Are you listening, IKEA?

When we moved into our house, we pretty much knew we were trading some unfortunate decor and remodeling choices for a place that was bigger and in a nicer neighborhood than we'd be able to afford otherwise. Of course we had ideas about remodeling and redecorating, but those turned out to be expensive and there were always other more important things to pay for, so we still haven't done much. We redid Nico's room, of course, and we've replaced a few light fixtures and ceiling fans as needed, but that's about it.

For the most part, the things we'd change about the house are strictly cosmetic. I'd love to have the floors refinished (if we could replicate the lovely yellow sheen our hardwoods have now), replace all the granny curtains, and strip the hilarious train engine wallpaper out of the stairwell and upstairs hallway. Physically we'd be thrilled if we could have the semi-finished basement refinished more nicely and add a deck onto the back of the house. (I've even planned out where the lovely French doors would go.) I'd probably do some bad things in exchange for a garden tub in our bathroom.

The main complaint we have is lack of storage space, or at least poorly utilized storage space. We have a great pantry in the kitchen that has barely any usable shelf space. (I advocated redoing all the shelving but was outvoted. We'd need to find a new place to keep our broom and swiffer, but I still maintain we could find a good spot elsewhere.) We have a breakfast nook that we don't need because we also have a full dining room. So far that space is being used somewhat well as extra storage - we have two stacked shelf things and an ugly but very handy metal cabinet that we use for miscellaneous things like cookbooks and garden gloves and large seldom-used kitchen gadgets and batteries and extra canned and boxed food. I'd love to put up shelves along the back wall (where my hippie posters are now) for more storage, so that might happen someday. MB has floated the idea of getting rid of Indy's crate since he's never in it and putting more freestanding cabinets in there, but I argued that if the day ever comes when we get another puppy (hopefully a million billion years from now), we'll want that dedicated spot for the ginormous crate.

We're managing pretty well (and all my friends who have lived in tiny houses are probably dying of laughter right now), but we have had constant spats over stupid little things like where to keep the bread, half-used bags of kid crackers, loose pieces of fresh fruit, etc. I tend to set them on the island-like part of the counter, and that tends to drive MB crazy. He tends to put all the bread products in the pantry, which drives me nuts since I then promptly forget they exist and ignore them until they mold or go stale. Or he sticks them in the bowl with the bananas and then everything tastes like bananas. We've been trying to come up with some kind of solution for the bread since even though it's a small matter, it's a near-daily source of irritation for someone and that just seems silly. I got curious this morning and googled "storage solutions for small kitchens" and found a site that advocated using "ignored" spaces like corners. That made me remember again that we were wasting about 2/3 of the space in our upper corner cabinet thanks to a really bizarre door design. Someday we want to have the whole kitchen redone, but that's a project very far off in the future unless some company decides they want to sponsor our kitchen remodel, so for now we're stuck with our charmingly orange, charmingly strange cabinetry.

In the spirit of working with what we've got and banking on the chances that seeing the ugly cabinet edges will be less annoying than our current (ridiculous) bread battle, I decided to go all in and took the stupid decoy door completely off the cabinet. At some point we'll want to buy more attractive baskets or bins for in there, but until we've tried it out for a few weeks and figured out what we really need up there, I'm pretty happy with the current state. All bread products and fruit and miscellaneous tupperware are tucked away and off the countertops.

Seriously, though…call me, IKEA!

Year of Decluttering II

Last February I posted about my quest to declutter my entire house. I updated the list sporadically through the year and decided tonight to repost the updated version with the hope that seeing it more often will keep me motivated to continue Cleaning All the Things*. I guess my list probably doesn't look all that impressive, but I can already see a vast difference in the house and in my mindset about my belongings. Things still go through the typical cycle of getting gradually cluttered-up and then cleaned up, but overall there is so much less stuff in our living space and it's awesome. The more I get rid of, the more I want to get rid of, which is quite useful.

As before, throwing out includes throwing away, giving away, donating to Goodwill, or selling, so most of the stuff on my list will (hopefully) not be stuff that went to the dump.

