Not a Nature Girl

I like to consider my home a bug free zone.  We pay an extermination company loads of money to help make this a reality.  When I say my home is bug free, I would also like for that to be a blanket statement that covers the outside of my home and the grass where my kids and I play as well.  Just because I'd like it to be so doesn't always mean it is so.  The trees and other areas of the yard are fair game as far as I'm concerned.

Apparently, the stink bugs and cicadas did not receive the memo.  They are going out of their way to get into my home (as I write this) or onto my front porch or window screens.  The things are ugly from the top side...the underbelly is far worse!  Chills creepy-crawl from my ears to my toenails when I encounter such eery looking creatures.  Thanks to their presence, I haven't set foot on my front porch after dusk in weeks.  (Spiders account for all the other warm nights I've imprisoned myself in my home.)

My husband is trying to turn me into an outdoorsy girl...sitting on the deck at night to enjoy a glass of wine and the latest Daily Show or Colbert Report on Hulu; enjoying the back and forth motion of our hammock swing while staring at the back of our shrinking house.  I spend most of the time looking for bugs out of the corner of my eye - always ready to spring out of my seat and into the safety of my home should a 6 or 8 legged creature decide that tonight's the night to climb Mount Lee.  Sometimes hubby sits on the front porch, smoking a cigar and watching something he's downloaded on the computer, just to taunt me.  He knows that I refuse to go to bed without kissing him goodnight, so he lures me out there on purpose.  Nice try, but the few seconds I spend out there, surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature, are a few seconds too many!

Heaven help me when my girls grow up and, like most children I know, decide they want to spend the night in a tent in the backyard...with Mommy.