Okay then.

It's gone.

It came crawling back down, went back up (WHAT THE HELL? How does it not like cheese? It literally walked within 1cm of the cheese three times.), and Eric decided to try to force it down with the fireplace poker the next time we saw it.

We only had to wait another two minutes. Eric got the thing down, I jumped up, and Eric informed me that it was in the fireplace, but not in the box. Great. I saw it on the side of the box, looking like it was trying to find a way out. I grabbed my camera and took a couple of poor-quality photos:



How cute is it?! We're almost positive it was a flying squirrel. It has little webbed arms, black nocturnal eyes and a tail not quite as bushy as a common squirrel's. Anyway, after I snapped this photo, its next idea was to climb up the screen, where there was an opening... into the rest of our house. Eric got his flashlight and forced him back into the fireplace, and it crawled rather easily onto the walls. Eric somehow got it into the box. I think he poked at it several times with his flashlight until it went into the box.

So anyway, we carried the box outside, opened it up, and it scurried into the glorious forest that is our backyard.

Update on the chimney resident.

So, it's still there. We heard scratching tonight around 7pm, so we're figuring it's gotta be a nocturnal something-or-other. Eric shined his flashlight up there, and we actually got a good look at its face. I can't really tell what it is. Opposum, raccoon, maybe... a nose that's rounder than a rat's. And kind of cute. So we stuck a straw broom into the flue leading down to the box with a few squares of cheese. And waited...

It took about 30 minutes, but we heard the tell-tale signs of movement. And suddenly we saw its furry little gray head poking down... it went halfway down the broom (I took note of its size: much smaller than Eric made it out to be, no surprise there, about 4" body with a bushy 4" tail), IGNORED THE CHEESE and went back up into the chimney!

Unfortunately, Eric's convinced that there's more than one. He thinks that the one we saw earlier was white/brown, but the one we saw climbing down the broom was gray. I'm hoping it's just the trick of the lights that made it look white/brown.

Something's in our chimney.

Ew.

At first, I felt really bad for it, thinking it must have been a poor little squirrel that likely fell into our chimney. Eric got a flashlight and said the thing had fur and whiskers. My next thought was gigantic, beady-eyed rat. I know squirrels have fur and whiskers (they do have whiskers, right?), but this thing was too quiet... and it seemed big. I know, that doesn't make sense since I never saw it. But still. Plus, it never made a sound, and squirrels make lots of noise when they're pissed off. So there's my logic. It is/was a rat.

So we grabbed a large box, opened the front door and barricaded the family room so that if it escaped, it would hopefully just find its way outside. Eric put the box under the flue, opened the flue, I retreated into a bedroom with Jaiden, closed the door and...

Nothing. We left the flue open for a long time, but the thing never budged. Eric assumed it climbed out, and I assumed it had just found a hiding place. Eric stuck his head practically up into the flue, and couldn't find anything. So, he went to the bathroom, I sat down with my laptop, and I heard scratching again. *Shudder* Eric assumed I was paranoid and hearing things. I knew differently. He opened the flue again, looked up, and magically there appeared a place where the thing was probably hiding. ;)

We got into our previous positions, opened the flue... and still nothing.

After Eric went to bed and the house got quiet, I heard it come off its perch and dig frantically at the opening of the flue (or at least that's what I imagined it was doing... trying to get out so that it could leave the fireplace, come directly at me and sink its fangs into me). I stayed up for another hour and a half, and eventually I didn't hear anything more.

Today, I heard nothing. One of three things happened:

1. It tried climbing out, fell and killed itself.
2. It tried climbing out and found a way to escape. (Maybe there's a hole into the attic? Which means it's crawling around above my head. I kind of doubt it was able to climb all the way to the top of the chimney.)
3. It's still in there, biding its time (unlikely--I've been sitting here 8 hours and I've heard nothing).
4. It just died. Of hunger or something.

So, in all likelihood, it's still around, either dead or alive.

3.8!

That's my GPA for the fall 2011 semester. I got all As and one B in ethics (big surprise there). I put much more effort into studying for the finals for all classes except ethics, since the only way I could have pulled off an A in that class was to get something like 96% on the final, and I knew that wasn't going to happen. The class I was really hoping to get an A in was my environmental engineering class, since I totally bombed the first exam, and I got the A. :) I also got an e-mail to join an honor society, Alpha Lambda Delta, which I'll probably do... I don't think it'll do anything, but it might look good on my resume.

This coming semester, I'll be taking statistics, engineering economics, thermodynamics, statics and environmental engineering II. Apparently my thermodynamics professor is unhelpful AND it's an online class... AND Eric thinks I'm crazy for taking statics, thermodynamics and statistics in the same semester. He's probably right. Hopefully this semester won't kill my GPA.

I have a new tank setup! I bought new substrate and some new plants, and transferred the fishies into a temporary holding tank (AKA a cooler), and let my creative juices flow. I scooped out 50 pounds worth of the old substrate out of the tank, carried 50 gallons of water from the tank to the sink, carried 50 more gallons of clean water from the sink to the tank, and filled the tank with 50 pounds of new gravel. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end, but I love the way it looks now:



Two of the three tenants in our townhouse in Lansdale are moving out, and our property manager hasn't heard about the third. He was supposed to be staying, but I'm guessing he can't come up with the rent. I just hope it doesn't get to a point where we have to evict him. I mean, I don't care about having to evict someone; I just don't want it to get to that point, because it's probably a huge effing hassle. Not to mention the fact that finding new tenants isn't going to be easy, since there's already a unit in our community that's looking for tenants. Sigh. I'm just thankful that I still have tenants (knock on wood--please don't leave, tenants!). Geez, money is especially tight for us right now, now that I think about it. Over the next week, I have $2300 in taxes due along with $1700 in tuition. Hopefully in a couple of months things will look better.

We had a long visit in Omaha, about two and a half weeks. It was great to visit, but it went too quickly as usual. It's always bittersweet to leave Omaha. I look forward to going home, but I always know it'll be a while before I see my family and friends again. When we left Omaha a few days ago, it sort of dawned on me that I'll never be able to make up for the time lost with family since I've moved. That probably sounds strange--that it took me nearly four years for that to sink in (I can't believe I've been gone that long). And once I graduate and get a job where I'm unable to work from home (and therefore unable take "working vacations" to Omaha), I'll be able to see my family even less. I don't really regret moving, and I don't think I'd ever move back to Omaha, but I do really miss my family sometimes.