It's like a showroom!

Since our new bedroom set has finally arrived, and since my life seems to be so insanely full of things that when I actually find time to sit down and blog about it I draw a complete blank and end up posting nothing, I figured I would share with you the beauty and wonderment that is our new bedroom.  With real furniture and everything.

Attempting to make our house grown-up

It's been almost 2 1/2 years since we bought this house. One of the things about bouncing all over the west coast for our jobs is that we don't spend enough time at our house to get all those finishing touches done.  Things like putting up photographs or buying houseplants or even, um, finishing hanging the shutters because your husband threw out all the little hinges and they haven't sold hinges like that at Home Depot since 20 years ago when your house was built and now you're going to have to order them online but that seems like a lot of work.

We also have what you might call, "furniture essentials."  We have a couch, which is so comfortable all your friends and family start buying the same model and it may or may not suck you into a vortex of downy cushioned goodness from which you will never escape.  We also have a TV (well, 2 TVs, which would make sense if you know my husband at all), an entertainment center in which to display the TV, and some various other items like guest room furniture and a dining table.

One thing we do not have, however, is a bedroom set.  We do have one of those black metal thingies that sets your box frame up off the ground, so in that respect we are a step above the college days of having your mattress sit right on the floor, but otherwise our bedroom is generally a hodge-podge of miscellaneous furniture that has been collected over the years.  We have what should be a glass-topped end table and a coffee table functioning instead as nightstands; a cheap fake-wood corner entertainment center sitting in a corner of the bedroom, complete with VCR and DVD player but, until recently, lacking a TV... and that's about it.

But today is a momentous day, folks.

WE HAVE A BEDROOM SET.  Like real grown-ups, y'all.

Well, technically since we ordered the bedroom set online, it won't get here for another month.  Except the matching desk, which was delivered today.  But it counts anyway - and very soon we will have a dresser and a bed with headboard and footboard and THEY WILL ALL MATCH.

Super Giant Fish at our Front Door

So, I just realized the Big Buck Hunter has been in our front entryway for OVER TWO YEARS. I keep holding out hope that one day we'll class it up enough to move that thing somewhere... not so obvious. Like a Man Cave. Chris DEFINITELY needs a Man Cave. I think his new ploy is keep buying hideously unsophisticated things that have no business in the house so that we end up with so much redeneck man-crap in our front foyer that I have no choice but to agree to let him have a man cave. And, oh, yeah, his giant mounted fish finally arrived.

You can't quite tell here, but this thing is "to scale" meaning that fish is about 6 feet long.

Note the Big Buck Hunter in the background...

And, in the true irony that is my life, the boys fired up the Big Buck Hunter and began playing while I was typing this blog.  (They had to move the fish out of the way first, of course.)

Friday Night Fever

This is what a rockin' Friday night looks like at our house.  The picture is actually from about a month ago, but it's not like we've changed our weekend habits.

You better get prepared if you want to hang with us, because we sure bring the party on!

Craigslist vs the Yard Sale

If Craigslist and a Yard Sale were to duke it out over which one is the better way to get rid of old crap that you don't want anymore, Craigslist would win hands-down.  And here's why.

Getting rid of your stuff at a yard sale:

1) Poll all your neighbors and friends to see who wants to go in on a yard sale with you.

2) Give up on convincing your neighbors and friends.  Go to an office supply store and buy neon signs, magic markers, and duct tape.

3) Make the signs.

Crappy old filing cabinet but everyone wants it if it's free!

4) Post the signs.

5) Put an ad on Craigslist.

6) Get up really, really, early to move your crap out in to the garage/yard

7) Hang outside all day and be forced to haggle with weirdos and keep an eye out for the shoplifters.

8) At the end of the day, count up the $30.50 that you made, subtract the $8.00 you spent on signs and markers.

9) Go take down all your neon signs.

10) Haul all the crap you couldn't sell back into storage.

Getting rid of stuff on Craigslist:

1) Take a photo of the item(s) in question and post it immediately to the "free" section of Craigslist with your smartphone app.

