Watershed

At first, I mistook the sound of running water for the white noise machine in the nursery. Maybe the neighbor was running water. At 8 am? Stranger things have happened.

I shook it off and rushed to work.

Hubby called at four Thursday afternoon and asked if I'd heard water running. He heard the same thing and checked everything -- sprinklers, toilets and faucets -- and couldn't find the culprit. A quick call to the water company and a visit from our friendly neighborhood Roto-Rooter guy confirmed our suspicions: we were the proud owners of a house with a water leak in some mysterious place between the kitchen and the guest bathroom.

Friday evening a guy from a leak detection company stopped by to find the exact location of the leak while I sat in my bedroom with a napping baby and tried on hairstyles and makeup using the InStyle virtual makeover. I learned two things Friday night:

1. There is such a thing as a leak detection company, further confirming there is a job out there for everyone;
2. When given the option of trying on any type of makeup in existence, even in a virtual makeover, I'll probably try on what I'd normally wear.

I thought my whole weekend was ruined. Thursday we were both a mess. I was crying, Hubby was moody and we both threw a childish little WHY ME! hissy fits. I would say, "where will we get the money to fix it??? Just tell me it'll be alright!" and he would say "It'll be alright!" and I'd be all, "WE WILL NOT BE ALRIGHT THIS IS A DISASTER!"

I texted a friend to tell her all about this awful tragedy. She was sympathetic but was more concerned about the hissy fits.

"Be gentle with each other!" she said.

I got that text while I was holding my little baby Blogworthy. He looked at me with those big, sweet eyes and my whole perspective shifted. Hubby, Baby Blogworthy and I laid down on the bed, talked and giggled. I just couldn't help but think to myself, he depends on us completely, but he has no idea how much we depend on him, especially in situations like this. He's truly the tie that binds us together and makes our love even stronger.

But this isn't about emotional watershed, it's about physical watershed. 

Roto-Rooter showed up yesterday and added some lovely decor to the middle of our living room floor.

Isn't that what every home needs? A big ol hole right in the living room floor? Like about 10 feet from the entrance. And also right smack dab in the middle of our eating area, where we eat and visit and you know, LIVE and stuff.  Even better is that our laminate floors extend through the whole house and there is no real break between the living room and dining room/kitchen area, so replacing the flooring in one room means replacing it in EVERY room.

The pin-hole sized gap in that pipe caused all that drama and destruction. TGFHOI (Thank God for Home Owners Insurance).

Also? Who builds houses with pipes under the concrete foundation and doesn't include a crawlspace. Floridians, that's who. 

The joys and sorrows of homeownership.

Worse home disasters? Spill it in the comments!

Trash or Not Trash

We had our house cleaned a few weeks ago by some professional cleaners.

It looked super fab and beautiful and shiny. I could see my reflection in the floors. I could drink out of the toilets (ew, just kidding, ain't nothing that clean). They worked their fingers to the bone, sweeping the bunnies out of every nook and cranny in our house.

They had their work cut out for them, too. It had been approximately 13 weeks since the hum of a vacuum cleaner was heard at the Casa de Austin; approximately 4 months since any toilet or shower was cleaned; approximately the whole amount of time we've lived in our home since someone pulled out the fridge and cleaned behind it. Holy disgusting, batman.

Ten bleach filled hours later, the Pledge and Windex haze started to settle and we discovered some things were missing.

Nothing important like jewelry, cash or game systems -- although we do have so many game systems, we probably wouldn't realize if they WERE gone -- but little things we take for granted as not trash.

Let's play a little game, shall we? It's called Trash or Not Trash. I'll give you a picture and two line breaks to guess, and you tell me if it's Trash or Not Trash. (and by "tell me", I mean, "guess silently to yourself"). I'll also tell you how the cleaning guys categorized these items.

2010 Page-a-Day Civil War Calendar

What's your guess?

The answer is:

The cleaning people said: NOT TRASH! That's right, they kept that page-a-day calendar, as well as two more from 2010 that we'd neglected to throw away.

Next up:

Slightly dirty but not torn up at all yellow flip flops.

Your guess?

Actual answer:

Their answer? TRASH! What person in their right mind throws away a perfectly good pair of Old Navy flip flops, circa 2005? Really now. What if those are my bathroom cleaning flip flops? (Hint: they are.)

Let's move on to the next item!

Vogue magazine from September 2010 

What's your guess?

Answer is:

The cleaning people? Put this in a safe place in our linen closet, where all outdated magazines with torn, crinkled pages, covered in bath powder should go. OR NOT!

This last one basically stabbed me in the heart, then twisted the knife, then blood spewed out of my heard and all my blood drained out and I died. And I'm writing this blog from the great beyond.

My favorite stuffed penguin I slept with for probably 18 years of my life and that's not an exaggeration.

What's your answer?

What's the REAL answer?

OF COURSE it's not trash. What about a cute stuffed penguin, almost in mint condition, might I add, would make a person say, "Welp, to the trash can you go! Clearly nobody wants you, even though you're on the floor of a bedroom right beside a closet!"

Apparently, everything about that cute stuffed penguin says "I'm trash!" because that's where we found it, folks, along with the other "not trash" items.

Picture it: hubby and I digging through upwards of 8 black trash bags, pulling out things that were tossed but not trash. Dog toys. Belts. Dress socks. Baby socks. A bag containing craft scissors and thread. My Venus razor, perched in the shower right next to a bar of soap and my shampoo. Don't worry, cleaning people, I don't like shaving my legs anyway and wasn't using that brand new razor.

EXCEPT FOR THAT I WAS USING THAT BRAND NEW RAZOR.

Anyway, this experience leads me to two conclusions:

1. We all have different ideas about what should be trashed.
2.  I'm glad I'm not independently wealthy enough to have housekeepers. With the energy I expended digging through trash bags, I could have cleaned my own house.

Have you had your house cleaned before? Do you hate searching through garbage bags?

