I *heart* Georgia

All Spring it was the gnats. You could not leave any doors or windows open because the gnats would swarm into the house. In the mornings you would find dead gnat bodies all over the bathroom and kitchen counters, as they were attracted to the nightlights. Yuck.

After the gnats came the mosquitos. Mosquitos would get into the house and somehow find their way into Alexander's bedroom. There, they would feast on his blood all night long and he would wake with huge, swollen, itchy bites all over his exposed skin.

Around the first of April the tick population exploded in the backyard. Mark bought 2 big bags of "granules" to kill the ticks. That worked pretty good for the FIRE ANTS also. Good since Alexander kept finding the Fire Ant hills by stepping on them bare foot! Ouch!

Soon it was warm enough for the A/C, so the flying insects in the house decreased.

Next arrived the scorpions. I killed at least four in the house. But I'm pretty sure they were only coming in the house to eat the roaches.

Three cans of Raid Industrial Strength later, I killed a couple of big centipedes(millipedes?) that were still very much alive. Did you know that they can sting, like a scorpion?

Also, Raid doesn't really work for spiders...

In June we evicted a blue skink (lizard) that was hiding under the stove.

I think I've been a pretty good sport. It's a rental house, in the woods, okay. Thus far, in my book, the roaches were the worst. I just can't abide the nasty little buggers.

But today takes the cake.

Go ahead, guess..... just guess...... what was in my bedroom. Okay, well it's Mark's room too...

Did you guess..... A SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You didn't guess that did you???

A baby black snake strolling across the bedroom floor. All I can say, is it was a good thing Mark was actually home and saw it. Because if I had seen it I would not have been composed enough to smack it, with my favorite, blue Nike flip-flop, like he did.

And if it had remained uncaptured in the bedroom it never would have been found and we would have had to abandon ship. I mean abandon the house and stay at a hotel.

But, now that it's almost bedtime I can't get over the feeling that there might be another one, somewhere, hiding...