E-E-E-E-E-K!!! N-O-O-O-O-O!!!

Until 15 minutes ago, the title for this post was to be “A Flurry of Finishes” to celebrate all the items I made for the P.E.O. silent auction fundraiser. You can see them in the pictures here: four American Girl holiday dresses; two bibs; and a little pink shirt embroidered with, “I am the PRINCESS of the palace.” The pillowcase was made at embroidery club and will go to granddaughter Emmy as a gift of Grandma Kathy’s advent program.

This morning I machine embroidered a couple of towels. I was just stepping back into the room to line out the afternoon's work when I saw it – a dark shadow skittering across the floor and under the sofa. My spontaneous outburst was not a dignified “Eeeeeek!” but more of a Charlie Brown “Arrrrgh!” followed by “Mi-i-i-ke! – There’s a mouse in my sewing room!”

This is bad news! The little sewing room is cramped with my sewing table, the sofa, and the ironing board. Add to that boxes of sewing supplies, a doll, pillows, odds and ends – you know, stuff that doesn’t matter in a sewing room until you’ve discovered a rodent in your midst.Then suddenly I see the room for what it is -- a mess!

Mike paused the football game he was watching – SMU vs. Tulsa – and came back to the room with Nellie in tow. We stacked up my stuff and were in the process of taking the cushions off the hide-a-bed in order to open it, when suddenly the mouse streaked back across the floor and (horror of horrors!) under the closet door. I’ve cleaned out one side of the closet, which is nice and neat, but the other side stores yarn and batting and such stuff as mice love, still in disarray. “We’ll never find it in here,” said Mike in a tone of frustration. And Nellie! Useless dog! She simply couldn’t catch our drift with regard to that mouse – and apparently not the scent either. I suspect Mrs. Claus’ workshop was too intimidating to this well-mannered dog who knows better than to mess with Kathy’s stuff.

“We’ll have to trap it,” Mike said. But we don’t have traps here in town – not that either of us can remember anyway-- so that’s a trip someplace to buy them this afternoon because I’m not putting this off.

“They won’t hurt you,” said Mike as I quaked in the corner and declared that there went my plans to sew this afternoon. “They’re just furry little rodents that . . . blah blah blah.” Well, I don’t like being startled by the mouse any more than she likes being startled by me.

“How did that mouse get in here anyway?” I asked.

“Maybe you carried it in with a box from the garage,” he suggested. But I haven’t brought in any boxes.

“I don’t think I could have carried one in with the wood,” he said. Aha! He did, too, I’ll bet.

As my thoughts begin to ponder the advent season, the little critter seems somewhat apropos – you know, “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” But I’m going for the “not even” part – elimination.

Come to think of it, I remember hearing a rustling as I sewed the other day and thinking that if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a mouse. Hmmmm. It was a mouse. KW