Another Spider Post

First of all, I'm sorry for the photographs that you'll find beneath all of the writing here. There are only two of them, and if you don't think you can handle it, feel free to duck out now-

I hate them too. I know the last spider post was kind of difficult for some of you to look at, but, see this time what I've done, is captured everything in black and white. Now I don't know about you, but it sure makes it a heck of a lot easier for me to look at it. Its not as realistic?

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The other morning, as I was picking up the kids' toys, I was attacked by a giant man eating wolf spider. When I say attacked, I guess that might somewhat of an exaggeration (pfft). There I was, hunched over scooping up blocks and books, dum didledeedee, minding my own business, ya know? I go to move a random sheet of coloring book paper, Dora or something, and underneath it, hanging out like he owns the play mat, was the beast. I screamed like a girl, grabbed the baby off the floor, and jumped back!

Ok, I can't lie. I jumped back, and then grabbed the baby. We all know I'm an awesome mom, I don't need an award to prove it, thanks.

I picked up the nearest toy bin, blue and plastic, and went to throw it on top of the eight legged monster. Have you ever tried to catch a wolf spider? They're fast. While I was trying to control my arachnophobic convulsions, my hairy enemy ran straight into the kids toys. "Noooooo", I shouted in a deep slow motion voice.

I set Charlie down in his excersaucer, which he hates (oh and he sure let me know it), and then suited up in my combat gear. I put shoes on. I grabbed the fly swatter. I grabbed a large book. How in the heck was I supposed to catch this thing? Christopher was off playing war games, dressed in full on chem gear, and I knew that there was no way he'd be able to rescue me (I had sent him a text message, giving up a heads up on my potential doom anyways). I kicked the toys around, the baby screaming at me in anger in the background, Eleanore on the couch watching tv like a freakin' 3 year old zombie (completely unphased, as if neither myself, n or the spider were even there), and waited for the speed demon to come running out at me, fangs dripping with saliva. "He wants to kill me, he wants to kill me, he wants to kill me", was all I could think. "So I have to kill him first". Now I know that no sane person probably thinks this way, but we've all got our quirks, right?

After not being able to find him, buried amongst toy cars and stuffed animals, for half an hour (but lets be real, I wasn't exactly picking up the toys one by one to find him), I took the baby upstairs to change him. While I was up there, two squirmy baby feet in one hand (this kid is getting strong), a disaster of a diaper in the other, I heard the front door creak open and my daughter shout "DADDY YOU ARE HOME!".

*sigh* My hero.

Christopher had driven all the way home, going 15 mph in the military version of a golf cart, dressed in (I have to say, cover your eyes family if you're reading) an extremely sexy pair of coveralls, just to save me. He walked into the house, found the spider (who was hiding behind Eleanore's monkey in the box), killed it, threw it away, and was back out the door in less than 5 minutes. Seriously? Did that really just happen, I wondered. Well, that night he went around the outsides of the doors with insect killer, just to keep them outside (where they belong), and to ease my mind. Its one thing when they're out in the wild, roaming the grass and eating crickets and things, but its another when they're hanging out and playing with the coloring crayons while we're all sleeping.

The next day when Christopher came home from work, we all ran to meet him at the door (ok, again, we left the baby in the living room). Instead of saying "hello" to me, like I was expecting, Christopher looked over towards the patio table, looked back at me, back at the table, back at me, and says "did you do that?". Do wha- ...oh. There, lying upside down under the chair, was a reletive of the play mat beast. He must have walked directly along the path of the insect killer, because it usually takes a lot to take down a spider that size. But no, Christopher, to answer you question, I did not "do that".



I don't think I've ever gotten the chance to see one up close like this (not that I've ever wanted one), without it having just scared all of the crap in the world out of me. This spider though, was completely harmless (spider lovers, please don't start in on how wolf spiders are harmless to begin with. To you, they're completely harmless. To me, they're a heart attack with 8 legs). I grabbed the camera, and before I chickened out, took a couple of pictures.


Christopher picked him up and held him in the palm of his calm hand. He examined him up close, making comments about his large fangs, focusing in on his hairy body- it was all completely insane if you ask me. But at the same time, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, it was absolutely beautiful. Not the spider, or the fact that he was dead, but the whole my husband is cradling a dead spider in the palm of his hand, thing.

I know, who am I, and what did I do with Tia? Gross.

Don't worry, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I won't be posting anymore spider related picture or stories anytime soon. Unless its really good, which, it better not be, because I've had enough of these giant spiders crawling around inside of my house.

Extreme Makeover; blog edition

You've probably noticed by now that we did a little remodeling over the weekend (a huge thank you to my friend Amy, over at Muddy Boots, without her I would have never gotten a move on it). Some of you love it. Some of you hate it. I myself, I love it, but I can see how a few of you might not be so quick to jump to say the L word. Its different.

First, real quick, lets just all get into the DeLorean (which by the way, I thought was pronounced delorium? I fell into a fit of laughter when Christopher corrected me. I'm obviously awesome right now) and take a ride back to the beginning of our blog. ChristopherAndTia- March, 2008 (scroll all the way down to the bottom for our very first post). I wish I had a screen shot of what my blog must have looked like back then, but at that time I don't think I even knew what a screen shot was. Based on content alone though, you can see that things have come a long way. My photography, my topics (I had no energy back then, and was plagued by my health problems and obesity), my amazing run on sentance skills (ok so maybe they're not amazing, but would you be able to make sense of anything that I write without them?).

Want to know why I started my blog (I'm about to tell you anyways, whether you soundlessly said yes or no)? ...To promote my Etsy shop... Yes, really. But in the 19 or 20 months since then, I've realized that I am much better at keeping an online interactive journal than I am at trying to sell my handmade (and lets face it, not so fantastic) crafts. I'm not really that good at crafting anyways, especially when I'm trying to make something for somebody that I don't know on a personal level. Plus, I hate putting a price on something that I've made. But I do like to take pictures and write. So somewhere in all of that, my talent and direction evolved.

So back to the blog makeover- What I love most about my new layout, is now I don't (and neither do you) have to scroll all the way down past all of the posts to see the things on my sidebar. I had been wanting to try a 3 column template for awhile now, but was too chicken to do anything about it, fearing that I'd erase everything that I had ever written. So my sidebar just kept growing, and growing, and growing- until one day a blogger friend of mine (Hey Amy!) emailed me and asked me if I could maybe use a hand with it? "Yes, please!" I begged.

Up at the top there, above the banner (which is enormous now, I know, much bigger than my last one, which is another feature that I love about the new look) you'll see a long bar of links. One for Flashbacks, one for gluten free recipes (which I'll be doing a lot more of in the near future), fitness (yeah, I'm going to drag you all along with me while I break a sweat), my Etsy favorites (even though I don't sell on Etsy anymore, I still support handmade, absolutely), giveaways (speaking of, is anybody interested in sponsoring an upcoming giveaway? hehe), and then a link to a page of all of my favorite posts.

Over there on the right ---> you'll see our sponsor spots *waves*, links to friends blogs, other blogs that I write for (ok there is only one link for that, but-), a couple of diy tutorials, the archives, blah blah blah, things like that.

Down below, is the follow box (I still get so excited when somebody follows me, hehe), my contact information, and a grab-our-button thing.

Ok, so now that you've had the grand tour and you're a little bit more familiar with the new look, what do you think? Likes, dislikes? I'd love to hear your feedback. Things aren't completely finished, I've got a little bit of tinkering to do, but since y'all are the ones that come here and choose to look at it, your opinion matters to me.