2)  Go about your business and notice that within 20 minutes all your old crap is gone and you didn't have to lift a finger.

Overall:

At the yard sale, yes, you came out about $22.50 ahead, but you also had to sit on your front lawn for 8 hours. Not to mention the time you spent making and posting those signs.  True, you didn't make any money with the Craigslist post, but you also didn't have to babysit your front lawn all day.  And let's face it, your time is worth more than that.

Big city shopping

So this past weekend, my husband and I went on a date.  Like, dinner and a movie and some quality time together.  It was super.  The only weird part is that the movie theater is in the mall, but it's not one of the mall anchors.  It's, like, smack dab in the center of the mall.  So you have to walk through the mall to get to your movie.

In our case, we parked by the Wal-Mart and walked in to the mall.

Also, does anyone else think it's weird that the mall has a Wal-Mart?

Anyway, as we were walking back past the Wal-Mart after the movie let out, my husband made a comment that he and his brother, Frick, went to a two-story Wal-Mart when they were running errands.  Now Frick had never been to a two-story Wal-Mart, and to hear my husband tell it, was utterly fascinated.

Which reminded me of my own introduction to my first two-story Target.

"I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles," I confided to my husband.  "There was a two-story Target and I was completely intimidated by the shopping cart escalator.  I never did figure out how to use it, so I always had to shop on the second story first.  I could only buy as much as I could carry down the escalator."

"You really shouldn't tell me these things," my husband replied.

"Why?"

"You know I'm just going to use these little facts to make fun of you later."

"But you're my husband and you love me and doesn't that mean I can tell you things in confidence that you won't use against me later and tease me in front of all our friends?"

"Not really, no."

Holiday Cheer... and a subtle warning to the neighbors

I saw this in the craft store, and thought it would be the perfect holiday gift for our neighbors... you know, the ones who let their pet peafowl run wild and poo all over our backyard?

Just saying.

For the (humming)birds

Okay, it was cute for a while.  Our rental house in California has about 4 or 5 hummingbirds that hang out at the two feeders on the back porch.  Previously, I had been buying that red stuff you can get in the store but then one day I ran out and decided just to make my own sugar water.  Plus, I head the red dye is hard on their tiny little livers and I felt bad.

Two days later, I walked out on the back porch to find a dozen hummingbirds hovering around the feeders and the sugar water about half gone.  Apparently, I make the good sh*t and they told all their friends.

Last friday night, the feeders were again about empty.  I made a new double batch of hummingbird food (that's 8 cups water and 2 cups sugar - just enough to fill up a 2 liter bottle or 2 large-size hummingbird feeders) and filled both feeders to the brim.

By Sunday evening, they were empty again.  That's right, EMPTY.  Those two-dozen tiny little flying things had managed to consume 2 liters of sugar water in less than 2 days.  I mean, they're cute and all, but they can't manage to keep up at this pace, can they?

Who kills the spiders around here

Whenever there is a spider in the house (or scorpion, or just about any living creature except ants), I am not the one who kills it.  I rescue it and set it free in the great outdoors.  I just can't bring myself to kill it.

There was a tiny spider crawling across our kitchen yesterday.  Chris was barefoot, and since I was wearing shoes, he asked me to step on it.

ME: No.

CHRIS: Why not?

ME: I can't kill it!

CHRIS: But why not?

ME:  Because it's just hanging out minding it's own business.  It doesn't deserve to die for that.

CHRIS: It's a spider, when does it not mind it's own business?

ME: When it's crawling across my face, that's when.  Or if it bites me.  Then it is all up in my business, and then a spider gonna die.

Swimming Pool Not Included

Apparently the women and the hammock are included.  They just couldn't fit a pool in such a tiny package.

The tortoise goes off the deep end

Sleepy and Mrs. Sleepy get their revenge for the Prank of the Century.

Something is digging in my flowerbed

*hint* and it's not rabbits.

What, oh what could it be?

Here is my first clue:

Hmmm... a bunch of feathers, OK.

Here is my second clue:

Golf-ball sized avian poops. OK.