The magic dishwash fairy and other pet peeves

One pet peeve that shouldn't drive you crazy, but does.

 

I'm a confusing person. There are things I don't care about at all that I should care about, like the fact there are at least 10 empty Starbucks Frappuccino bottles bouncing around in my car or the Cheerio I dropped under my desk just out of reach that just chills there, making it look like a toddler lives in my cubicle. No, those things don't bother me at all.

Then there are those pet peeves that shouldn't bother me but instead turn me into a crazy person.

We have a dishwasher at my house. There are two of us and really, not many dishes, so we don't have to run it that often. It stays relatively empty -- empty enough that there is always room for an extra glass or small plate. Every few days we run it and the cycle starts again. The magic dishwasher fairy stops by, unloads the dishwasher, puts dirty dishes that are in the sink into the empty dishwasher and sprinkles magic fairy dust all over the kitchen so it stays spotless.

But there's a small problem. There is no such thing as the magic dishwasher fairy. That dishwasher fairy is me. I'm the one who loads and unloads. I'm the one who takes the dishes out of the sink. The dishwasher fairy is dead. 

The pet peeve here is that I can't STAND having dishes in the sink. I'd rather put the dishes on the counter beside the sink. Our sink is a little tiny baby sink. Not even, because its' so small a baby wouldn't even fit in it.  Two or three dishes? It's completely full. And then if you have to turn on the water, it just stops up in the sink because, oh look, there is a dish covering the drain. All that leftover food and  stale, room temperature water combine to make my life a living hell. In fact, that's what my version of hell would be: a sink with never-ending dirty dishes.

My other pet peeve drives my husband crazy. I'm very -- how do I say this nicely about myself? -- particular about my bed sheets. Actually, I'm completely crazy about everything that has to do with my sleeping arrangement. I need to have the sheets even and pulled up before I get in. I've been known to make the bed only to *unmake* the bed and get in. My pillow case has to be straight. The comforter has to be pulled down and folded just so at the end of the bed. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TUCKED IN. If I know the corner of the fitted sheet has somehow slid off the mattress, I can't rest until it's fixed. It doesn't even have to be on my side of the bed for the anxiety to set in -- as long as I know there is a wee bit 'o mattress showing, my brain goes haywire.

The other day we watched a show where the host was staying in a hostel in Brazil. he was given a bed with a dirty, stained mattress and no sheets. That's my worst nightmare. I'd rather sleep on the floor with a blanket than on a stained mattress with no sheets.

Hub has a habit of eating in bed. I can't stand it because eating = crumbs. A little snack of cheese and crackers while he watches some TV before bed leads to 15 minutes of me with a lint roller wiping every minuscule crumb out of the area. "What's wrong with one or two crumbs? You wont' even feel them. It's no big deal," he says. What he doesn't understand is that I'm like the Princess and the Pea, but with crumbs. And I have the uncanny ability to find the tiniest crumb and get angsty about it.

You'd think after almost four years of marriage, he'd learn. Sometimes I think he just really enjoys watching me tug on the sheets maniacally and kicks them off on purpose.

I'm on to you, Hub.

What are your pet peeves? I bet they have something to do with your significant other. Discuss!

My kitchen needs some serious work

There is some serious business on the blog this morning.

Listen, today you're all going to be pawns in my quest to win a giveaway. I've never wanted to win a giveaway more in my life, and believe me, I've entered A LOT of giveaways.

Jayme, the Random Blogette, got rull ballsy and contacted Giani Granite Countertop Paint to do a review and giveaway. Not only is Jayme now pretty much my hero for turning her kitchen remodeling dreams into reality, but she gave a glowing review of this product.


To help my chances at winning, I have to blog about it.


Now I could just throw in a little mention about the giveaway at the end of a post per usual but I decided to really give it my all and allow my desperation to shine through like a 32 year-old contestant on the Bachelor. 


You guys, my kitchen is seriously ugly. 


You see, the previous owners loved purple. LIKE LOVED IT. If I were to play "what's her story?" about the woman who lived here before us, it would be: divorced her husband, got the house, decided to redo it all in her favorite color WHICH IS PURPLE. But because she needed a *little* variety, she decided to paint it various shades of purple.


The kitchen is more of a periwinkle.

 I don't know, is that periwinkle? It's not purple, it's not blue, but more like a disgusting bastard love child of the two.

Then there's the issue of our countertops.

I know, I know, there's too much stuff on them, but just look at how cheap they look. And I just realized I've captured the beauty of "suction cup on the bottom of the bottle brush". We stuck it there days ago and it's still hanging. And yes, we stick bottles ON it on the wall and clean them.


It's the little things.


So, our house was built in 1994. The owners spared no expense EXCEPT on the countertops, which not only look cheap, but stain super easily. Who puts easily stained countertops in a kitchen?

If you can tell from this crappy cell phone picture (yes, Hub, I know your new phone has a much higher megapixel camera SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR NEW PHONE ALREADY), this particular part of the countertop has red rings from a leaky cherry Icee cup circa my 8th month of pregnancy when I drank them pretty much on the daily.


I've used everything to get it out -- every scrub, cleaner, sponge and brush out there.


It won't budge.

Makes you wonder what cherry Icee does to your insides, huh?

You know what this countertop needs? A beautiful faux granite finish. We can't afford new countertops, at least not for a few more years, so this is the next best solution. All we'll need after that is a coat of paint, new backsplash and a new light fixture, and it'll be like a new kitchen.


Wait, I just looked at her pictures and I believe she painted her backsplash with the paint. *SCORE*


I would just hate for my son to grow up in a home with an ugly kitchen.


Hear that Universe? Don't take this away from my child.


(nailed it!)

Do you have an ugly kitchen? If you could paint your kitchen any color, what would it be? 

No porch light means I'm not interested

Last year Hubby and I went all out on Halloween. We carved an awesome pumpkin.

See? Awesome. Hubby carved that last year.