Throw Out All the Things
1. a big bag of non-preferred plastic food storage containers freecycled
2. four reusable water bottles freecycled
3. the old gas stove in the basement scrapped
4. non-Vista-compatible flatbed scanner given to MB's coworker
5. the remainder of Nico's powdered baby formula given to my coworker
6. all the expired food that was collecting dust (and guilt) in the pantry thrown out
7. National Geographic subscription allowed to expire (I'm counting this since for years I got the magazine but never made time to read it.)
8. seven eight boxes of stuff to consignment shop
9. leaky exercise ball that I never used because it was always half flat thrown away
10. 90% of the empty boxes from the shelves in the furnace room recycled
11. outdoor trash can full of crap from shed thrown away
12. bag of cat-hair-covered curtains from our last apartment + raggedy old throw blanket thrown away
13. three five boxes to Goodwill
14. one box of items posted on freecycle
15. worm composting bin cleaned out and loaned to my workplace
16. five (!) boxes of books donated to a fundraiser sale for the dog rescue that saved Indy
17. six boxes of stuff + a spare crock pot, dust buster, and rocking chair sold in a yard sale / packed up for consignment / donated to Goodwill / freecycled
18. set of extra (crappy) hand weights freecycled
19. garbage bag full of bubble wrap and packing peanuts freecycled
20. cool but space-hogging never-used owl mug tree set consigned
21. five pairs of too-small / raggedy jeans Goodwilled
22. kitty litter box freecycled
23. basket of expired baking chips thrown out (sadness!)
24. two shopping bags full of lotions, soaps, and other pamper-y stuff donated to women's shelter
25. whole bunch of old earrings passed on to mom and sister
26. four cool (but stored under the bed since JUNE 2004 WTF) Japanese panels consigned
27. two old TVs freecycled
28. giant box of borrowed maternity clothes returned to friend
29. two three boxes of non-preferred kid clothes sold on Craigslist
30. five pairs of old glasses donated to the Lions Club
31. box of wire hangers freecycled
32. old cabinet, spare high chair, and unused tent sold on Craigslist
33. three CD racks and a box of stuff consigned


Organize All the Things
1. Nico's bitty baby clothes sorted by size into plastic tubs and carried up to the attic
2. outgrown Nico jackets, bitty baby items / toys, and bitty baby bedding / swaddlers sorted into plastic tubs
3. currently-too-big Nico hand-me-downs sorted by size into boxes and stacked in the closet
4. outgrown Nico baby gear Tetrised into guest room closet
5. quote obtained for list of small home repair items we can't complete ourselves
6. breast pump and accessories washed and packed away
7. small home repairs done!
8. shed cleared out and organized
9. last of yard sale remnants sorted into three boxes for consignment and one (small!) one to keep
10. one box from bedroom pile sorted and put away
11. hand weights moved into a basket on the entertainment center instead of lying on the floor and serving as dog hair traps
12. breakfast nook / mudroom organized and top of dog crate cleared
13. whole bookcase of college books and notes carried down to new storage cabinets in the basement


14. basement decluttered!
15. gift wrapping supplies sorted and moved from guest room to basement

How many gift bags does one family need? Probably not this many.

16. two shelves on living room bookcase cleared / consolidated to make space for Nico things


17. buffet storage decluttered and reorganized
18. space cleared on top of bookcase for Nico's library books
19. bathroom cabinets purged of all unused and unneeded items
20. one three boxes emptied and removed from Box Mountain
21. all my pre-baby clothes removed from guest room closet and stored neatly in my own
22. guest room bookcase cleared of non-kid stuff
23. two of three bookcases in master bedroom decluttered & reorganized...now that they've been cleared of the useless hoardy crap, I have an ENTIRE shelf empty for more books!
24. After two years and 14 days, I finally framed Nico's hospital photo and newborn footprints. Hopefully it won't be another two years before I hang them on the wall. (Though he shouldn't feel too neglected. I've been married for seven years and still haven't framed a single wedding photo.)
25. busted drawers replaced with nice window bench
26. VHS movies moved into cabinet in playroom
27. third bedroom bookcase decluttered and organized


Decluttering & Organizing Goals for 2012
1. clear out guest room
2. finish clearing  LAST box stack mountain in master bedroom
3. clean out dining room buffet storage
4. reorganize game collection and pare down if needed
5. reorganize / optimize linen cabinet
6. reorganize / optimize / pare down craft supply closet
7. move all important papers to basement filing cabinet
8. buy a new shredder and take care of stacks of to-shred papers
9. hang caterpillar quilt in Nico's room
10. hang diplomas, family photos, art, etc.
11. transition Nico into big boy bed


