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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Pee As In Patio

Ever since Chloe died, we've pretty much spent zero minutes in our backyard.  It needs some serious beautifying but we'll get to the outside after we finish the inside.  Which will probably be in a million zillion years.

Recently, our back patio called Patio Protective Services on us and filed a complaint stating, "neglect."


Really, Patio?  Was that really necessary?

Apparently so.

The past few days have been seasonably chilly, you see, and poor Patio has been getting......what's a nice way of putting this......

Ehh......just think about it.


That is so not nice, Nikki.  Not cool at all.


Bad dog!  You stop that right now, ya hear!

Clearly something has to be done before Boots and I get thrown in the pokie and they hide the key!

Enter the garden rake (I broke it) and the broom.  And maybe 20 minutes of action time and 1 portion of bothering Boots with my silly requests for moving the grills.  The nerve of that girl!


Nothing short of miraculous, am I right?



Pay no attention to my outdoor bathroom death zone.  Like I said, a zillion billion years.  And, also, don't come and steal my generator.  (It's not really mine!)

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Homemade Toothpaste

Ever since my Canadian blogfriend Marnie posted her recipe for homemade toothpaste I've been dying to try it.  

Here's the ingredients:


Mix 'em all together......


Boom!  Homemade toothpaste!  You can be a hippie too!

However, hippie's aren't cheap and I am.  At roughly $3.46 per baby food jar (what is that, 3 ounces?) Tom's of Maine is looking like a much better deal.  Less labor and time, more bang for your buck.

Monday, November 14, 2011

A Tour? Sure!

It's been a long time since I've posted any pictures showing the current state of our house so allow me to update you via photography.


Standing at the carport door, this is the view into the kitchen.  At about 7ish is the laundry room, 10 is the dining room/sun room/extra tool shed.  At 3- the living room.  There's no door on the pantry cabinet, as you can see.  Our plan is to buy another pantry cabinet just like that one and put it in the bathroom and swap the doors since the kitchen is in fact not painted white and the door that belongs with this cabinet is.


Here's the nomadic paisley rug (it spent a month in the living room but decided to relocate to the kitchen last weekend) and a new-but-not-going-to-be-permanent nubby rug from Target.


Boots doesn't think it really "goes" and I'm not in love with it like the paisley rug so the decision to return it didn't take very long.


Here's the sorta sad looking laundry room.  The shelves walls need the paint touched up a bit and I plan to use baskets to keep all the stuff we throw up there corralled and hang a reedy-looking blind.  Maybe.  Maybe it will just be open.


Here we have the dining room/sun room/extra tool shed room.  And also winter storage greenhouse.  Boots flowers got moved indoors last week and Frank had himself a grand ol' time jumping in the one in front until I skirted it with a garbage bag.  Foiled again!


Another view of our mess!


This is the view of the corner part of the kitchen.


Back towards the carport door and the living room.


Is he smelling for chipmunks?  

Lots of painting to be done in this picture: the walls, the trim, the not yet existent quarter round, the door, the knobs (we really should just replace the door, it's old), a big strip of weather stripping or a door jamb or something is needed too.

Oh, and here's my little pet station for the kids' food.


There's always clothes on the couch.  Always!

The doors need to be painted, as well as the knobs, the trim and quarterround needs to be painted, curtains and/or blinds need to be bought and hung, a new rug needs to be found.


Down the skinny, narrow hall.


The Blue Room.  Pretty self explanatory, don'tcha think?

Boots is pulling the boards back up in that corner to lock together one that didn't get locked quite tight enough.


Our sad light.  I want to do something fun with the new light in here.  The paint is pretty much finished, I'd say this is our most complete room because quarterround being put down and painted.


Got to figure out some solution for closet doors.  (I hate bifolds!)


My chandy!

(I don't know what that big black thing to the right is.)


The very sad bathroom.


Boots just put the door back up a few days ago but it's got to come back down for some touch up painting on the door and the knobs.  See what power tools will do for ya?

We haven't touched the bathroom other than pulling up the old nasty floor when we had the leak so the whole thing has to be torn apart and put back together at some point.


At the end of the hall is a growing bag of I-don't-need/want-this-let's-chunk-it!


Got to do more sanding and painting here.  And change the switch.  Lots of switch changing to be done in this house.


This is our office.  Let's not even go in there.


Our bedroom with half the curtains up.  The paint needs work.


More clothes piled up everywhere, another switch that needs changing out.


More stuff!