We had some spooky Halloween music and set up a nice little operation from our driveway, including some pretty stellar candy options. I'm not talking, like, the generic kids mix. I'm talking Hersey's bars, Kit Kats and Nerds.

We got about 3 kids. The rest of the candy went straight to my thighs.

This year we decided to be grinches, or whatever the Halloween equivalent is. Hubby and I went out to dinner and ran errands, then lost track of time and came home right about when Trick-or-Treat was starting and our street was SWARMING with those little sugar-hungry brats.

We rushed inside so we wouldn't be spied, left the door closed and the porch light off. A few minutes later, our doorbell rang.

Who sends their child up to a dark house? Seriously, who does that?

Luckily, we had some 6-month old suckers from ye olden days of my 1st trimester morning sickness, so I popped those bad boys in the bags of those eagerly awaiting children, while their mother graciously shone her flashlight onto our sidewalk so the kids could see the dark house they were approaching. The dark house containing who knows what manner of grumpy, angry people. I mean, hypothetically, if we're cantankerous enough to deny kids their God-given, red-blooded American right to free candy on Halloween, what other deep dark secrets could we be harboring?

And additionally, I thought the international sign for, "I'm not giving out candy because I hate you. Please go away" is to turn off your light. Maybe things have changed in the past 18 years since I've been begging for treats.

We decided since we've already broken the seal, as it were, that we'd flip on the light and continue giving out stale suckers until it was over. All in all, we got about 10 kids. That includes the kids who were in such a hurry that they couldn't wait 60 seconds for me to rock my pregnant butt out of the recliner and waddle to the door. Ungrateful.

Did you give out candy? What percentage of children, would you estimate, forgot to say either "Happy Halloween", "Thank you" or both?

My biggest fear has 6 legs

When I was younger, my biggest fear was failure.

I was always worried that I wouldn't be good enough, that I'd be broke, or fired, or dumped. All that equaled failure to me, and it was terrifying.

Then I got dumped. Then I graduated from college, and then graduated from college again with my Masters degree. Then I got married. Then I got laid off. So, once you've experienced a good amount of both successes and failures and realize that it's not the end of the world when you do fail and that you CAN succeed, it's time to get a new biggest fear.

Around that time we moved to Florida, and a terrifying new world opened to me: a world with lots of legs, antennae and pre-historic looking exoskeletons.

The world of roaches.

Now, nothing in this world frightens me as much as cockroaches. Lizards? Love em. Mice? I mean, not my favorite but whatever. Snakes? Please stay away, but I am only mildly scared.

When I see a cockroach, I scream like I'm being stabbed with a butter knife, and it's not just one scream, it's a long, drawn out, "there-is-a-serial-killing-clown-in-our-garage-please-someone-help" scream. I run and slam doors. I refuse to step foot in our garage where they love to chill near the trash can. Sometimes I scream at the thought of them being there. If they are in the house FOR-GET it. I will have a panic attack on your ass, TRUST ME.

Back in WV it seems like we had an ant problem every spring, and as much as they grossed me out, I always sort of felt sorry for them. They were just harmless babies of the insect world, trying to find a delicious meal of cereal or rice to take back to their queen. And good on them for picking up that giant piece of cat food that's 14 billion times their size and carrying it all the way back to their nest.

But cockroaches? To me, cockroaches are a sign of dirty-ness and living in squalor. Cockroaches are scavengers and harbingers of disease.

And they are also apparently all around and COMPLETELY NORMAL. One of my co-workers has them in her mailbox, so when she opens it they scatter and then she reaches in and gets her mail. OVER MY DEAD BODY would I EVER get the mail again. I'd be all, credit card companies, sorry, but you're just going to have to wait for my payment because the cockroaches are currently holding my mail hostage with their tiny little feet and 18 kneecaps. Sick.

Apparently there is nothing you can do -- they are just a part of life down there in the dirty South (is THAT why it's called the dirty South??). I was talking about (what I believe to be) our cockroach infestation and what we were planning on doing to about it and my work friend said, "well good luck with that. Nothing helps. They'll leave in the winter."


O.M.G.

Here is a chart to express my hatred of cockroaches:

TRUE STORY ALERT: This weekend I was home alone, right? And so I was getting ready to shower before bed, took my contacts out, turned the water on and noticed  A GIANT COCKROACH on the wall above the shower. I called my husband and was sobbing about this darn cockroach because what am I supposed to do? It's my biggest fear COME TO LIFE and staring me in the face. I asked him to come home from his conference, but when he told he he couldn't do that, I had him walk me step by step through the process of killing the cockroach dead. It included multiple steps, starting with "throw a magazine at it" and "hit it with a shoe".


Then after I killed it, I put on my glasses and discovered it was actually a beetle.


IT COULD HAVE BEEN A COCKROACH, you guys. You have to be diligent about those nasty things.


According to British researchers at the University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, cockroaches could be the key to fending off harmful, drug-resistant bacteria (DO NOT CLICK ON THIS IF YOU ARE TERRIFIED OF COCKROACHES OR GROSSED OUT BY BUGS).

I'm sorry, but e coli is one billion and a half times better than cockroaches.

What is your biggest fear? Do you hate insects? What do you think is worse than cockroaches?

Happy Houseiversary!

Do y'all watch those shows on HGTV, like House Hunters or Property Virgins, where they look at 3 houses, choose one, make an offer and close in the tidy span of a half hour? And how excited they are, sitting in a room with everyone together: Realtor, lawyers, previous owners, the law office janitor, your Mom, several former boyfriends and the stray dog down the street?

How there are never any problems closing or financing?

How the television crew goes back a month later and the house is in perfect order, not a box in sight?

That.

Is.

MALARKEY.

Our sweet little house with the landscaping we put it!

You know what came and went without me even making a peep about it on this here blog OR Twitter? Our first Houseiversary! KLZ is getting ready for her new place and it reminded me. One year ago, on August 7, we closed on our new home. But the story begins much earlier in the year, around May 2009....