2012 Consignment & Craigslist Profit: $231

Boom goes the dynamite *

First some blog housekeeping. I really liked the "Wordless Weekend" option from last year's NaBloPoMo, so I'm bringing that back this year. In the interest of doing something new and maybe sparking some ideas for myself (and because it went well last time), I'm going to instate Friday Fiction posts for the month of November. I'll post some scrap of fiction each Friday, either new or previously written. A warning - they won't be meticulously edited or researched, so don't expect greatness. I hope it'll be fun, though, and comments are of course welcome.

Second, some actual housekeeping. I went back to the basement tonight after Nico went to bed, hoping to make a little more headway so MB had fewer boxes to stuff into closets tomorrow morning. It took an hour and 45 minutes this time, but BEHOLD. (Excuse the crappy phone pictures.) The basement is FINISHED:

No supercool finds, except for a notebook containing a few pages I'd written for a story that I've resurrected. It was the exact scene I've been unable to recreate and was wishing I could find, so that's pretty rad. In the interest of full disclosure, not everything got tossed or permanently sorted. A few boxes of stuff (and some nice empty boxes) got stowed in the laundry room to be dealt with later.

I'm totally counting this project as done, though. Hallelujah, amen, cue Freddie Mercury and his scary chest hair.



* I'm actually not a Family Guy fan. The title was stolen from a hilarious story that my hilarious friend Rachel told.

So my burden I began to divest

Prior to my recent(ish) decluttering efforts, I lived the life of a serious packrat. My big Year of Decluttering has slowed considerably over the past few months, and I realized a week or so ago that it was almost November and I only had two months left to make good on my promise to MB that I'd get this house whipped into shape by the end of the year. I feel like I've done a pretty good job keeping the common areas of the house uncluttered, and I'm still really proud that I cleaned out Nico's playroom and that it's stayed cleaned out. This is impossibly dorky, but I still go in there sometimes just because it makes me so happy to look around and see a little space that's just for him.

The big things I have left to do are
1. sort / purge the huge stack of boxes in our bedroom, most of which were carried up there from the playroom
2. organize storage space in our room to contain all of my stuff that's currently stored in the guest room
3. clean up the basement

The last item has suddenly jumped to the top of the list, as MB has been asked to host two game nights this coming weekend. I'm kind of glad, truthfully, because I tend to perform best under pressure, and nothing motivates cleaning more than the realization that a stranger is going to see the house. I've been sizing up the mess for about a week every time I've gone down to do laundry, and finally concluded that it's not as bad as it looks. And sure enough, I spent about an hour down there tonight and got nearly half of the worst work done. I was hoping to knock out more of it, but finally decided it was time to blog and go to bed. Even after I get it suitably straightened for this weekend, there will be some long-term purging and reorganizing left to do, but I will take "company ready" as a goal for now.

The best things I found in the boxes of forgotten crap were a working book light, my hilarious framed llama picture, and a small box of odds and ends I saved to mail to my friend Kate. I also found a Barnes & Noble gift card, but sadly it had no balance left on it. That would've been a good story, otherwise.

table side, before


other side, before (it still looks about the same, actually, but I think the photo makes it look worse than it is)


table side, after an hour of work


Goodwill / recycle / trash pile


Hysterical, yes?

(Are decluttering posts interesting to anyone besides me? I love reading them on other people's blogs, but maybe I'm the only one.)

Reading:  The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Playing:   the soundtrack from The Nightmare Before Christmas with a little Mumford & Sons mixed in

I'm gonna start calling it Win-terest

A week or so ago a friend of a friend posted on facebook that she was going out over the weekend to buy an oil drip pan to use as a kid's magnet board. MB and I had decided only days before that we wanted to buy a magnetic dry erase board for Nico's playroom so he'd have a place to play with his letter and number magnets (we have a stainless fridge). Intrigued, I posted to request more info and she replied with a Pinterest link to this. My love for Pinterest is assured, now, because of how great this turned out:

We got the pan at Walmart for ten bucks. Ten bucks! The white board we considered buying last weekend was eight dollars and was only 16x20. The installation was a bit tricky because none of our drill bits were sharp enough to drill through the pan. MB ended up punching a starter hole with a nail and then tapping the screw in with a hammer to make the hole big enough.* He put a hole in each corner and then one at top and bottom center. We attached it to the wood paneling in the playroom, so we were able to just drive the screws directly into the wall. If you're attaching one to an actual drywall wall, you may want to look into drywall screw mount thingies or Velcro or hanging hooks or something.

