NaNoWriMo Day 10 (& post card #2 & an injury & an excerpt!)

How am I supposed to write with an injured thumb?
I have to use that space button a lot, ya know?
And yes, that is an Iron Man bandaid :)

 Lots of fun things today! Went on a college visit all morning. I had two hours in the car and did absolutely no writing or school work. I know. I'm bad. But I enjoyed visiting with my dad :)

Sad thing happened while I was cleaning the kitchen, though. I cut my thumb with a Cutco knife. Those things are sharp!! I was bleeding all over the place. My thumb is in intense pain -- I can hardly push the space bar. Okay, okay, just kidding. But it is a minor set back =P

I made it to 16,705 words today! I am barely on track/ahead, but I haven't fallen behind yet! Will hopefully wake up early tomorrow and write so that I can work on school Sunday afternoon :)

Have a great weekend!

Oh, and one. More. Excerpt. Seriously, I am having way too much fun with these!

We loved our small frame house on Circle Way. It was a nice size, especially with the new add-on that Mom and Dad put in (an office and a small bathroom).

            There were disadvantages to living in that house, though. Basically every little critter you could ever think of lived in the attic or in the floor of that house.

            Opossums, rats, mice, raccoons… you name it! Probably the raccoons were the worst of them all. The other animals we could catch or poison. But not those pesky raccoons. They were much, much harder to get rid of.

Post card #2 from Williamsburg!
Sent by Monica. Thank you!!

            I think our first attempt at getting rid of the beasts was with some bait and a cage. The only problem with that was that those raccoons were smarter than we thought. They would either ignore the bait altogether or somehow get the bait and avoid getting captured by the cage.

            Our next attempt was music. We read or heard somewhere that if you play loud music all day so that they can’t sleep, the night-creatures will find a quieter, more peaceful place to live. But alas, that was also to no avail.

            Poor 7-year-old Kelsey couldn’t sleep sometimes because of the nasty critters living in our attic. They would roll around or fight just above her bed.

            She staggered into our parent’s bedroom one night, half sobbing as she said, “Daddy, the ca-coons are keeping me up again!”

            That was the final straw for Dad. He had tried to catch them in a humane way, to drive them off without even making contact, but they had to make this difficult, didn’t they?

            He jumped out of bed and headed for the closet where he kept his only weapon: a shot gun.

            “Lance,” Mom said, a bit panicky.

            He was already in the hallway, pulling the attic stares down from the ceiling with a loud squeak and a thump as they reached the floor. 

            “Lance!” Mom said again, a little louder, but to no avail. He was already halfway up the stairs by now, shot gun in hand.

            “Come on,” Mom told Kelsey. They grabbed Colleen and me and we sleepily made our way to the front porch. All four of us could fit on the green swing.

            “What’s Daddy doing?” I asked.

            “We’re just going to sit out here for a minute sweetie until—“

            Boom! Boom!

            Mom winced.

            I covered my ears.

            Colleen cried.

            Kelsey inhaled sharply.

            “What was that?”

            Before Mom could answer Dad was on the front porch.

            “Honey,” he said, serious and stern, “find us a new house.”

            35 days later, we called Daffodil our home.