It’s a dark night of the soul.
Again.
Seriously, how many of these things can a girl have?
To be concise (not my strong point), Cancer-Dog has been so sick that she has been on six kinds of drugs and my sainted husband has been running the carpet cleaner nearly non-stop. Kid #1 has almost simultaneously developed an incurably disgusting nose and a bizarre behavioral issue that occurs only during school and about which I will not write in any detail because I wish to marry him off one day so that he shall not dwell in the basement of his ancestors forever. I have been researching literary agents and having a mega-crisis as I realize that my writing does not “explode traditional narrative structures” or “push the envelope” and is certainly neither a post-apocalyptic paranormal romance nor a steam-punk ninja-thriller adaptation of Jane Austen.
And there is a mouse all up in here. This mouse has no sense of personal space. It sits in the doorway and looks at me while I write. I think it’s written a totally on-trend post-apocalyptic zombie-on-vampire teenage love triangle story, and is mocking me. It watched me make breakfast in the kitchen this morning whilst munching on the bread I just bought. Seriously, this mouse has no boundaries. What’s worse is that I am a sucker and this obnoxious animal is so flippin’ cute that instead of just trapping the thing I am googling “how to make a humane mousetrap” and constructing bizarre and Rube Goldberg-like devices made of toilet paper tubes and peanut butter.
I am considering just cutting straight to the chase and installing a large neon sign outside my house that says “SUCKER.” That way the next wave of mice won’t have to waste time deliberating before moving in.
This mouse is the last straw, and the trigger for my latest nervous breakdown. It’s the little things. The little things that you know are scurrying all over your once-clean kitchen countertops, leaving even littler things by which to remember them.
And so, I am setting myself to memorize the following, sent to me by Kindred Spirit Heidi. It shall be my mantra. If it were not so long, I would emblazon it over my front door, just under the neon sign. Perhaps, if you too are slogging through a Slough of Despond and a Dark Night of the Soul, it will bring you comfort, too.
Trade with the gifts
God has given you.
Bend your minds
to holy learning
that you may escape
the fretting moth
of littleness of mind
that would wear out
your souls.
Brace your wills to actions
that they may not be
the spoils of weak desires.
Train your hearts and lips
to song
which gives courage
to the soul.
Being buffeted by trials,
learn to laugh.
Being reproved,
give thanks.
Having failed,
determine to succeed.
I am determined to succeed. And I am laughing like a maniac over here.
Kid #1 wishes to blog. Here is his debut:
mama
Okay, I guess things aren’t really so bad over here. But that mouse has got to go.
Brenna Layne 
Oh the Dark Night Journey . . . le sigh.
We had a mouse.
I ordered a humane trap from Amazon.
Our cat decided nature should take it’s course.
I could mail it to you, but that would almost certainly incite the creature’s death.
In the meantime– cheers to finding St. Hild!
Our cat has heretofore been an unimpeachable mouser. I fear that the rodent population has overwhelmed him. I’m considering getting a family of tigers.
Have you ever stumbled upon Unvirtuous Abbey? “Digital monks praying for people with first world problems. From our keyboard to God’s ears.”
“On those who are ready to release the kraken, Lord have mercy.”
For dentists, mechanics, accountants, Calvinists and other deliverers of bad news, we pray.”
“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you,” saith the Lord.
“O Lord, on this the day of his birth, we remember the lives and deaths of #doctorwho and give thanks.”
http://blog.timesunion.com/rudnick/a-bunch-of-unvirtuous-monks/1969/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Unvirtuous-Abbey/184277211606988
Oh, this is truly a rare and wondrous thing! You had me at “release the kraken.”