I am totally pumped about this and so pleased that it worked out pretty much exactly as I envisioned. Nico seemed quite excited, too, and thus all the other photos I have of him trying it out are a little blurry:

Reading:  It Looked Different on the Model by Laurie Notaro

Playing:  The King is Dead by the Decemberists

*that's what she said

Mostly house-y stuff

An old friend gave Nico a really amazing gift this past weekend:

She created this freehand after receiving a bag of colorful scraps that reminded her of the wings of the butterfly from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (I keep telling her she needs to start an Etsy shop, because this is just one of the many amazing things she's made.) I posted an admiring comment on an early in-progress facebook picture, and she later surprised me by deciding to give it to Nico upon completion. Since Nico doesn't use blankets yet (and won't even tolerate a sheet across his feet when he's in my bed) and since, hello, this thing is AMAZING, I think I'm going to hang it on the wall above his crib. Does anyone have any tips on hanging a quilt as art? It's pretty small as quilts go, only 37" across the top. Some cursory googling indicates that I should probably stitch a pocket onto the back to slide a dowel through, and then use the dowel as support for the hanging mechanism. My friend Rachel suggested using a hollow rod so that I can run a ribbon or invisible nylon line through the center and have the rod completely hidden behind the quilt. Would a piece of small-diameter PVC pipe work? I love this idea because it wouldn't require a lot of hardware on the wall, and because if Nico wants to use it as a blanket someday, it'll be simple to remove the pocket.

Advise me (again), internets

MB and I have been talking a bit lately about what room we want to redo next, on the hypothetical future day when we have a little bit of money set aside. I think we're going to address the living room first since our current couch has a spot the size of a loaf of bread where the upholstery has worn through to the stuffing, but I've also been daydreaming about redoing our little half bath off the kitchen. It's got the fantastic original 1940 tile and sink, which we aren't going to touch, but the wallpaper with pastel blue seashells must go. So what color would you paint a very small bathroom tiled in white, black, and a very light gray? What curtains would you put in there after painting?

Here's the best photo I have of the tile, since I'm too lazy to go take and upload a new one at the moment...the tiles are pretty small:

Gamechanger

I can't remember who, but one of my facebook friends posted a video the other day with a tutorial on how to fold a fitted sheet so it doesn't look like a big wadded-up ball. I tried it tonight, and damned if it didn't work like a charm. I love that the first comment under the video is "Shit...he's already married."

Braggy McBraggerson

Nico "reading" a picture book:

And now, bedtime!


Reading:  The Mermaid Garden by Santa Montefiore (Yes, still, OMG.)

Playing:  Sublime

Housekeeping

I'm slowing chipping away at the clutter in our house as part of my sole 2011 resolution, and working at my continuing quest to Clean All the Things Most of the Time. I've taken my Declutter All the Things resolution pretty seriously, and after probably way too much thought have settled into something of a three-pronged attack. First, of course, I want to get things out of the house and not bring in a bunch of new things to replace them. Secondly, I want to organize and store what we are keeping in efficient / clever ways. Finally, we are striving to spend smarter. From sticking to a grocery budget and wasting less food to not going overboard on purchases of baby toys and clothes, this has turned out to be a major player in the general life-decluttering game.

Proving that the universe has a sense of humor, I found the book Throw Out Fifty Things buried in a pile of clutter when I cleaned out the side porch to make Nico's playroom. As you can probably tell by the recent lag in posting, I've been pretty busy over the past couple of weeks, so my decluttering efforts have stalled a little. I've been thinking about following the advice in the book and starting a list of things I've thrown out, with the twin goals of kickstarting my cleaning (because I can't resist a list) and of eventually reaching 50 items. The rules stipulate that all of one kind of item just count as one thing on the list, so I can't throw out twenty refrigerator magnets and say I'm almost halfway done.