And, finally, the PROOF:

Luckily, I have a specialized peacock deterrent program. Now, if only she could stay focused...

Complete Nonsense

Last night, Chris fell asleep on the couch while we were watching TV.  When the show ended, I went to wake him so we could go to bed.

I shook his shoulder gently and whispered that he needed to get up and go to bed.

"Mumble mumble just wait mumble mumble."

"C'mon honey, time for bed."

"Just wait two weeks."

"OK, whatever.  C'mon let's go to bed."

"But what if we wait a couple weeks and then there's not two and we need another one, you understand what I mean?"

"You're not making any sense."

He tried to explain again, something about two weeks and things and then there not being things.  None of which seemed to have any connection with him getting up off the couch at that moment.

"You're still not making any sense."

To which he finally got up and made his way towards the bedroom.  Partially annoyed that he had to wake up and partially annoyed that I couldn't understand his nonsense, he said companionably, "You're a pain in my butt, you know that?"

"Well," I replied with aplomb, "that sentence was clear enough."

786,000 Gallons of Water

Chris and I were at the house last weekend when the doorbell rang.  It was the meter-reader.  He wanted to let us know that our water use for the past month was very high.  Which was very considerate of him, although a few months too late.  At that point we had just finished paying the plumber to fix the problem.  Allow me to recap...

As you may remember, last March we bought a house.  Well last June, our water bill suddenly skyrocketed.  We wrote that month off as the start of summer weather and waited to see the next bill.

When the bill came, Chris looked at it and about fell out of his chair.  He called the City.  The nice lady asked him for all his account information and asked why he was calling.  He replied, "well, if you take a look at our bill, I think you can guess why I'm calling."

"Let me just bring up your information, here." she said, cheerily.  There was a pause.

"Oh."  she said.  "Oh.  Yes, I do see why you're calling."

Of course, unless it's an issue with the meter, there's really nothing the City can do about it.  She gave us some common problems to look for and a couple of other helpful hints and wished us good luck.

The good news was, we found out it wasn't the pool or the pool plumbing or the water main or any of the other common problems.  We narrowed it down to overuse of the sprinkler system and possibly a faulty water softener.  The next bill was a quarter of what the previous bill was.  Problem solved.  We thought.

Over the next couple of months, the water bill slowly crept up again.  We would catch the meter spinning like crazy in the middle of the night when nothing was running in the house.  Finally, out of options and at wit's end, we called a plumber.

Diagnosis?  A leak under our foundation slab.  Solution?  Drill through the tile and the foundation, fix the pipe, and patch things back up again.  It's not cheap, but at the rate we're currently using water, a fix would pay for itself in three month's worth of savings on our bill.

So we did and it was fixed and now our next bill looks to be less than the taxes were on our previous bills.  Here comes the fun part.  Looking back over the past five months, we have used over 786,000 gallons of water.  That's a lot of water, right?  Now, would you like to see the size of our "leak"?

But maybe you can't get a real sense of this leak.  So here's another picture with an object for scale:

 

 That's right.  It is possible to lose over 8,000 gallons of water a day through a hole smaller than the size of a pea.

Now you know.  And so does our pocketbook.

The Hat! The Hat! The Hat is on Fire!

In order to properly understand the reference here, you must be familiar with both a) the 2004 movie Eurotrip and b) the Bloodhound Gang's 1996 remake to "The Roof is on Fire," in which the lyrics read, "the roof! the roof! the roof is on fire!"

My roommate and I watched the movie Eurotrip shortly after it came out to video.  For some reason that is unknown to me now, we thought that scene where the guy's hat was on fire and he mistook his friend's warning for a fiesty rendition of "The Roof is on Fire" was the funniest thing EVER.  It was a running joke between us for well over a year, and each time it brought us to tears, we laughed so hard.  Again, I don't know why.  It's not really that funny.

Now on to what I was really going to say.

