailer that lived behind the barn. The camper was in the way, so he pulled it out front and center and parked it right where it's the first thing you see when you come down the drive-way. To make matters worse, we had several trees fall behind the barn so JD could not put the dump camper back until he takes down all the trees. So, this camper has been right there in front of everything where I growl at it each and every time I come up and down the drive way. I finally decided to put it on Craigslist as a "fixer-upper" and I've had interest. We had a man come today that claims he is coming back for it. It'll be my favorite $300 I've ever made when it sells!

I mentioned in my last blog that I got James and Ben hamsters from Wendy's neighbor. I also mentioned that the boys should thank me because JD is never the parent who thinks these ideas are a good idea! My theory was that the four oldest all had a turn having a hamster and it obviously helped shape them into the caring and compassionate people that they are today, so we better let James and Ben have a turn. (It also helped that they and the cage were free!) JD reluctantly agreed to let them have them. I lectured the boys on hamster care, primarily WATCHING them if they are out of the cage in any capacity. I also thoroughly went into the fact that the plastic balls they came with can come open and you have to watch them in that as well! 


Well, James, dear James, put his hamster in the ball, forgot about him and played a game boy. Low and behold, when he came up for air, the ball had cracked open and the hamster is no where to be found. What really gets me is the turn in the story that he looked for him a while, came and ate dinner when called, said NOTHING and then went back downstairs to continue playing the game. Finally, Ben came and alerted us to the situation. At this point, the hamster is still missing; neither people nor cat have found him. We tried setting lettuce baits around the basement last night, but Alei's dog, Toby, kept eating it. Tomorrow, JD is going to try and buy a few super-size live mouse traps. It isn't looking good, but I have already told Tori that if we find him, she has a pet hamster. James will have to grow up and move out before he owns another rodent. 


I'll keep you posted on "Chip Chip" the hamster...and thankfully, JD has been kind enough to not give me a huge "I told you so."