I'm planning to update the list on this post as I go along, rather than creating a new post each time I chuck something (unless I find something really funny or embarrassing buried in one of the closets). I'm sure this is only entertaining for me, so feel free come back later for cute Nico pictures. Throwing out includes throwing away, giving away, donating to Goodwill, or selling, so most of the stuff on my list will (hopefully) not be stuff that went to the dump.

Throw Out All the Things
1. a big bag of non-preferred plastic food storage containers
2. four reusable water bottles
3. the old gas stove in the basement
4. non-Vista-compatible flatbed scanner
5. the remainder of Nico's powdered baby formula
6. all the expired food that was collecting dust (and guilt) in the pantry
7. let National Geographic subscription expire (I'm counting this since for years I got the magazine but never made time to read it.)
8. five seven boxes of stuff to consignment shop
9. leaky exercise ball that I never used because it was always half flat
10. 90% of the empty boxes from the shelves in the furnace room
11. outdoor trash can full of crap from shed
12. bag of cat-hair-covered curtains from our last apartment + raggedy old throw blanket
13. three boxes to Goodwill
14. one box of items posted on freecycle
15. worm composting bin cleaned out and loaned to my workplace
16. five (!) boxes of books donated to a fundraiser sale for the dog rescue that saved Indy
17. six boxes of stuff + a spare crock pot, dust buster, and rocking chair sold in a yard sale / packed up for consignment / donated to Goodwill / freecycled
18. set of extra (crappy) hand weights
19. garbage bag full of bubble wrap and packing peanuts
20. cool but space-hogging never-used owl mug tree set consigned
21. five pairs of too-small / raggedy jeans Goodwilled
22. kitty litter box freecycled
23. basket of expired baking chips thrown out (sadness!)
24. two shopping bags full of lotions, soaps, and other pamper-y stuff donated to women's shelter
25. whole bunch of old earrings shared with sister / freecycled
26. four cool (but stored under the bed since JUNE 2004 WTF) Japanese panels consigned


Organize All the Things
1. Nico's bitty baby clothes sorted by size into plastic tubs and carried up to the attic
2. outgrown Nico jackets, bitty baby items / toys, and bitty baby bedding / swaddlers sorted into plastic tubs
3. currently-too-big Nico hand-me-downs sorted by size into boxes and stacked in the closet
4. outgrown Nico baby gear Tetrised into guest room closet
5. quote obtained for list of small home repair items we can't complete ourselves
6. breast pump and accessories washed and packed away
7. small home repairs done!
8. shed cleared out and organized
9. last of yard sale remnants sorted into three boxes for consignment and one (small!) one to keep
10. one box from bedroom pile sorted and put away
11. hand weights moved into a basket on the entertainment center instead of lying on the floor and serving as dog hair traps
12. breakfast nook / mudroom organized and top of dog crate cleared
13. whole bookcase of college books and notes carried down to new storage cabinets in the basement



14. two three boxes of non-preferred kid clothes packed up for future yard sale / craigslisting
15. basement decluttered!
16. gift wrapping supplies sorted and moved from guest room to basement

How many gift bags does one family need? Probably not this many.

17. two shelves on living room bookcase cleared / consolidated to make space for Nico things


18. buffet storage decluttered and reorganized
19. space cleared on top of bookcase for Nico's library books
20. one box emptied and removed from Box Mountain


Decluttering & Organizing Goals for 2012
1. clear out guest room
2. finish clearing box stack in master bedroom
3. clean out dining room buffet storage
4. evaluate game collection and pare down if needed
5. solve living room lighting problem
6. reorganize / optimize linen cabinet
7. reorganize / optimize / pare down craft supply closet
8. move all important papers to basement filing cabinet
9. buy a new shredder and take care of stacks of to-shred papers
10. hang caterpillar quilt in Nico's room


2012 Consignment & Craigslist Profit: $29

Nursery time! (phase one)

Before:  not terrible, but it doesn't really say "a cute baby lives here"



I took the advice of the bibliophile and evilducky and bought a paper tiger and liquid fabric softener (mixed 1:3 with hot water).


We learned right away that the wallpaper itself was basically completely impermeable, so we ended up pulling the paper layer off and then using the fabric softener to loosen the glue so we could scrape the backing off the walls.