Chris and I flew into Phoenix this evening, and after a short ride home from the airport, arrived at the house.  The first thing I noticed was that our house smelled... well, kind of odd.  Specifically, it smelled like new tires.  Yeah, I know.  Weird.  So I lit a couple of scented candles to dispel the mysterious odor.

Chris and I proceeded to flop on the couch, turn on the television, and relax after a long day of work and travel.  This went on for about twenty minutes, until...

*sniff* *sniff* "Um, Chris?  Do you smell something burning?" I ask.  He didn't.  Perplexed, I check on the candles, which all seem to be doing okay.  I blow one of them out, thinking maybe the wick was running low and causing a little smoke.  A few minutes go by.  The burning smell returns.  Even Chris can smell it this time.  But I chalk it up to the lingering smoke from the candle I had just snuffed, and we settle back into our television show.

The cat jumps up on the couch to snuggle up with us.  I can see she's got a funky bit on her tail, but I figure she just got in to something.  Then I notice that "burnt" smell has returned.  A few seconds go by, and something clicks.  I look at the cat's tail a little closer.

Oh. My. God.  The burning smell was coming from the cat.  That funky bit on her tail?  Charred fur.  The cat has burned her tail on the candle.  A large patch of fur on her tail was signed and/or gone.  Which explained the mysterious burning smell.  The best part?  It didn't burn enough to actually get to the flesh, so SHE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW.  She snuggled up with us, purring away, completely oblivious to the fact that she had been waving her tail too close to the candle and burnt down her tail fur.

The cat! the cat! the cat is on fire!

A Housewarming Party, by the numbers

22:  People at the party
2:    People who got lost on the way because google maps doesn't know where we live
3:    People it took to figure out our new coffeepot
5:    People who locked themselves in our bathroom due to the faulty door
2:    People who called us from inside the bathroom to come let them out
4:    Number of adult beverages spilled on the floor
4:    Number of times we were glad we chose tile instead of carpet
12:  Bottles of wine we got as housewarming gifts
1:    People who accidentally fell into the pool
8:    High dollar steaks that almost got burned (but didn't)
5:    People sleeping on our couch at the end of the night
3:    People sleeping on the floor
0:    Number of things destroyed or broken during the party

Now that is what I call a successful housewarming party.

Birds of a feather

This is a picture of our new backyard, taken last weekend.

Choose your favorite caption from the selection below, or create your own and leave it in the comments section:

“OMG, the pigeons are mutating! Look at the size of those things!”

“Thanksgiving’s come early this year… Cletus, get yer shotgun!”






Actually... the birds in question are actually neither pigeons or turkeys -- they are peafowl.



Yes, I meant peafowl:

As you may recall, we recently bought a house. Our new neighbors have about a dozen peacocks/peahens that they let roam around the neighborhood.

Which seemed really cool, at first.

Until we found out they could hop the fence into our backyard. And that they poop. A lot. And that they have very LARGE poops.

Apparently we are going to have to introduce ourselves. As in, “Hi new neighbors. Here are some cookies. By the way, your peacocks are really cool but we have a dog and, well, we can’t be held responsible if your peacocks get in to our yard and our dog attempts to eat them. Also please send someone over to clean up their poo. Thanks. Enjoy the cookies.”

We gain a house, but lose some sanity

Look at the photo below and answer the following multiple-choice question.  Does this photo represent:

A) I have finally learned how to use the “super macro” function on my camera

B) I have keys that are both purple AND sparkly

C) WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE

or

D) All of the above

Obviously, the answer is D. Which is why my blog has been suspiciously silent for the past week. If anyone has ever told you that buying a house is “fun”… watch out. THEY LIE. Oh, sure, looking at houses is fun. It’s the actual contract, negotiations, and loan part that sucks monkey butt.

Here’s what HGTV would have you think about home buying, with my personal edits.

John and Jane Doe acquire a realtor to help them search for a house.
Okay, this much is true.

After 15 minutes, 3 houses, and 2 clothing changes, they find a house they like.
What they don’t show is the 1.35 bajillion other houses the picky couple drags their hapless realtor to. But in our case, it was just one house. We saw it, we liked it, we wanted to buy it.

