invasion

So Russia invades Ukraine, which causes rising oil prices to surge even further, and makes it an almost certainty that Illinois' gas prices (along with the rest of the country) are about to really go up.

Here's how to gauge your own level of arachnophobia: if you said "Wow, what a colorful and interesting specimen," you've got a pretty small case of spider-phobia, if at all.

I think that may be the first headline I've ever written that actually gave me the creeps. It's not often you can work the words stink, bugs, crawl, and your house into the same sentence unless you're the subject of a TLC series.

Not that misery loves company or anything like that, but I really hope that my house isn't the only place in the Rockford area that has become some sort of June bug hangout spot. Not to burst anyone's bubble, but June bugs aren't named June bugs because they're only around in June. June is usually when they're just getting started.

We've got a mini-invasion taking place in my backyard, and my dog Lucy is not the slightest bit pleased about it. She has no idea whatsoever that "Bufo Americanus" is the fancy name for the simple American Toad, a toad that can be found throughout the Midwest. Every night for the past couple of weeks, Lucy goes out on what my wife Amy and I call "toad patrol."

In my house, being the husband and father also got me another title: chief bug killer. If it crawls, flies, creeps, lurks, slithers, and/or stings, I'm your go-to executioner and disposal expert. Granted, we don't have much of an insect problem here in the Rockford area, so I'd rather be here than in Havana, Illinois.