MB and BoMB kicking ass:


Supervising us was quite exhausting:


Finally done! I'm hoping we can get the walls primed next week and then choose a color and paint two weeks from today, which is my next Sunday off.



We still have a lot of work to do!

And for fun, 31 weeks!

August and everything after

I never meant to slip into such a sporadic posting routine, but such things happen. In part I blame the baby, since I used to do most of my blogging after 10 PM, and now I'm usually in bed by then. Also, even thought I don't think I'm too baby-obsessed, I always promised myself I wouldn't turn the blog into the All Baby All the Time channel as soon as I got knocked up. Therefore, on days when I'm solely thinking about all things infant, I feel like I should spare you guys the schmoop and not post anything. (If you're wishing for more schmoop in this space, please let me know. I'm sure I can oblige.)

In the meantime, I caved to MB's wishes and we got the house painted. And he was right, it looks hinty quadrillion times better now:

before, with charmingly bare shutters
after power-washing, looking thoroughly disreputable
Shiny!

I've been trying to enjoy the company of this guy, who -- for the first time in forever -- acted solidly goofy about me changing the sheets the other day:




Other things I have done in the past month or so include having some really good times with my really great friends, seeing the Harry Potter movie twice, going on a wildflower hike, and taking a class about Monarch butterflies.


And yesterday, I took Indy to Petsmart to get a few things, and the rescue group that saved him from the shelter was there. I went over to say hello and got to reintroduce Indy to the same woman who signed him over to us the day we adopted him. Indy was very obliging and showed off a few tricks and the rescue ladies exclaimed over his performance and his shiny coat. I thanked them for saving him, and they thanked me for giving him a good home. I should've thanked Indy for being such an awesome dog, but I suppose I did that by buying him a bag of chewbones and two new toys. Sometimes I look at him and my heart leaps in my chest, and I'm overcome with how much I love this goofy, handsome, flop-eared dog.

Cinderelly

MB works late at a part-time teaching thing on Fridays, so the pooch and I hang out. Since the house had fallen into a sad, sad disarray over the last month or so of work and general life craziness, I decided to surprise MB by using my Friday night at home to clean. I swept up a disturbing pile of pet hair and Swiffered the whole main floor of the house (incidentally, the Swiffer is just about my favorite housecleaning item of all time), washed all the dishes, sorted two weeks' buildup of mail, and de-cluttered the dining room. Yay!


(The buffet is actually cleaner than it looks, I promise.)
Kitters enjoying the newly-swept floor.

I don't have too much to say about the dog right at this moment, since he just chewed my Beware of Cat doormat -- which was a housewarming gift from my officemates -- into five pieces. But I will be mature and go ahead and say what I planned to, which is that I'm proud to report that he has mastered our version of the doorbell.

Shortly after Indy moved in, I hung a big bell on the doorknob of the back door. Every time we let him out we'd ring the bell, with the hope that he'd eventually catch on and start ringing the bell himself when he wanted to go out. He definitely caught on, and now any time he wants to go outside, he rings his bell and waits patiently for one of us to appear. It's really freaking cute, even though sometimes he gets bored and tries to go in and out and in and out. Now if we could only rig up a bell for the outside, so that he'd stop scratching the screen on the storm door to bits when he wants to come back inside...

My day, by velocibadgergirl, age 27

6 AM:  Brand new day! Tra la, tra lee! Air conditioner might get fixed today! Walk the dog! Finish the laundry! Oh, happy morning!

8 AM:  Out of shower. Aiee! 8 AM! Dishwasher guy could be here at any moment. Must find pants!

9 AM:  Plumber also on the way, to find out why sump pump overflows every time we use the washing machine.

9:30 AM:  AC man will be here this afternoon! Hallelujah!

10:30 AM:  Plumber is here. Hooray! Oh, wait. So is dishwasher man. Whoops. Hope they don't mind.

11 AM:  New sump pump installed. Dishwasher man perplexed by whackass installation done by previous owners. I can only shrug and try really hard not to see his asscrack. Dude. The plumber kept his out of sight. Do the same.

11:15 AM:  Cat moseys into kitchen. Dishwasher man notes presence of cat. I note string of poop on cat's butt. Hope fervently that dishwasher man does not notice that my cat is unclean. (See how I didn't make a dirty pussy joke here? OH, wait.)

