Sad News

I'm sitting here drinking a Diet Coke and wishing I had a cigarette to smoke in tribute to Leslie Harpold. I was shocked to read the news this morning...and honestly I kinda feel like I was the last to know about it. I should've been paying more attention.
She was a brilliant writer and all I can say is it just sucks that she's gone. I've spent an obscene amount of time online today reading every blog post about her imaginable....and articles she was known for. She seems like a very well loved and respected person who would not have wanted a bunch of people mourning her, but rather for those who are sad to look around and appreciate life and just BE HAPPY.

Cheers Leslie, you will be sorely missed.

Here are some articles from The Morning News written by her:

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/new_york_new_york/my_guys.php

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/how_to_cook_thanksgiving_dinner.php

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/how_to_write_a_thankyou_note.php

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/new_york_new_york/to_nap_perchance_to_rest.php

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/stories/posttraumatic_postcards.php

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/how_to_road_trip.php

Productive Weekend

So I got quite a bit done on the cleaning front...not as much as I'd hoped - but hey, it's better than nothing...especially since we weren't home much on Saturday, so the majority was tackled yesterday. Here we go,

Laundry Room Before:

And from the other direction:
Gross - clothes piled everywhere...on the counter, on the washer and dryer, on the floor...muddy paw prints, etc, etc...(cat's everywhere - this room is like a where's waldo of cat's)
aaaaaaand After *sigh of relief*:

(Hi Georgia!)

Okay, I gotta boast about my brilliant hubster for just a minute here. We've had issues with the pup "partaking of the almond roca buffet" that is housed in the cabinet next to the dryer shown above. We knew we needed to block it off somehow so that the dog couldn't get in there, but the cat's still could. It also needed to be easily removable so that I could clean the litter box (which happens often since we have THREE stinky buttinskies) . SO, before I know it, my hubby has busted out some snippers and grabbed our baby gate and thus created THIS:

Is my hubs just the best or what? It's friggin PERFECT - and now I'm thinking we should market something along these lines for other folks with canines who luuuuurve the poopage.

(since we have a dog with perhaps the most sensitive stomach on the planet...this was a major issue that needed immediate attention - not to mention OY HOW SHE NEEDED A BREATHMINT!)

Moving along...after marveling over my lovely laundry room and doing 7943 loads of laundry (and I'm still not done), I went to the hall bathroom...which although not too bad, looked like this:

seriously, I can't go into any room in our house without a cat - what a buncha busybodies!

and from the other direction:

Voila!

I completed the bedroom and bedroom closet (okay those pictures are going to be HAAAAAARD for me to post because it's really embarrassing how out of hand it had gotten in there) and parts of the living room as well - but I think I'll post those tomorrow to avoid a super long post.

I must say, our kitchen is STILL clean - which honestly, is probably a record for us. There are no dirty dishes in the sink, no pots on the stove, nothing piled on the dining table - I'm haaaaappy. I love, love, love having a clean house - I feel much more relaxed and not so overwhelmed. I still have the guest room and the office to tackle, both rooms that look like a bomb went off because we've just been tossing stuff in there. BUT, tonight I will be starting on the guest room. The bed in there is piled high with presents that need to be wrapped - so I think hubs and I will be tackling that while we watch a movie tonight....just having those out of there will help immensely. I have high hopes that we can accomplish those two rooms before Christmas! MAYBE..just maybe, I can start 2007 with a clean and organized home!

Till tomorrow folks,

K

Finis!

I busted my hump getting that kitchen clean yesterday. I wanted to quit several times, but then I remembered that I had posted PICTURES of that God awful mess and given myself the "goal" of completing it. That means completing...not half-assing. I realize that I am a total ADD cleaner. I could be cleaning the kitchen and then find something that belongs in the bedroom and so I go to put that away and stop to pet a cat or something and then get distracted and start cleaning the bedroom and I'll find something that belongs in the bathroom and then start cleaning the bathroom - and after a couple of hours...I've only cleaned little parts of each room. It's incredibly annoying. Usually I put in a load of wash and then set to work on cleaning something and then I forget about the laundry and I'll find it all funky in there the following day - so again, I'll run the washer and start to clean something and then forget about the wash and then it goes to day #3 of funky clothes that have been washed multiple times but sat there long enough to get funky.

Seriously, I guess I'm not a good multi-tasker. Oh, I can talk on the phone and play on the internet and pet a cat all at the same time - but if I have a project to do, I have to focus on that project until it's done.

Last night, I had to just put things in each room and tell myself that eventually I will be focusing on that room...so I didn't need to put it away or start organizing something else. It helped that I was solely focused on the kitchen.

So just for comparison's sake - here is the "before"

and now "after" (it looks different to me, but I think it's just because it's nighttime)

Before: aaaaand After:

(Georgia's tail - ha!)

I even cleaned off the top of the fridge which was NASTAY and I haven't done it since...oh....since we moved in a year and a half ago...yikes. And of course I had to organize and remove some of the stuff we had stuck to it...

*I don't want to get any comments about the laundry room in the background because that is a whole other project of itself. Maybe tonight

And last but not least...the bar area - biggest hot spot in the house...

Before:

After!

I know this whole thing is probably boring to most readers - but I'm doing this mainly for self-motivation. Selfish reasons...but hey, I think the embarrassment of showing people the before's is worth it for the after's.