[ wavy lines representing going back in time in my mind ]

Hubby and I decided it was time to start house hunting. We wanted to put down some roots and that little $8k government stimulus was burning a hole in our pockets. Plus, we were getting tired of apartment living, what with the people stomping around above us and the lack of parking. We started to look online at the Reality sites and then a couple months later got a  Realtor.

Ok, so this Realtor. We didn't know how to go about finding one, so Hub asked one of his friends, who suggested this guy. He went to the same church we did so we thought, oh, he's probably nice and will do a good job. WRONG. He was a bumbling idiot. I felt like I was in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond or something because this guy was unbelievable. His name was JR and he typically sold farm land and commercial real estate, but was "nice enough" to help out us newbie property virgins.

Our first meeting with him was interesting. After telling him exactly what we wanted in a home, he told us it sounded like we didn't know, but he'd pull some houses for us from the database. He found a handful and we set up a meeting a few days later to look at them. We met at his office and we all climbed into this huge pick up truck with dog hair EVERYWHERE and headed our our adventure. The first house we saw, we fell in love with. It was just lovely and perfect for us. JR, said he was the type who didn't want to be "pushy", so he just sat down in the living room of this house and made some calls on his Blackberry.

Sat down. On the floor. To make calls.

After a long day of searching, and a couple days of SOUL searching, we decided to make an offer on this house. We met, again, at his office and started drawing up the paperwork. I had a number in mind for what we wanted to offer according to what would fit in our budget, but he started insisting our payment would be more than what we figured it would be. Turns out he was calculating the wrong tax rate. Smart! Oh, and that house? Already had an offer.

Here are some other things he did:

• Didn't answer our phone calls for various reasons, including but not limited to: phone battery died;  showing houses (although we were trying to get a hold of him at a CRITICAL time and he obviously didn't have trouble answering when he was showing houses to us); out tending his cattle; bathroom emergency.
• Couldn't ever get someplace on time, like EVER.
• Teased Hubby ALL the time about everything he did, but in a way where it's not a joke, it's because he is annoyed.
• Told Hubby to sign first because "he's the man of the house". 

The house we bought was on our first list, but too expensive, but after dropping the price considerably we took a second look and fell in love. The house had been on the market for about 4 months with only a handful of showings, but no offers. The day we put an offer in, somehow, because God was trying to teach us a lesson, I guess, three other offers also came in. We bumped up our price a smidge and left for a weekend trip. On the way there, JR called: we got the house! No thanks to him, because while we were biting our nails about our offer, he was napping in his office and wouldn't answer our phone calls.

Then there was our financing. That was the biggest bunch of malarkey known to man. The mortgage broker guy was all, "Oh you guys are in GREAT shape, we'll have this done in no time! Closing date is August 4! Get excited people!" And then he promptly went out of town, leaving us in the "capable" hands of Tyler, who in reality should only have been trusted with things like filing paperwork and making coffee. Tyler screwed us royally by listing the WRONG closing date on our paperwork, then lying that it was the bank's fault. I yelled at him a lot. After the fact, bossman at the brokerage was like, "sorry for your troubles. Here is a gift card!"

So, right, August 5 was our original closing date. Tyler called one day and said it would be moved till the next day. And he continued this again and again until the closing date was August 7 -- but only maybe, if we could get the money transferred in time. Somehow, either the brokerage or the lawyers office was having trouble getting our money (which they had in their hot little hands by the original closing date) to the sellers, who wouldn't give up the keys until then. We were moving out of our apartment August 8. They were moving to Tallahassee August 6. You can see why we were frustrated.

Finally closing was set for 2 pm on August 7. We met JR at the house to take one last walk through before we signed the papers. He pulled out his magic key dispenser thing for the lock box -- and the batteries were dead. Like really, JR,  you're going to pull one more screw up the last day we have to deal with you. Phenomenal. He heads around to the backyard and begins pulling on windows, hoping that one was unlocked. He tried the back door. He was trying to break into our new home!

After getting new batteries, he was able to retrieve the key. He just handed them to us and said, "Oh, you guys can probably just keep these. No reason putting the lock box back." But what about the dramatic "handing over the keys" I saw on Our First Place? I was robbed!

At one point it just started getting comical. We signed our lives away while JR played on his Blackberry, teased Hubby and stole pens from the desk. The lawyer started to fax our paperwork, then came back in a short time later and said a lightening storm earlier in the day had fried their fax machine and they were waiting to get it fixed. Fabulous. After waiting close to 3 hours, we were done, but the final nail in the coffin was that JR had to drive me home in his skunky truck because Hubby had to run to the bank before it closed.

There were no hugs, no tears of joy, no one saying excitedly, "Here are the keys to your new home!" It was all anti-climatic.

So in conclusion, my first real estate experience brought not only a new home, but at least 8 pounds from stress eating. Thank you, JR, for contributing to that stress.

Have you bought a home? Was it as messy as my home buying experience?

This post has been a part of Word Up, Yo!, a vocabulary meme. Go play along!

Green Beans and Hot Garbage

Since I've been pregnant, bad smells have become almost impossible to live with. What might have been an unpleasant before suddenly smells like a combination of wet dog, garlic, spoiled chicken and feet, or a smell that I have fondly named "hot garbage". My boss thinks it's so funny that it's sort of caught on in the office. Well, I'm glad my sensitive sniffer can bring so much joy.

I also have discovered lots of things smell like green beans, even when no  one is eating green beans. There is someone in my office who is notorious for warming up green beans and catfish in the building's microwave without any regard for how that smell lingers, so at first I just thought it was her. No, it's like the smell of green beans, my least favorite food in the WORLD, is silently stalking me wherever I go. I smell them at home; at work; at restaurants that DON'T' SERVE GREEN BEANS. It's the most bizarre phenomenon ever. And why couldn't it be something good smelling that haunts me? Roses, where are you? Fresh baked cinnamon roll scent, I know you've got to be around here somewhere. Lilac and magnolia I SEE YOU BLOOMING RIGHT OUTSIDE, yet you're not able to overpower the non-existent green beans?

