A Much-Needed Update (or, Adventures in Home Ownership, Installment #1)

After much deliberation, debate, haggling, hassles, a few tears, lots of headaches, and earnest prayers ("God, if this isn't the house for us, just burn it down or something?"),
we are, for better or for worse, homeowners.

A side note to my apartment-dwelling readers:
this post isn't intended to make you feel bad about your current situation.
In fact, you'll probably be happier than ever about your living quarters,
once you hear a few of our stories.
Seriously.

;)

Story #1
Marty and I are walking around our new house.
I am wearing a respirator.
{I am not kidding. It's a full-blown, commercial grade gas mask.}
We're in the master bedroom, about to go downstairs and clean out cabinets,
when Marty decides to start pounding on the walls.
{At this point, I think he's crazy.
I soon learn that he is not.}
He says shhhhhh
pounds some more
and we listen to the sound of scratching, clawing, pattering feet
behind the wall.
Behind the wall.
In my bedroom-to-be.
More pounding from Marty; more clawing and hissing from animals behind the drywall.
I hear them scampering everywhere inside the walls.
An hour later, Marty, his dad, and brother are setting up a "humane" trap on the roof,
right outside the gaping hole on the roof that we never noticed before.
They bait the trap with a hot dog...

Needless to say, our hands are full right now.
My little sister is getting married in two weeks,
and we just bought a raccoon-infested house that smells.
Don't get me wrong; I'm ridiculously excited about the house.
But we have a sort of love-hate relationship going right now.
And I think it's therapeutic to share these stories with you all.
:)

Pictures to follow soon,
once I learn how to shoot with a respirator strapped to my head.