The couple puts in an offer on the house they like. They sit down at a pretty garden table with a scenic vista to sign their offer letter.
We quickly scribble our signature about a dozen times and our realtor says, “thanks, I’ll call you.”

The couple waits in a fancy local coffee shop for their realtor to come back with the buyer’s response.
We wait about two months for the buyer’s response. And we are not hanging out in a coffee shop.

Eventually, the offer is accepted. The couple jumps up and down and cheers and hugs each other.
We sigh in relief because we think the hard part is over. HAHA jokes on us. We still need to finalize the loan…

The couple goes straight to title.
Getting a loan is neither simple nor easy. You never see that part on the TV shows. For our loan I was on a first-name basis with half of the staff at the loan agency, bounced back and forth emails and phone calls at all hours of the day, and may have found my first gray hair.

The couple goes to the title company, sits at a large wooden table with half a dozen people, and signs a paper with a flourish.
We go to the title company, sit at a small desk in a small office and start signing all twenty thousand and one pages of the necessary paperwork. Halfway through, the title officer pokes her head in and says, “um, we have a slight hiccup…”

The couple then hand over a check, and are then presented with a set of keys and told, “Congratulations, you just bought a house!”
YOU DON’T GET THE KEYS WHEN YOU SIGN AT TITLE. THAT IS A BIG FAT LIE. You get the keys later that day, or the next day, once the sale has recorded.  So anticlimatic.

The couple instantly walks into their new house where they find a beautiful housewarming gift from their new friends at HGTV.
We walk into our new house much later in the afternoon only to find out the utility companies have been by to turn off our electricity and water. Also, oddly enough, HGTV did not leave us a housewarming gift.

But it’s done now, and we have a beautiful house!

The 2% Rule

If anyone wants to know, they do not sell alarm clocks at Macy's.  In case you are in there with a gift certificate to buy a shawl for an outfit and you don't want to stop at another store to get a clock.  You will unfortunately be forced to spend your gift certificate money on other necessary items, like shoes or a new dress, or maybe some pretty wine glasses...

A N Y W A Y.  We needed a new alarm clock because, as you may recall, the old one sounded like a turbo jet about to take off at any given moment.  So I bought us a new clock.  I shelled out the $17 after I left Macy's and found a store that does sell alarm clocks. 

THIS CLOCK IS MAGICAL.

I mean, literally, magical.  Like, you plug it in to the wall and you don't have to set the time.  It just knows.

The clock is also smarter than me.  Here is how it went down.

The Husband was already sleeping, so I had to figure out how to take the clock out of the box, plug it in to the wall and set the time and alarm and stuff in the dark.  I was marginally successful in removing the clock from the box and getting it plugged in.  Then came the tricky part.  Since I couldn't read any of the buttons in the dark, I had to keep illuminating them with my cell phone light. I searched and searched, but I could not find the button that said "time set."  I probably turned the clock over searching it for the fabled "time set" button for fifteen minutes.

This is where I failed the 2% rule.  What is the 2% Rule? you may ask.  I will tell you.

The 2% Rule states:  "In order to successfully manipulate an object, you must be at least 2% smarter than the object you're trying to manipulate."

I finally had to admit defeat.  My new clock was smarter than me.  With an audible sigh, I went to get the instructions manual.  (Yes, it's true.  I needed to read the instructions for a $17 clock.  I've had lunches more expensive than that clock.)

After flipping through the Spanish and French versions, I found the English instructions.  They read that one just needed to set the clock to the proper time zone, and that's it.

Wha?  The clock already knows what time it is?  And the clock functions within time zones?  I didn't believe it.  I went back to look at the clock.  Sure enough, it stared back in unblinking letters the exact time in Eastern Standard.  After turning the little knob to "Mountain" I was done.  I tell you, MAGICAL.

I guess it's been like almost a decade since I've truly bought an alarm clock.  Am I really that behind the times?  Is this magical time-knowing thing pretty standard these days?

Backyard FAIL

On the bright side, at least we know the new sprinkler system is working!