Thursday, July 23, 2009

Random

Mister put the stool back together last night.

Now after all that work, it only runs once every thirty minutes instead of every three minutes. It just makes me crazy to think about all that water we are wasting. Don't you just love the pearlized seat and lid? Lovely, right? Better than the black seat on the basement stool.

Check out this crazy bug I saw last night.

I got all excited thinking I had just discovered some new, fab species of grasshopper/leaf-bug thingie. I ran to get my camera, telling Mr. "Oooh, I just found the coolest bug ever!". I get back over to him and show him the pics and he's all "Oh, that's a Katydid". Grrr... He knows everything. But don't tell him that. He thinks he's an idiot. No idea how he can possibly think that after all the money he has saved us by fixing everything in existence these past few weeks, but whatever...
Ooh, ooh! I order a new pepper mill from Oxo, cause mine is one of those crappy acrylic monsters that spews salt and pepper everywhere. I am in love! It is officially the coolest thing I own! Is it sad that I think my pepper mill is the coolest thing I own? Anywho... Check it out!

It has five different grind settings! Fancy-schmancy! It's bigger than I thought it would be, but I guess that makes it easier to hold and turn. It grinds so smooth, I can put tons of pepper on everything and my wrist doesn't hurt. It's fab!

Silly

A guy in my office sent this out. I thought it was pretty funny. It is supposed to have a little old lady waving her arm around in between each question, but I couldn't get her to follow me here.

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If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea....
does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?
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Why do croutons come in airtight packages?
Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?
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If people from Poland are called Poles,
then why aren't people from Holland called Holes?
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If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the others here for?
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What hair color do they put on the driver's
licenses of bald men?
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.When you put the two words 'The' and
'IRS' together, it spells......................
'THEIRS'?
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Lunch

I was out for lunch today and stopped at a resale shop I had never been to. On Gravois near Sappington for any of you St. Louisans. The Exchange. Not a bad name, but they have been there since January and they don't have a sign up that is big enough to see from the road. I didn't even know it was there until Monday. The lady said it was a consignment/estate sales store. It seemed expensive. And not very well merchandised. The vignettes didn't flow and there were too many small clusters. All-in-all not worth a visit. I did however find a book. It was too expensive($5), but I bought it anyway. I couldn't resist.



It was printed in 1971. It is awesome. Check out these living rooms.


Lime green walls and matching drapes! A wood stove, rock walls, orange drapes, and a floor sconce!
But these don't hold a candle (hehe) to this couch!



I kinda want it... Sad, right?
Are you in the market for some wallpaper?

Here's a great before and after for you (I know you love them):
I definitely prefer the before, no?
More vintage disasters to come!
Hm. Where to begin. So, we have only owned our house since the 2nd. We have only been staying there since, um, maybe the 10th? In 20 days of ownership we have had:

1.) Two attempted, but inevitably cancelled, large item moving days.

2.) I forgot to have our water turned on over a holiday weekend, so we were without water for 6 days (luckily still sleeping at other house).

3.) I made 7 phone calls to AT & T about my internet service, none of which were fruitful, because; neither of our cell phones works reliably inside the house (I had to lean up against the window with them on speakerphone, which is tons of fun when you are talking to another country!) and the calls were inevitably all dropped. I finally talked to a girl from my work phone during the day and she was all "Sure, you can take care of all your registration from your work computer! No problem, do this!" And I was all "Grrrrr... How come none of you fuckers told me that during the last 6 calls! Arg!"

4.) The sink in the kitchen clogged up. After 12 hours, a half-day vacation, a borrowed power washer, a borrowed cutter(an orange hosey-thing to attach to the power washer), and 12,000 gallons of black, rusty, 60-year-old cast-iron pipe and food goop (yum!), Mister finally located the culprit. 60 years worth of S.O.S. pad build-up. I don't say it enough, but I love my fiance!