Then yesterday I was walking to my desk and discovered the suite TV was paused on this commercial for TGI Friday's fried green beans:

At first I was all, OK you guys, this is really funny! I totally get this joke, it's because green beans are haunting me, right? Whew, that was a good laugh. But then I walked by 3 hours later and it was STILL ON THE SCREEN.

I walked to the TV to take a picture and said, "Those green beans have been on TV for like 3 hours now and I just had to take a picture because nobody will believe me otherwise." And my friend Kim said, "oh my gosh, I didn't even notice! Sorry! You can turn it off if you want!" and I said, "so what you're saying is that this was unintentional and the TV is ganging up with these mystery green beans to make my life miserable?"

What are the odds? Of all scenes in the plethora of commercials on local tv, it had to be paused on the green bean money shot. Sick.

And in other Austin family news, remember the jug of moldy lemonade that's been on our counter for months? The other day we finally addressed it:

Me: I sure wish I could make some of that grape kool-aid. Problem is, we don't' have a jug big enough.
Hubby: What about the one with the lemons?
Me: Um, it's dirty. Clearly.
Hubby: I've been waiting for you to clean it.
Me: I've been waiting for YOU to clean it!
Hubby: Well I don't know what to tell you.
Me: It's the most epic household chore standoff ever! Guess I won't be getting any grape kool-aid.
Hubby: Guess not.

Then....THEN...a miracle occurred. I was cleaning up the dishes and he puts on his shoes and an old shirt. I asked what he was doing and he said, "I'm going to go clean out that lemonade jug."

Then angels started singing! The best part of this whole thing is that I WON.

What was the last household project standoff that you won? I wanna hear how you celebrated.

It's a par-tay at my house, y'all, a basketball par-tay

I'm still recovering from this really wild party. And by wild, I mean a booze-free party with lots of teenage boys. Wait. That sounds bad. The teenage boys were here for my husband. Wait. I mean, they are his students and members of his basketball team.

I'll back up just a tad. Remember how I told you guys that my husband Loves with a capital L basketball season. And if there was an emotion stronger than love, that's how he'd feel about the three weeks of March Madness. In fact, once we had a conversation in which I asked him, "if I were preg and in labor and there was a UK tournament game on, would you be with me or at the game?" and he said the game. That's his commitment to UK basketball.

For the past four years, this has been my view during the tournament:

I didn't think that you get the full breadth of this so I took a video of it for you guys:







I took that half day from work yesterday. When I got home, Hubby said to me, "Honey, some people might be coming over." And me being a complete and total control freak, I wanted to know exactly how many people and exactly what the plans were. Would there be eating during or before? Are people going to be bringing food, or are we providing it? What time would they be there? How long would they stay? I mean, a girl needs to have her plans in place, people.

I LOVE to entertain and stuff people to the brim with good food and don't get to do it often enough, so I came up with a big plan to cook bad-for-you-bar-food-without-the-bar for all the peeps coming over (the headcount was 10). We just checked out the book Cook This Not That from our local public library. This book is fab and I recommend it for anyone who loves to eat out and wants to watch their girly figure.

Aside: I hope someone realizes one of these days how much I love shilling stuff that I like and gives me gobs of money for it, but for now I'll just write about it for free.

The menu was:

• Chicken tenders with spicy honey mustard sauce
• potato skins
• sliders, half were bacon and cheddar and half were swiss, onions and mushrooms
• cheesy spinich dip
• cheese fries
• Taquitos
• brownies

Of course, of all that stuff I cooked from scratch -- the Gorgonzola cheese I melted into the spinach, the burgers I cut out myself, the chicken tenders I lovingly breaded -- the biggest hit of the whole party was -- you guessed it -- TAQUITOS. Mystery meat central. And also? The brownies.

"Mrs. Austin," a couple guys said, "these brownies are amazing! thank you!"

You're welcome, but they are from a box. SADS.

I got to participate in some fun girly chat at the dining room table with a friend who stopped by with her hubby while 10 teenagers and three adults screamed and carried on using words like "that's sick!" "Nasty!"and "Body up!" and "he ooped it!" As the clock moved toward 10:30, the screaming grew louder. I popped my head in to see what was going on and I discover they are playing NCAA 2010 on PS3. Lovely.

As I mentioned before, it was peticoat rule at my house so male culture really fascinates me. It's like watching a pack of gorillas. My home was a zoo yesterday.

So, question is, who wants to come over to my house for a party?

Pantry, you're dead to me

Listen, pantry, we need to have a heart-to-heart.

There's a big problem right now in my home, and, well, it's not me, it's you.

 

Evil.

You just hang out in the kitchen all day with your delicious food. Mocking my and my desire to just lose a couple pounds. OK, cookie mix, I hear you. I know it's your goal in life to make me some cookies. You just want to provide a little extra cushion and I get that. "But you love sweets," you say. "And look, I only need to be mixed with one stick of butter and an egg and you have BOTH of those! It's not like you're going to use that stick of butter for anything else, anyway."

Well, cookie mix, I'm sure there are lots more HEALTHY things I can make with that stick of butter, so just screw off, ok?

The same goes for you, too, box of sugary chocolate cereal. Don't you dare hide  back behind the healthy cereal; I know this game far too well. You're trying to get me to forget about you until I'm having a late night moment of weakness, aren't you? Well guess what, I AIN'T FALLING FOR IT.

"Come on, I'm only 100 calories per serving! I'm basically a 100-calorie pack!" But your serving is 3/4 a cup. Know who can be satisfied with 3/4 cup of cereal? PEOPLE WITH WILLPOWER. That's not me, OBVIOUSLY. I pour out 3/4 a cup and next thing you know, BAM a half box of cereal is gone. I will throw you out before you can say "I'm Coocoo for Cocoa puffs!" and don't think I won't.

