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Colleen Coble writes romantic suspense with a strong atmospheric element. A lovable animal of some kind--usually a dog--always populates her novels. She can be bribed with DeBrand mocha truffles.
Denise Hunter writes women's fiction and love stories with a strong emotional element. Her husband says he provides her with all her romantic material, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too.
Diann Hunt writes romantic comedy and humorous women's fiction. She has been happily married forever, loves her family, chocolate, her friends, chocolate, her dog, and well, chocolate.
Cheryl Hodde writes romantic medical suspense under the pen name of Hannah Alexander, using all the input she can get from her husband, Mel, for the medical expertise. For fun she hikes and reads. Out of guilt, she rescues discarded cats. She and Mel are presently taking orders from four pampered strays.
23 Comments:
I actually JUMPED when I opened the blog. You are crazy girl!!!
I am so much more against spiders and drowning than the little bother of a mouse. I agree, they should not be in the house, but that is what I have cats for. :-)
You had it easy. My sister awoke one morning wondering what that tickling thing was on her hand. By the time she was fully awake, it was something skittering down her leg. Yep, you guessed it, a mouse as in her bed. My brother-in-law didn't get a gentle awakening, either. They lived with a booby-trapped bedroom for weeks.
As for me, I've learned of other critters that belong outside, not in. I was about 15 when I was awakened in the middle of the night by that tell-tale scurrying sound. I turned on my bedside light and looked around to see if I could find the little critter. Sure enough, there was his gray nose sticking out from behind my dresser. Then the rest of him came out from behind my dresser. I've never seen a mouse with a long, fluffy tale. The squirrel ran across the floor, climbed my closet door and scamptered away. I jumped up, slammed the door closed, and sped up the stairs. "Dad!" I cried outside my parents' bedroom. "There's a squirrel in my bedroom."
And how did my loving, compassionate, oh so considerate overworked father reply? "Guess you'll have to sleep upstairs then."
Trust me, squirrels are nothing but fluffy-tailed tree rats.
We have those little critters invade our home as well. DH reminds that is the price of living in the country. I have some high powered poison. I check every morning to see if its been eaten out of. When it has not, I breath a sigh of relief. When it has, I think I hope you die soon.
This is why when my 9 yr old son wanted a hamster, I had a terrible time. For 6 months, I said no. Bet. dh, ds and ladies at work, I was finally convinced that I could survive this little thing. So for Valentines, he got a hamster. The first day home, it escaped for just a few moments. My older son came to find out where I went. I was on a chair in the kitchen. Needless to say, they all find that quite funny. He is cute when he is in his ball running around but loose. . . . . not so much!
Mice may cause me to jump, or even shriek if I see them in our basement, but I can't say they're one of my fears. Snakes, on the other, hand--I can't even look at them in books or on TV. During a first-aid class, I accidentally flipped to the snakebites page, screamed, and dropped my text on the floor. Another shining Lisa moment.
Another time, while pregnant with our first and living in S.C., I was in the living room of our townhouse and heard a rustling by the door. Hubby was in the shower. I moved the bag by the door and saw a small black snake slithering his evil self in under the weatherstripping. I screamed as if my life depended on it and hubby raced down the stairs, out of the shower in all his Marine Corps glory. Once he realized the problem, he headed upstairs, put on clothes, and marched across the parking lot to the super's office. Our weatherstripping was replaced within the hour. He's my knight in shining armor. :-D
I have critter stories out the wazoo. Including a snake in the toilet. Frog, too. On separate occasions of toilet use, of course.... :)
Fifty years ago, my parents had a mouse that always came out on Sunday night, sat on their living room floor, and watched Ed Sullivan with them. They didn't have the heart to off him. :)
Katy www.fallible.com
Ya'll are cute. We actually raised mice and rats at one time. We needed them to feed the snakes, and it was cheaper to raise our own and sell the extras to the pet store and other reptile owners. When we got rid of the snakes we quit raising the mice/rats. But I will say there are some adorable colors and some have the sweetest personlity. I live in the country and every time they do ANYTHING to the field we get mice. We use the glue traps, harsh way to go, but as I keep telling the mice, learn to stay out of my house and you won't get set out in glue for the hawk or cats to get. (Or yes they starve to death, but hey unless I bring you in in a cage you got no business in my house, well except the lizards, them I leave alone.) Okay so we actually encourage the lizards but they are different. We have a pet dragon and I want a room/building so we can get some frills and water dragons. But that's another tale.
