The nightmare vermin lives on my pepper plant

After a less than impressive night's sleep, I woke with the enthusiasm of a large slug facing a trip to the salt mines. I don't know why I said that. Just felt right. So I got up. The hub, sweet man that he is, took G and the boy to the pediatrician's office for a well visit so I could breakfast with a dear friend who was in town for the game. Calm before the storm so to speak. Returning home with a happy tummy from diner food, I arrived to sad faces, angry from an xbox scuffle that ended with it being disconnected for a period of time...oh so sad. So to turn those frowns upside down, what did we do? We went to the lighting store. This 3+ year remodel is starting to finally get real and, once we took a sledge to the wall, we were committed. When our friend came yesterday to give us a drywall estimate, we realized we needed to start looking for fixtures. The hub found a lady who knew what she was talking about and, more importantly, had patience with all of the questions and the children and still asked him to come back. Well, lady, you're stuck with us now. My head was spinning with all of Teresa's information. I did not know that light had different color temperatures and we had to match all that stuff up. Who knew? I did not. The kids were clearly overwhelmed with all the excitement:



We mooked at cans and tapes and priced out lots of things that made no sense to my brain. After that overwhelming fun was done, we scooped up the kids and took them to a place of fun: the Soccer Post. The boy, who outgrows shoes on a daily basis, needed new cleats and G needed new shin guards. They kicked a few foam balls into the indoor goal and were then hungry and ready to get on with life. Of course we chose poorly and went to the grocery store along with 17,000 of our closest friends who were preparing for their football viewing snackage. We escaped quickly, just barely holding on to what sanity is left in our gourds and arrived at the ranch, the hub ready to rest and I, ready to work on consignment sale stuff. The children felt this was an invitation to veg in front of the television. They were mistaken. We made them go outside, which meant we had to go outside. Okay, whatever. I, still lacking from the cruddy night of sleep, put my head on the patio table and had a drooling 15 minute power nap until the boy woke me with bounty from the garden. Okay, I'll go pick some peppers so the boy doesn't touch them and burn his eyes. This is me being productive. I went over to the garden and noticed that one pepper plant was missing all of its top leaves and a jalapeno was sheared off. With a handful of 4 big hot peppers, I reached for a fifth pepper. Thank the good Lord in Heaven I did not touch it. I would at this point be in a straight jacket in a padded room singing nursery rhymes while I drooled all over myself. For what I found, and made the hub remove from the area, was creepy.



It is a bit out of focus and there is no frame of reference, so the hub decided to provide that frame and gross me the %&$* out all at the same time:



The thing was angry at being displaced from its jalapeno chewing, that I was concerned it would jump right into his mouth. I'm sure the neighbors were laughing because I was not being quiet in my disgust. At all. Turns out it was a Tomato Worm. In all of our years of having tomatoes and peppers and gardens, we have never had one of those.

Just know that the night sweats and shrieking in the middle of the night will be me, seeing those things all over the room. And I thought "color temperature" was the wildest thing I had seen all day.
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