Who am I kidding, I will not throw anything out.

No, instead I'll fall for your old tricks, brownie mix. "Oh man, I'm almost expired! You might have to throw me away even though you bought me on Publix BOGO a year ago! You probably need to go ahead and bake me so as to not waste food, because that's a punishable offense in this house!" Although logically I realize that it's powdered food. How does powdered food spoil? Who is going to punish me?

You know what will expire? This peach. And it will expire quickly while I'm busy eating my weight in Ritz Peanut Butter Crackers and the fruit flies will get to it. GREAT. Not only have I wasted a perfectly good peach, I also have fruit flies. CURSES ON YOU, RITZ CRACKERS!

Oh, potato chips, you know just when I'm craving something salty. "Woops! Sorry, must have lost my balance from this precarious position stacked on top of all these boxes of dumpling and gravy mixes. I didn't mean to fall right into your hands. But since I'm here...." Since you're here, WHAT, potato chips? Huh? Tell me. Just test my patience because I have had nothing but salads for lunch for weeks and I'm in no mood.

And you can shut your whore mouth, Chips Deluxe Cookies, over there in the cabinet. You might not live in the pantry but this applies as much to you as it does that Warm Delights cake on the second shelf.

And peanut butter, I think you might be the worst. You and your delicious creamy taste and 170 calories for 2 tablespoons. You're ridiculous and I don't have to take this. I will punch you in the throat, peanut butter.

Why is there so much delicious food in the world?

Christmas Decorating for the Lazy Person

I've recently discovered a blog called Aiming Low, featuring a bunch of really great female bloggers. They encourage women to be themselves, do what makes them happy and stop striving for perfection because striving for perfection will make you crazy!

Anyway, the great writers over there have inspired this post.

My Christmas decorations are up. I honestly didn't think they would be. In fact, just two weeks ago I tested my husband by saying, "Maybe we shouldn't put decorations up this year. Who cares?" and he agreed and then I yelled at him for agreeing.

The thought of decorating was really exhausting to me. There's putting up a tree, unwrapping hundreds of ornaments, untangling lights, and vacuuming up errant needles from the strings of garland decking our halls; and then a month later, taking it all back down. Between all the earning a paycheck, cooking meals from a box, watching TV and playing Farmville, I didn't think I had the time for Christmas decorating this year.

However, thanks go my wonderful employers and their generous paid time off policy, I was able to have Thursday through Monday off work (and got to leave early Wednesday). That's 5 -- count 'em -- 5 fabulous-stay-up-late-sleep-in-watch-tv-nap days. I felt like a college student again. All that sleep gave me energy I didn't know I had. But it still wasn't easy -- the tree was in the attic. The decorations were in storage boxes all over God's creation. Extension cords were needed.  The tree skirt was missing. It was mass Christmas chaos.

And to make things more complicated, this is our first Christmas in the new house and we weren't sure where the tree would fit. There's plenty of space in the living room but it meant moving some things around. Hubby wanted to move everything; I wanted to move one thing. We ended up moving 3 small things and are very pleased with the results.

The most daunting thing for me is, always has been, ornament hanging. I really hate it. I love ornaments and think they look amazing on a tree. I don't like unwrapping them or choosing a place for them. Last Christmas my sister was visiting and spent 2 hours asking me to "just put up one more" ornament. "Just one more, Sister, then you can stop!" And one more turned into A LOT more. It just makes me want to nap instead.

Here's a rundown of how our decorating went this weekend.

Friday Night:

6:30 - Hubby got the tree down from the attic and tracked down storage boxes
6:45 - Hubby's job is done and I'm generously given decorating duties
7:00 - Argue about where the tree will go
7:30 - Argument over tree location continues
7:45 - Things are moved
8:00 - Things are moved back
8:15 - Things are left all over the place and we have dinner
9:15 - Take the bottom part of the tree out of the box
9:17 - Discover tree skirt is nowhere to be found
9:19 - Farmville break
9:40 - Begin playing Wii and continue until 1:30 am

Saturday Afternoon

1:45 - Things are moved; tree location is finalized
1:50 - Vacuum all the dust bunnies that have appeared after moving things (Only the ones that are visible)
2:10 - Tree bottom is moved
2:15 - Tree skirt is miraculously found, along with a wreath for the door (Hubby for the win!)
2:30 - Tree is set up; begin "fluffing" the branches
2:45 - Finish "fluffing"
2:46 - Ask Hubby how it looks; he says it looks like I missed a few; Hubby is told that if it looks wrong, he can fix it himself
2:47 - Begin hooking up pre-lit tree lights
2:48 - Give up and ask for help
2:49 - Farmville break
3:00 - Decide to go to Michaels, Lowes, Walmart and to get a pizza

Saturday Night

6:45 - Minor Walmart Meltdown
7:00 - Eat pizza
8:00 - Farmville break
9:10 - Decorate the garland using premade sprays from Michaels
9:40 - Begin putting on ornaments
10:00 -Get distracted by cats
10:10 - Continue with ornaments
10:20 - Find Hubby to see what he's up to
10:30 - Continue with ornaments
10:40 - Eat a cupcake
10:50- Finish ornaments!

And that just about sums up our decorating. It wasn't easy, it took forever, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. Hubby put some icicle lights around the gutters in the front, too, so we're super festive! I'm going to enjoy them immensely  until I get around to taking them down -- we're talking mid-January, earliest.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts of Christmas decorating?

I'm having a yard sale tomorrow

Hubby and I are planning a yard sale tomorrow morning. We've been intending to hold one since we moved, mainly because during the move we realized we have  A LOT OF STUFF. I'll be damned if I unload all that junk into a closet in the house only to let it sit for years. And if I'm going to get rid of things, I might as well get rid of things and get money for them, can I have an AMEN?