Now you're looking towards our half bathroom which has nothing but a floor and needs a toilet, a sink, a mirror, paint, a new light, and curtains.  It currently houses vacuums.

Our chest of drawers/wedding shrine has been pushed into the closet.  Note the lack of bifold doors.  This closet really needs to go back to being a closet, complete with shelves and a bar for hangers.  In time.  At least that's what I tell myself.

And that's it for the inside!



Sunday, November 13, 2011

I Littered!

Everybody knows I'm all Captain Planet and the very idea of littering is appalling to me, but I believed my case is justified.  Somebody tried to kill me after church tonight.

Some one, I don't know who nor am I placing blame, released a wild, deranged, killer, bitey spider in my car!  Whoever put that animal in my car was pretty smart, telling the spider to hide behind my sun visor, but biting the top of my head would have been better than giving me a heart attack/near wreck!

Imagine me, driving down the road, admiring the brand new cat eyes that were stuck to the brand new blacktop, when my superkeen eyes (I did just get them checked and I can see 20/15 with my contacts, booyah!), spotted movement.  Ever so slightly, the spider shifted his weight (her weight?).  My breath caught in my throat and I began to hyperventilate and hold my breath at the same time (I kid you not) while I frantically zoomed into the Subway parking lot, slammed the car in park, jumped over into the passenger seat, one eyeball on the spider, the other digging through the glove box.

Napkins!  Where are the napkins!  I always save my extra napkins, now where are they?!?!?!?!


No napkins to be found and I had no time to waste.

Ya'll, I squashed that spider with my hankie.  And screamed.  And threw the hankie out of my car onto the ground.  In front of a cop.  And a Suburban-load of kids.  Then I drove off like nothing ever happened while the mom eyeballed my nice hankie wondered what nasty thing I'd left out there.

Spiders give me the creeps.  Even now I'm scratching my neck every time my hair moves and looking at my shoulders like I expect to see some eight-legged monster waving back at me.  I probably won't sleep tonight.  I'm sure I won't.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Friday, November 11, 2011

This Will Change Things!!!

Ya'll, I had an epiphany yesterday.

I was reading this post on Pioneer Woman's photography blog and right about the point where she said, "I took the camera off of auto focus," is when it hit me-- if I could find the auto focus on my camera I might be able to take some decent pictures!!

Holy moly, I'm a genius!  After a little googoogling I flipped a switch on my camera and voila!  Instant! Clear! Pictures!


Sure, if you're smart enough to use your high-powered rifle camera this is no big deal to you......


But, if you're me......


After months of despair over the craptastic pictures you've been taking......


This is positively huge!!


(These pictures are of me and Boots packing our shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  You should do this to if you're not already.)

Monday, November 7, 2011

Blank

A post about nothing!  (Seinfeld reference, anyone?)

My well of wonderful, hilarious, needs-to-be-shared thoughts got frogs in it that drowned and died, clouded the waters and choked the cows who drank the nasty water, who also died.  In short, I dried up.  I have nothing to write so why don't you read something  I've already done already wrote!  I mean, written!

If you're on a mobile device (I sound so techy!) I don't know how easy and slash or possible this will be.  If you're on a computer, this should be a piece of cake.

I have archives, ya'll.  Scroll down the right hand side and you can click on (look!  There's labels!) the months past and read all that old stuff from long ago.  I'm warning you though, some of it is ridiculous and the pictures are most likely of the worst quality imaginable.

Now that you've read all that, scroll back up to the top and click on "Posts" under the "Subscribe To" button and pick your poison, I mean, preferred method of post receivership.  Or, enter your email address in the "Follow By Email" box and it will be like Christmas in your inbox every time I post something!  Or, go alllllll the way back down to the bottom and click the blue "Join This Site" button so you can follow me on your Google Reader tab if you want to.  (Side note:  Dear Aunt Gina, I see your picture.  It must have worked.)

If you're not sick to death of my babbling yet, take yourself back to the top and click on the tab "Questions."  I've added my special email address so you can send me topics to write about (please?) or questions to things you just don't understand (Rachel, why are you such a hippie?).  I'll be staring at my phone, waiting patiently for the email button to light up until you do.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go dry my hair.  Gosh, this has been such an awfully long post about absolutely nothing.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

I'm Disordered

Remember when I posted about my falling asleep jerks?  Apparently, it's linked with deja vu which I get sometimes.  Like the other night at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party-- I totally had been there before.  Sort of.

Deja vu + hypnic jerks = I'm crazy

Read the links, you'll see!