11:30 AM:  Foolishly assume dishwasher man closed gate when he left. Let dog out to pee. Chase dog down utility easement, keeping voice cheery while thinking OHMYGOD OHSHIT OHNO OHNO OHNO. Drag dog back to yard. Feel like a huge asshole for almost losing the best dog in the whole wide world.

11:35 AM:  Track down cat to wipe poop string off ass. Find that cat's ENTIRE ass is covered in poo. Cat has shit his fluffy knickers. Wail. Lock cat in office. Wail some more.

12 PM:  Hot! Grah! No AC! Pissy! Lunch of turkey bacon and toaster waffle.

1:30 PM:  AC man arrives. YAY!

1:45 PM:  Oh, wait. AC man can find nothing wrong with AC, except it's not drawing enough power. Advises me to call home warranty company back and request an electrician. Wait for AC man to leave, then WAIL.

1:55 PM:  Talk to girl at home warranty company who seems to ( A ) have marbles in her mouth ( B ) not understand what I'm explaining and ( C ) not believe that I'm telling the truth about what the AC man told me.

1:57 PM:  Wail.

2 PM:  Warranty chick tells me they have contacted an electrician. I thank her, hang up, and then lament that there's probably no way they'll make it out to see us today. Cat begins throwing hilarious human-like tantrums in his gated prison. He is throwing himself on the floor, grasping at the bars, and howling. Both hysterically funny and pitiful.

2:15 PM:  Electrical company calls. NO SHIT. Sending guy right away. NO WAILING HERE!

2:30 PM:  Problem was a blown fuse in the AC's independent breaker box, which I didn't even know about. Feel a little bit like an asshole for paying some dude $55 to change a damn fuse. Then decide I don't care because I have SWEET SWEET AIR CONDITIONING.

2:54 PM:  Plop down in front of vent with a glass of ice water to re-watch Project Runway on DVR. Pretend I don't have a shitty cat waiting to be bathed. Hush. Only Tim Gunn matters right now.

Planting a seed

I grew up in the city, but my parents had a pretty respectable vegetable garden in their large backyard. There's a photo in the family album of me at about 12 months old, a blue plastic hoe in my hands, "helping" my dad get the garden ready for planting. I don't know what they grew in those early days, but by the time I was in elementary school, they planted corn, green beans, and tomatoes. They experimented with other crops, to varying degrees of success. One year, Mom planted a small watermelon patch, and by the end of the summer the things were plotting world domination. Potatoes always seemed to go in too late and come out too early, never getting much large than seed potato size. The yard had be leveled with fill from a dump, so it was full of rocks. When my cousins and I complained that we were bored, my mom would offer us a quarter for every gallon ice cream bucket we filled with rocks from the garden. Surprisingly, all kind of interesting pursuits always came to mind before the bucket was full. I don't honestly know if we ever earned a single quarter.

My mother babysat a girl who was a year younger than me. Her father lived out in the country and kept apple trees. He invited us to collect apples, and so we did. My mom canned jar after jar of apple sauce, some with cinnamon turning the sauce pink. I think the same guy gave my mom a few raspberry and blackberry canes one spring. She planted them in a small plot by the fence, and while the raspberries quickly gave up the ghost, the tame blackberries thrived. They were moved to the back corner of the garden the following spring, and in years to come grew into a thicket four or five feet deep and ten or twelve feet wide. Mom collected the berries all summer, freezing them in buckets and ziploc bags. When berry season was over, she ran all the berries through her food strainer again and again until all the juice and pulp had been extracted. Then she made dozens of jars of blackberry jam. I never learned to like raw blackberries (too many seeds) but I still love blackberry jam. Just writing this down has awakened scent memories long forgotten--the smell of the crushed fruit, of the strained-out seeds, the aroma of the juice and pulp cooking on the stove.

Tomatoes also went through the strainer, and Mom canned tomato juice to use as a base for soup and cooking meat through the year. Ears of corn were sealed in ziplocs, either on the cob or just the sliced-off kernels. Green beans were soaked in the sink, snapped into manageable pieces, and sealed in Ball jars. I can still call up the sound of snapping beans and the way I'd see a sink full of beans behind my eyelids when I went to bed after a long bean snapping stint. I always knew that when I had a yard of my own, I'd have a garden, too.