But y'all, I do not like yard sales. I mean I get it. One man's trash is another man's treasure, but they just seem so tedious and how much money can I really make on junk I don't even want?

I found this post I wrote four and a half years ago about this very topic:

In the past two weeks, houses in my neighborhood have had yard sales. I will preface this blog by saying that I am not morally opposed to yard sales IN THEORY. What better way to clean out your own junk, unload it on others, and make a bit of money in the process?

But in practice, yard sales suck for the following reasons: 1. It's almost always pure crap--stuff that, in any other situation, one would throw straight into the garbage can and not think twice about it. I'm talking about shirts with stains, tables with legs missing, and lamps that not only don't work, but also do not have a lampshade. But for some reason, when you put in on a table and stick a price tag on it, it becomes more valuable than gold.

Which leads me to number two...  People flock to yard sales like flies to honey, and for what reason? So they can pick through other people's stuff in hopes of finding a good deal? Because they just want to get rid of that pesky $15 or $20 that's been weighing down their billfold? Because CRAP is CRAP. Yes, even when it is sitting outside on a folding card table! Even when there is a handwritten sign that says "SALE!!!!!!!!" beside it! Still crap! Merchandise that SOMEONE ELSE DID NOT WANT. And yet, these people will pay good money for it.

For instance, a few years ago the people on my street had a neighborhood yard sale. My little sister, shrewd businesswoman that she is, decided to sell her old McDonalds toys for 25 cents each. Two ladies bought every single toy, and additionally, were extremely excited about the matter. What could two grown women need with 15 year old McDonalds toys. Tell me...WHAT?

And three: As I've established, crap = crowds. And crowds, logically, bring traffic. LOTS of FREAKING traffic. And apparently, shopping at yard sales also gives people the privilege of disregarding ALL traffic rules. Go right ahead and park on the wrong side of a street...look, there is an empty space right beside that "No Parking on This Side of the Street" sign! No, I don't need to get by at ALL! I'll just follow you at 5 MPH so you can scope out the great deals! God forbid you park and walk to the yard sale to see what's there. No, I'd hate for you to waste your time doing that when there are other sales to peruse!

Four: For the sellers, yard sales are a bad deal. Sure, you get rid of stuff you don't want. And I'm sure it's an adrenaline rush when you sell somebody your collection of Paula Abdul CDs for 10 cents more than they were originally priced. But really--is it worth the time and effort? Collecting the stuff, setting up the sale, advertising the sale, keeping track of money, getting rid of the stuff you don't sell, spending the day bargaining with people over things like single salt-shakers or a prom dresses from 1990 or that book with coffee stains and dog eared pages ("25 cents? that's outrageous. I'll pay 20, and that is my final offer!")--plus worrying about weather. And all for what? Fifty dollars? One-hundred on a good day? So anyway. As soon as I post this, I will surely be bit by the yard sale bug and develop an intense desire to place my belongings in my front yard. But in conclusion: Yard sales--I am not a fan.

And now I'm having a yard sale -- oh, how things change. But I'm going to put aside these feelings because apparently when I wrote that I was made out of money or learned how to grow a money tree, then promptly forgot, because here I am not totally excited about the $200 I might make tomorrow.

Painted Bamboo Rug Project

I finished my first big craft project today while Hubby was watching football. Sundays are good for that kind of thing!

Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find a nice, big bamboo rug at Goodwill. It was a little bit worn and dirty, but only $5.99. I had been pricing them for a craft project from the Big Ass Book of Crafts -- a painted bamboo rug. The rug is (and now is located) in the dining room, by the sliding door that leads to the back yard. It gets really dirty there because there is nothing to wipe your feet on!

I had an idea for the rug before I bought the actual rug. My inspiration was from an awesome tablecloth that was on a catering table at the Alachua County Medical Society dinner at our new hospital. The tablecloth was a pearl cream color with embroidered "swirls" in gold, orange and bronze. It was so gorgeous and I really wanted to steal it from their table for my own. I thought about replicating the pattern with similar colors of paint because we already had these colors from our living and dining room paint projects (so no extra cost for paint).

My first job today was scrubbing -- and did I EVER scrub! Again, it was really worn, but not dirty in a disgusting, this-will-never-be-good-enough-for-my-home kind of way. Basically, nothing a little elbow grease, 409 and Magic Eraser won't spruce up!

Next step was hand painting little swirls in different areas of the rug. The only paintbrush I had was sort of wide, but it actually turned out for the best because there was a lot of space on that rug! I made swirls in orange and brown. My original idea was cream swirls but because the others turned out so large, I just painted cream colored dots.


OK, also I have to mention that, while my brain does notice and appreciate patterns, I'm not the type of person who has to have patterns perfectly symmetrical. Thus, my swirls are just "eyeballed" and approximately the same size. And I know that one of the cream colored dots is completely off but I can live with it!

Last step was to spray paint it with a clear acrylic paint and ta-da! I think it turned out really great and I'm proud of what I did. The book I bought has lots of ideas for handmade, inexpensive but high style gifts. I'm really loving it and have plans to use lots of other ideas for our home.

Landscaping: Might as well give us our own HGTV show

Hub and I have been working hard on the landscaping in front of our house. When we bought the house, it's not like it was bad, it was sort of a blank slate. There were a row of small, out of control shrubs under the living room window (the center of the house), a line of weird looking filler plants by the fence and a landscaping box with overgrown weeds/grass between the two oak trees in the middle of our yard. That was the extend of the previous owners landscaping.

Also, the grass was a mess. There was one whole section that was nothing but sandy soil. We found out from our neighbors that the previous owner parked his truck IN the yard, which killed the grass. So we basically had our work cut out for us.

I am not an outdoorsy person at all. I never did any landscaping or yard work. It just wasn't a priority at our house. I think once I planted some watermelon in the backyard and it turned out to just be the world's smallest inedible watermelon, so big time farming FAIL right there. I have successfully killed several houseplants and almost killed our palm. That's the extent of my landscaping and planting experience.