But mice aren't too bad, I still don't want them lose in my house, but I do have to talk to them as I'm taking them out. And I make this loud annoucement everytime I set the traps, "Okay mice, I'm putting out the traps, I'm not saying where, but you know if you leave the house you'll live, you stay you die. Your choice". My hubby about falls over laughing at me, but hey I feel it gives them a fair chance, leave=live, stay=death. Simple. Sad, huh? And yes my kids are more likely to move a critter out than kill it. Well except maybe baby girl then she screams for her hero, daddy, and says "it's a bug, it's a bug, it's a bug" usually it's a piece of paper but.......
We had hamsters as well. My fave is the teddybear one. But I think we've moved on the reptiles now. Son wants another snake, since his died about a year or ago. Not like we don't have enough dogs what with people dropping them off at the house and the cats, now they want a goat again and sheep again. I think we need to move to a farm.!
hugs,
WendyK
LOL! My mother would have climbed on the bed and screamed.
I was always the mouse killer when I worked at Wabash Electric. I'd take a broom in hand and beat the tar out of the mouse until it lay stunned enough for me to scoop it up on a dustpan and toss it outside. LOL
But spiders are another story. Shudder.
I think mice are cute! But I don't want them in my house.
Snakes I can't stand.
I am the official bug killer in out house. My DH even calls me to come kill spiders.
My phobias have more to do with drowning or falling than with other little creatures.
When we moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta, we moved into a house that was basically in the country. Okay, maybe not technically the country, but there was forest and vacant land all around us.
What I didn't know was mice lived all over the place. Here I was in my brand spankin' new 6,000 square foot house oeverlooking a lake on the golf course - AND I HAD MICE!
I've since learned how to deal with those little critters. We keep mouse bait in the basement and never see them upstairs. They eat that stuff and go somewhere to expire, and we never have to deal with traps.
Now the question of the year: do they have little "x"s where their eyes are when they die - like in the cartoons?
Oh Amen, you are so right!!! ick...
p.s. I'd like to know the answer to Ane's question though, lol.
Last summer, my husband was gone for about five weeks and two days after he left, the mice moved in. I have always been able to take care of myself, but waking up to the sound of mice eating through a styrofoam container to get to my leftover cheesecake was more than I could take. I called my friend and asked her husband to please come set traps and then I got various friends to drop by and check the traps until I wasn't seeing evidance any more. I was a wreck until my husband came home. I think I could handle a snake before mice. I don't know what comes over me....
I've never actually had to deal with mice or rats, but from what I've seen, they look pretty cute. The only thing I would worry about would be Bubonic plague or rabies, but those are normal anxieties, right?
Though I totally agree with you, Colleen. Spiders are one of the scariest living things. I think I became afraid of them at the age of eight, when I first read Lord of the Rings. Shiver. Snakes are another gross thing. After all, it was the serpent that tempted Eve to eat the apple!
We had a snake in our bathroom last year, and I have no idea how it got there, that's the worst part for me. How do I prevent this from happening again? DH wrapped it in the rug and it bit him, but it didn't get a good hold on him. Stil, that is DISGUSTING. What bothers me more though is the furry spiders that jump. I haven't seen one in a long time, but there is nothing creepier to me that something furry that will jump at you.
Ane--VERY same thing happened to us, when we built our house. Not only is it in the country, but of course when they're building it, it's largely open. So the mice move right in and build nests in whatever furniture you might have moved in early, thinking it would be smart to store it in the basement. Ha. NOT SMART.
The first night we slept in our brand new house, 13 years ago, at least a DOZEN mice RAN between the kitchen trash can (where they dined) and the master bathroom (where they found an opening to get back down to the basement.)