When we moved into our last apartment, I was initially excited about the tiny yardlet in back, and succumbed to visions of a tiny vegetable patch. But then the reality of neighbors throwing cigarettes and trash over the balcony upstairs, the lack of an outdoor faucet, and the yard man's slash and burn style of lawn grooming all came together and showed me reality. I amassed a pretty huge collection of houseplants, but never put anything much in the ground. Then we found this house, and I knew immediately where I'd put the vegetable patch if we managed to buy the place. Once our offer was accepted and we set a closing date, MB and I started talking about what we'd plant in our garden, how we'd fence it off from the dog we wanted to get. It won't ever be the huge corn / bean / tomato / blackberry extravaganza that my parents pulled off year after year, but I think it'll be pretty fabulous anyway. And since we've never done this before, I'm sure there will be lots of ridiculous missteps, too. If you want to follow us on our gardening journey, you can visit me over at my new sideblog, Pardon the Garden. (Don't worry, I'll still be posting normal stuff right here.) My homie J Dog announced that she was starting a gardening blog the very day I decided to start mine, and with several years of gardening experience under her belt, I'm betting hers will be pretty cool to read:  J's Snappy Garden.

Happy Spring, everyone!

Feeling terribly grown-up, part two

Being grown apparently also means that when you go down to your laundry room in your new house and find water trickling down the wall (my preshus baybee, oh noes!), you can't simply thunder up the stairs and bellow, "DAD!! THE BASEMENT IS LEAKING!!" and then go watch television. Oh, no. Being a grown ass woman means you have to shlep out into the rain to investigate why your damn house is leaking (Don't worry, house, I still love you! Smooches! Call me!), only to discover that the gutters are so clogged that rainwater is simply cascading out of them to turn the front quarter of the back lawn into a three-inch-deep ice-cold swamp. This, in turn, is causing water to ooze in through the casement of the ancient basement window and trickle down your laundry room wall. FABULOUS.

So I guess this means MB and I need to borrow or otherwise procure an extension ladder (because our house, it be tall) and somebody (*cough* MB *cough*) is going to have to climb up there, muck out the gutters, and slap down some gutter screening. Then we have to wait and see if this happens again the next time it rains.

Of course, it's supposed to rain for a day and a half and then SNOW, so I don't know when my beloved spouse is going to be able to safely summit the roof.

Fuck you, Mother Nature, you cunning bitch. Fuck you very much.



Edited to add:  I just went down to check on the leak, and it's not worse. But the dryer hose has come un-duct-taped from the vent, and when I climbed up to investigate there was a GIANT cave cricket perched on the top of the loose hose. The motherfuckers ARE out to get me. I knew it. I knew it. You'll have to excuse me, I need to go hide in a cricket proof room and rock back and forth. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE.

Feeling terribly grown-up

It's too bad working one's figurative ass off doesn't result in any reduction in size of one's actual ass. If it did, I'd be down at least five pounds. I had the weekend off, and made good on my promise to MB that I'd work on the house.

Yesterday morning, MB braved the attic and hauled down a whole lot of junk, and then put the Christmas stuff up there for storing. After that, he and my dad took a pickup-load of stuff to the dump. No more old mattresses or craptastic office chair in the extra room! Woohoo! While they were doing that, I took an entire CR-V-load of recycling to a county drop-off. No more gigantic pile of crap in the breakfast nook! Woohoo!

Today, I Rug-Doctored the future kid bedroom and then spent the rest of the day unpacking boxes and packing up stuff to take to Goodwill. Every box that leaves the house feels like a victory at this point.

The guest room, before and after:

It's not quite done, but once the floor in the future kid room dries, we'll be able to move the big dresser in there and assemble the guest room bed.

We only have a few more boxes of art / knickknacks to unpack, and the office is still pretty much in a shambles. On the good side of things, I found my most favorite earring of all time, which I lost months ago and assumed was gone for good. On the not so good side, I haven't seen my mp3 player since the day we got the keys and spent the evening cleaning over here, and I'm missing an entire box of sweaters. I hope they're hiding in the office. Speaking of the office, I should probably try to get a bit of work done in there before I call it a day.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!