The last week has been a big run-up to the start of the school year (which was yesterday for my house). A few unexpected guests have  slowed down my efforts to produce a well-oiled routine for our school year.

I was doing really well, getting organized, cleaning the school room, stocking up on groceries. Then, I saw one - a roach. Can I just say…eeeeuuuuww! It was big, ugly, and in my kitchen! I tried not to take it personally, as the weather has been hot and dry and I know they come in looking for water and food. I just screamed, grabbed the “Raid”, and took aim. A few days later I was preparing my next round of dinner menus. I opened a kitchen drawer to pull out my dinner suggestions, when a roach scurried out of sight. Seeing one in my drawer, crawling on my utensils made me ill. I quickly called the exterminators and scheduled an appointment for 3 days later. We ordered take-out for dinner.

The day before the exterminators arrived, I decided to brave a different kitchen drawer to clean out some junk. After rooting through junk papers and several unexplained screwdrivers (apparently they love to hang out together in small, dark spaces), I began to realize the what I had been assuming was broken pencil lead rolling around the drawer was not. Rather, it was roach poo!

God did not grace me with the gift of a tolerance for bugs (kind of funny that He gave me three boys, though, who all find bugs fascinating). I hate bugs in general, but really abhor cockroaches. I always have. Even as  little girl I screamed when I saw one. In my defense, here in Texas, the roaches are rather large, and sometime can fly. So, the evidence of roach poo told me that, in spite of only having seen around three in my house, a whole bunch of them were party-hardy-ing after hours in my kitchen/roach motel.

The exterminators have come and gone. I have seen two “guests” since then (the one I saw last night was big and fast. My screams had my kids running downstairs from their beds, convinced I was dying. Of course, hubby was “dozing” and remained undisturbed). I avoid that side of the kitchen, and nothing is being put in those drawers for now.

Sometimes, I just have to remind myself that this problem is better than the last house we lived in, where the uninvited guests were rats! (have you ever seen an 8-month pregnant woman leap onto a kitchen table with the grace of a nimble gazelle, while screaming like a cartoon character?) These rats could climb walls with ease. I was terribly freaked out. We finally got them out of the house, but we continued to see more outside. Luckily, our cat is an expert ratter. Sometimes, we would find one climbing the exterior brick of the house. I would throw the cat outside, grab a beach ball, and play “knock-the-rat-off-the-wall”. I have great aim!

Enough said! God must have His reasons for creating creatures like these, and in this case, His thoughts are certainly not my thoughts!