We started the lawn transformation by bagging what seemed to be 5 years worth of oak tree leaves. Forty bags of leaves. I mean that's just insane and uncalled for. I cursed the previous owners names MANY times. I think bagging leaves may be the thing I hate most in life.

The next step was digging out the old shrubs and their extensive root system. Hub did most of that by spending an entire Saturday with a maddock hacking the roots apart Paul Bunyan style. Then he tilled the ground and I raked up the grass, handpicking the grass that wouldn't easily rake. Probably not the most functional way to do this, but again: landscaping newbie.

So next we decided to buy some sod to fill in the gaps where the guy parked his truck. sod is very cheap, like $1.00 per square (I thought it would be more) but it's also VERY VERY VERY MESSY. Especially St. Augustine grass (what we got) which has a ton of sandy soil underneath it. One night we went out to get the sod before dinner -- I know, what were we thinking -- and because we were both tired and hungry, we were very snippy with each other. So we get to Lowes and buy the sod, and Hub says to Dave (our friend in Lawn & Garden who we didn't even know before we started this project, is how much we've been to Lowes), "Hey could we have someone help us?" and Dave said, "uhhh...um....yeah....just. let me call someone?"

We started loading it ourselves. In addition to being messy, guess what else sod is? HEAVY. Here is me, weakling that I am, loading sod into the back of Hub's SUV. After 20 pieces (20 of 80), I got pissed, marched over to Dave and angrily asked, "Are we going to have any help loading this sod, because LOOK AT ME!" as I referenced my filthy hands, arms and face. Dave called someone to help us and about a minute later another friendly Lowes employee walked over to the car. "How's it going?" he said. Although I know it was a rhetorical question, I answered, "It's been MUCH BETTER." Then I got into the car and let them do the rest.

Now that I read that, I guess I sort of overreacted. That seems sort of princessy of me, but guess what? That's what happens when we work BEFORE we eat!

Anyway, long story made a little less long, that sod wasn't enough, so we had another 150 pieces delivered. Good call this time, we got it delivered and laid ourselves with no problems.

After all that drama, we were ready to lay down tarp, plant our trees and mulch. We finished all that this weekend.

The plants we picked out were so awesome. We originally just bought two trees, but then decided it was too big of an area and needed a couple more. We ended up getting clearance trees from Lowes: one azalea for $19 and a crepe myrtle for $10! They look amazing in the yard and will have beautiful flowers in the spring.

I can't finish this story without photos, so I'll complete our landscaping saga tomorrow.

I'm ready to get crafty!

I finally got the last of my crafting stuff unpacked and my craft station set up. 

The craft station is in the same room as Kelsey's office so we can get things done and spend time together at the same time.This is all located in the Civil War Room and Library (because apparently my house is a museum and we have official names for our rooms? I don't know.)

We picked up the desk at our local Goodwill which is the best Goodwill EVER. We've gotten so much great stuff there, including our perfectly good loveseat (just covered it with a slipcover) for $20. This desk wasn't in the best shape, but was only $7. We sanded it down and refinished the top and it turned out so nice.

I love to make cards and crafty gifts for people. I just bought a book called the Big Ass Book of Crafts and it has techniques for finishing tables, building lamps, making custom artwork, creating lotions/beauty products, and crafting cool office supplies. I'm just overwhelmed with ideas for Christmas presents!


The people who owned the house before us left a perfectly good TV that we put in this room. And yes those are civil war caps hanging on the wall.Our fish are also living in here. I'm so excited about how this all turned out! I am glad I'll have a space where I can craft. In our apartment, I had our card table out and the craft stuff spread over it, but it was in our extra room and I never used it -- mainly because Kelsey was in the other room and crafting on the kitchen table allowed me to spend time with him while I was busy.

We're staying busy with landscaping but we'll be done just in time for me to start making Christmas crafts!

To the student who got the Alachua Co. Library scholarship that we funded: "You're Welcome"

Hubby and I finally got our book boxes unpacked in our finished office! There were lots of things that had to be done before we could start unpacking, including painting the room ,which was originally RED, gray and blue for the civil war (Hubby's choice), painting the old, fake wood bookshelves a brown color that was much easier on the eyes and buying a craft table for me for if and when I decide to take up crafting again.

Last night it was time to unearth box upon box of books. I always considered myself a book addict until I met my husband, who is 200% more addicted to books than I am. Because he is a history teacher and needs lots of references and needs to find them quickly, he decided to put them in the following order: books for school, civil war books, general history books, religion and sports. Right around "General History: Renaissance and Reformation", I realize that we have approximately four hundred thousand books. And on top of that, most were purchased at our county library system's semi-annual book sale, proceeds of which go to a scholarship program for area kids.

I can't imagine how much we have spent in the past 2 years at the book sales, but I can imagine that the student whose scholarship we funded is enjoying a pretty nice education right about now. So to that student, please take full advantage of your educational opportunity; remember: Butterfly in the sky I can go twice as high, take a look, it's in a book, A Reading Rainbow; and if you ever need a reference about, say, Greek history, please stop by (we have a full shelf dedicated to just that).

Our New Stove

So I thought since a couple of my old friends from back home have blogs and update regularly, maybe I should try it out, too!

Today I'm feeling slow at work. I get this way on Mondays sometimes. It feels like it takes longer than it should to get things accomplished. I have to admit, I'm a little bit distracted because at my house right now we're getting a new stove and microwave! I'm so excited about it. The stove is already in -- a beautiful, shiny, black, smooth top electric range.



The microwave is over the range and is stainless steel and black. I guess it's OK to mix black and stainless steel appliances. I've been watching lots of HGTV and they seem to think it's a "no no", but I can't imagine it would make any difference in the long run. The stove and microwave are the first step in a complete kitchen re-do that includes painting, new backsplash and maybe new counters. Of course, none of this will happen until the spring!