5.)The toilet in the master bath would not stop running every three minutes, no matter what we tried, so Mr. took it apart.


It has looked like this for 5 days now, because it is so old you cannot buy parts for it. Good thing my man is a jimmy-rigging expert! It has taken five trips to the hardware store, but he thinks today's purchase will fix the problem. (Fingers crossed.) Oh, and we can't just buy a new toilet, because the style equivalent is only available through Kohler and is $800.00. See that beautiful art deco tank? Apparently our old house is trendy!

6.) So while that toilet was out of commission we started using the other main floor bathroom, which is a half with wood floors and lovely plastic mint green swirly tile. Yay! Somehow in using this toilet, we upset the house and the floor in the basement began to leak under said bathroom. I went home at lunch yesterday because I left a window open and it was supposed to storm. I walk in to find the dog has broken free from her room and has eaten more boxes! And Mister's gum! So, I had to clean all that up and when I went to put her back in the room, I noticed a steady drip from the ceiling. I called Mr. and when he got home he went to work on yet another problem. This is what he found under the press board tiles.


Concrete!! And not like "Oh, our house was a slab and they decided to put a basement in" concrete. See those red things? Those are ceiling girders or whatever they call them. Why in the hell would you concrete in the ceiling? WHY??? Now I cannot have another phone jack upstairs. I cannot have grounded electric sockets. I cannot have plumbing that works!!!! Grrrrr again. So now he is going to have to rip out the lovely, plastic tile and go in from the wall of the bathroom. Oh well, gives me an excuse to rip it all out! One bleak ray of sunshine...

7.) We have to do our business in the basement bathroom which looks like this:


Yes, that is a urinal. In my house. This bathroom also has a walk-in shower. With a duck shower curtain. Not like cute little yellow rubber duckies(which my apt. bathroom was totally decked out in like 5 years ago, embarrassing? You decide.), but mallards, wood ducks, and something else. They are labeled. Learn while you pee!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Junk-y Goodness...

Check out all the fun antique crap we inherited along with the house, a "cabin", and four acres....







This cabin was supposedly the first residence on this property. It had been in the family for four generations. It's a bit sad that out of four kids, no one wanted to keep such a unique home.

This is just the stuff outside, in the woods. It doesn't include all the loveliness that was hiding in here:



This toolshed was jam-packed with rusty, rotting, and otherwise useless "treasures". Isn't it amazing how people can work up the energy to take all their good stuff with them, but cannot be bothered to clean up after themselves? I suppose we could have written junk clean-out into the contract, but Mr. was convinced he would find some great shining gem in the piles of decaying debris. Nope.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Flowers

I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work and I picked up a bouquet for literally the first time ever. I was inspired by the beautiful flowers Kim at NewlyWoodwards is growing with her super green thumb!I wanted to brighten up my yucky, in-progress house. Well she was definitely right in saying it is much easier to put just a couple flowers in each vase than to arrange an entire tableau. Here is my first attempt at flower arranging:



Pretty sad, no? Makes me wish I had the rest of my vases to spread them out a bit more. Martha Stewart I am not...

Slacker

The title of this post describes me to a T. (Why do people say that? Why not "to an X"? I am sure there is an explanation. If you know it, please, do tell!) We have had our house since the 2nd of July and all I have managed to do is pick the paint for the ceilings/radiators, the living room, and for the dining room. Pick them, not start painting them. That would involve actual work and there is always an excuse to put off actual work. Last Saturday my excuse involved driving to my parents house to pick up the drop cloths, the Wagner power painter (for aforementioned radiators), and to let the dog get some energy out, then going to Lowe's for ferns and Home Depot for paint. I still have not used the dropcloths or the Wagner. Or the paint. The ferns are hung on my front porch, though! Yay for the little things. So, my goal for this weekend is to paint the hallway connecting the dining and living rooms and to paint the ceiling in the dining room. Any more than that and I will feel overwhelmed. But hopefully I will be productive and get more done than that.