Our back screen door needed some help. The screen on the upper half had holes all through it. And no, not just the natural holes in the screen, extra holes. Larger holes. And three years ago, Murphy tore through the screen on the bottom half and we just ... never replaced it. In the summertime I leave the large door open and he goes in and out at will. Unfortunately, flies, mosquitos, a bird and also a chipmunk have also come in and out at will. This year I resolved to not be zoombombed by ...
Friday 5: Food Court
Happy Friday, which is also National Gardening Day and National Ex-Spouse Day. Both of which I have. :) I took off yesterday and today to bum around the house which turned into cleaning the yard, spraying weeds, and spontaneously painting the living room, which has mostly been WM's job. The color is one that's been our go-to for years, Glidden Whispering Wheat. It's unseasonably warm here (not complaining) so I took the tomato, pepper, and basil seedlings out of the garage into the ...
Every Other Day of the Week is Fine, Yeah.
That was a fast-moving weekend. Sheesh. Saturday night our kitchen faucet sprung a leak. It has a retractable sprayer that pulls down from the faucet, and it was that flexible hose that began to spray water all over the place. Sunday morning we were at Lowes bright and early to choose a replacement hose. WM spent almost 2 hours trying to get the hose to work properly but it wasn't threading through and then it wasn't retracting properly. Which meant we made a second trip back to Lowes to ...
Our Adventureland bathroom
Once upon a time we had a lovely half-bathroom downstairs. And then we got a puppy! We decided that when we went to work we'd have him stay in the bathroom, because it was larger than a crate and he'd have room to run around. It worked out really well ... until one day it didn't. Murphy started howling as soon as I'd put him in there. And while we were gone, he dug into the drywall and clawed into the door trim trying to get out. Something happened in that bathroom that upset him. We don't ...
Currently, still exhausted homeowner edition
Reading: Gulp by Mary Roach. I'm at 86% and should be finishing up tomorrow. I'm at the gripping fecal transplant chapter. I'll post this month's batch of books on Tuesday. Watching: Hallmark Christmas movies! DIY-ing: Remember that IKEA table I had waaaayyy back in 2006 when I moved into my Dee-Luxe Apartment in the sky? I want a wood table for the craft room but the ones I want are hundreds of dollars. So during my weekly trip to Home Depot, I bought a roll of wood print shelf paper ...
Currently, exhausted homeowner edition
Reading Al Franken, Giant of the Senate. I'm enjoying his outsider's perspective on running for a Senate seat and his experiences working in DC. I was inspired to switch my party affiliation to the Democrats, but then Donna Brazile had to be Donna Brazile and I changed my mind. I'll remain a member of my currently-also-batshit-crazy third party and wait until the DNC grows up a bit more. Tuesday is election day, so get out and vote. Hate what's going on? Hit up your local races. Loving The ...
Currently, slacking edition
SLACKING on this blog. Seriously, Kim, get over your post-vacation funk and get it together. Painting my future craft room. Finally. I went to Lowes with the sunbeam paint swatch in hand. Dumped painting supplies in the cart. Wheeled it over to the paint department, where I didn't see any Glidden paint. I went to the paint desk - "Do you not sell Glidden anymore?" ANNNND was told that paint chip came from Home Depot. Yay me! Rather than go to another home improvement store, I picked a color ...
Reclaiming my shelves
Back in 2006, when I was a single lady with 2 cats and a cozy, girly apartment, I was given this lovely piece. (from this post) Long story short, the apartment was all white and I decided to get a bunch of red accessories to make it pop. And it did and it looked amazing and I will always be proud of what I built there. And now it's 11 years later and I am a married lady with a husband and 75 pounds of spaniels. We have a home that came painted a very warm gray and my tastes have ...
Around the House
This summer all of the HGTV we've been watching finally began to stick, because we did quite a lot of work around the house. WM built a work bench for the garage. It's spiffy. Next he built some above-window shelves for our stupid and fast-growing collection of Funko POPs. (I love our collection, yet am mortified I keep buying them. This isn't even all of them.) And then I built my first woodworking project since 7th grade - a little shelf for the oversink kitchen cabinet. ...
Outdoor adventures
(rabbit rabbit!) Back before Murphy arrived, when our days looked like this... ...we embarked on a few outside projects to make the house on Literary Lane sparkle. We purchased a powerwasher and WM washed the house. I did not realize houses needed washing, but ours definitely did. We planted some grass seed in the 50% of our front lawn that was dead, and the grass is actually growing! I'm becoming a "must turn the sprinkler on" person. See the front potted plant? It ...
Analysis Paralysis: Craft room color
As is my way, the craft room looks 100x worse now that I've started to "organize" it. The plan is to paint the walls yellow, move in some of the white cubby shelves that I've had since the original apartment, get some gray curtains, look at getting a counter-height table and GET CRAFTY! But I'm stuck on step one. I'm torn between 2 different yellows. Color 1 is called Surfboard Yellow. Color 2 is called Sunbeam. The window faces south, so no direct sunlight, if that even matters. And yes, ...
relief
Every time I wake up after an illness...and feel the coolness on my skin that only could mean that a fever had come and gone... Every time I wake up after an illness...and feel the distinct absence of discomfort and maybe the slightest tinge of hunger... Every time I wake up after an illness...and can breathe and think clearly... I think to myself: Creationism, evolution, Intelligent Design...does it really matter? In the end...the body is a marvel. ...then I think that had this been 200 or ...