To make this run, they had to scamper RIGHT PAST OUR BED, which was only a mattress on the floor that first night. I did NOT close my eyes while the Dirty Dozen ran back and forth all night.
The next morning I told my husband I'd give it no more days. If I saw another mouse, I'd be gone. He took me seriously, too. It was ten years before I saw another one, but THAT'S a story for a different day. :)
I haven't visited the blog much today because that mouse picture creeps me out. But I enjoyed reading your responses. Most of you feel my pain, and those of you who don't, you're my heroes!
I'm with you. I hate mice and rats. Years ago, one got in my classroom. When the kids started chasing it, the mouse ran between my legs. I got so freaked out, I stood on a chair and screamed. It was the most unexpected reaction. The kids, of course, were SO pleased to find one of my weaknesses. :(
We're having a rat problem at school right now. Yucky! I do not want to meet any--at anytime or in any place! I especially don't want to meet any rats when I'm with kids. (I might stand on the chair again. Can't risk that!)
Ohh, and while I was whining about squirrels, I forgot to talk about the one who stalked me in D.C. — seriously, he followed me for blocks. Everytime I turned around, there he was, staring up at me with those innocent eyes. Evil little tree rat.
Then there was the squirrel investation in the church singles building. If any of you have been to Gatlinburg, Tenn., chances are you've seen at least one of the steeples of my old church, First Baptist Sevierville. Well, when I lived there, we singles were, OK, not banished, but, well, we had our own building across the street from the main campus. We would sit there in Sunday School trying not to imagine the squirrels playing in the ceiling falling through. We had only one true "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" episode when one went running through the room. The others were much more disgusting and involved squirrel remains.
Ech. Now I have to try to sleep.
Oh, and as for you lizard people, I came to an understanding with geckos when I spent a summer with my sister in Hawaii, but as a general rule, I don't share my home with chirping reptiles. My only freak out session came when I was doing the dishes and a gecko ran out of one of the glasses.
Okay, Melanie, this will freak you out, and I probably shouldn't admit it, but I know you all won't think I'm weird, right?
When I lived with my parents, on the next street over from us, they were cutting down trees. In one of the trees was an abandoned baby squirrel (its eyes were still closed). My sister brought it home. My mom fed it milk with karo syrup through an eye dropper.
We got a huge cage and the squirrel lived with us for eight years until he died. He got out of his cage every night and ate sunflower seeds out of my dad's hand and played in the living room. He was potty-trained--used a litter box!
Katy, I can imagine you not sleepin that might!!! Eww. ANd I'm dying to hear that other story.
Di, a friend of mine once bought a mouse to give to her cat, but instead Socrates lived a nice life in a cage for a few years, taunting that cat. ;)
We use to live in a cabin in the mtns. I was standing in the living room and something fluttered by me. It was sorta small but bigger than a butterfly....to my horror it was a BAT!!! I've always cringed with the thought of a bat getting stuck in my hair. (Which was long at the time.)
I screamed, left the house and got my trusty neighbor to get the flying hairball out of there.
She (yes, SHE) laughed at me and got the bat out with no problem at all. She was worried I would kill it. That wasn't too far from my thoughts.....
So, if it's not a pet (cat or dog) it doesn't belong in the house!
My memorable creature encounter was when a spider the size of my palm came skittering across my kitchen floor when I was nine months pregnant. I jumped (literally) on my kitchen table and my weight was too much for the corner (being 9 mo. pregnant) and the table flipped me and my soup on the floor. My hubby came rushing in asking if I was okay and all I could do was yell "get it" as the spider was still crawling toward me. I can still picture the big, black hairy thing.
My sister found a snake in her toilet. Luckily she spotted it before she sat down. Somehow it came through the pipes. Yikes!
And one morning she awoke to a strange fluttering sound only to find a bat swirling around her head (in Manassas Virgina no less). Somehow she managed to wrangle it in a towel/bowl combination and release it outside. I've been affectionately calling her Batgirl ever since :0)
Oh man, these bat stories freak me out!! But the snake in the toilet thing is enough to give me nightmares!!!! No lifted toilet lids at our house!!!!
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