This weekend I plan on attacking things room by room - gotta get caught up so I feel ready for Christmas and so I can relax and ENJOY it instead of thinking about all the crap I still need to do at home. I mean, I know I will always have stuff to do at home - but lately it's been SO BAD that I come home, look around and immediately feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start - so I don't start, I sit on the couch and block out everything around me.

It would be nice to start the New Year with a positive mindset :)

Here I go...

Okay so I am absolutely HORRIFIED to post these pictures...but I gotta do it - in the interest of honesty, it must be done. So here goes, welcome to my kitchen:

Check it out...I even left a cupboard wide open - I do that all of the time. Stuff piled everywhere, although I must say - the dining table isn't piled with nearly as much crap as usual - and neither is the butcher block table. This is from the hallway looking in - next picture?

This is from the sink looking toward the opposite wall. My trash is overflowing...my stovetop is stacked with pots and pans that need to be washed...there is stuff piled on top of the fridge...even the things ON my fridge are in complete disarray. And what is that...a DUSTBUSTER? seriously folks, I need help. Moving on:

This is from the living room looking over the bar area into the kitchen. The bar area is a MAJOR HOT SPOT. We pile mail and magazines and CRAP all over the countertop. That big orange thing is actually a retro water pitcher - but it's empty, it's always been empty since the day we bought it - isn't that horrible? That's it, I'm going right now to fill up a big water jug so I can fill it with bottled water.

Okay - now that I'm fully shamed and embarrassed (and this isn't even the worst room in the house) I'm going to be working on this kitchen tonight...and tomorrow I will post pictures of my accomplishments.

Oh, and one last thing - for T - I FINALLY did the puzzle you gave me for my birthday...wooo! Here's proof:

Disorderly Conduct

I have a confession to make.

I am a bad housekeeper (those of you who know me, stop laughing)

Our house is usually quite cluttered and messy most of the time. I have spurts where I am positively psycho about say..the kitchen being spotless. But then I'll cook something that uses more than 3 pans and all my spotlessness goes out the window and those dirty pans can sit on the stove for...well...a WHILE - until I get sick of the mess and finally clean it.

I'm the same way with laundry - I have a spurt where everything will absolutely HAVE TO BE WASHED and my laundry room needs to be orderly and spruced up...but then I'll go weeks without wanting to even LOOK at laundry and it'll pile up.

Needless to say, I'm quite scared of how having a child will affect my laundry situation. I have a feeling I'm gonna have to suck it up and force myself to do laundry a bit more often - otherwise our kid could be known as "diaper joe" or something equally enchanting...

We rent a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house. The set up is as follows...

Living room - our basic hang out room with the big tv and the coffee table that's usually cluttered with dirty dishes, magazines, misc. crapola

Bedroom #1 - the so-called "office" where our computer lives, all my bookshelves with my mass amount of books piled and stuffed into every orofice (note to self: take picture of bookshelves to motivate myself to clean them out and organize them). This is also where our 2nd tv lives and we have two IKEA chairs for reading, relaxing and tv watching...or more appropriately for hubster x-box playing.

Bedroom #2 - our "guest room" which is actually quite nice once it's cleaned up - but has a tendency to be our catch-all room. currently this room is housing bags and bags of Christmas presents that need to be wrapped, clean laundry that needs to be put away...and a ton of baby stuff (swing, exersaucer, car seat, etc.) that my brother and sister in law wanted to get rid of and since it's brand new I snagged it...hey, I'll use it eventually. This room also houses the "closet from hell" which means that anything we don't know what to do with gets stuffed into that closet when company comes....as evidenced here:

Literally - a WALL of stuff we didn't know what to do with...how do ya like that afghan huh? hehe. Don't judge me people.

Moving along

Bedroom #3 - our master bedroom. This room is quite tiny and contains our queen bed, two nightstands, a dog crate, a big ass dresser, and a laundry hamper...seriously that is all that will fit - it's a small room. The main problem we have in this room is clothes....dirty laundry strewn everywhere...clean clothes piled all over that need to be put away. Currently we have 3+ bags of clothes that need to go to Goodwill and are right in the doorway practically. For some unknown reason we've just been stepping OVER them for the last couple of weeks instead of getting rid of them.

Bathroom #1 - the hall bathroom....MY BATHROOM. I actually try to keep this room pretty clean because it's the one that guests use, and the dog sleeps in there during the day - it's pretty big and very white and blue and crisp looking when it's clean. I have a tendency to pile lots of crap on top of the cabinet in there though, and I let the trash pile up too high...and the cats drink out of the sink, so it's constantly sporting cat hair - ugh, perhaps it's not as clean as I THINK it is.

Bathroom #2 - attached to the master bedroom...hubter's domain. It's small, it's usually pretty dirty, but it's HIS and I DON'T CLEAN IT.

(seriously, sometimes I think the secret to a happy marriage is having seperate bathrooms because all the other places we lived had only one bathroom and it sucked)

Kitchen - okay, I consider this to be my domain...even if that's a pretty old school way of thinking. I do almost ALL the cooking, most of the dishes (although hubby helps with that more often now), and almost all the grocery shopping. Our kitchen is a very nice size (especially compared to my one-drawer kitchen before) and I love it, but for some reason I have the hardest time keeping it spruced up. The dining table is usually covered with stuff, clothes or dishes, or whatever...the cat bowls are strewn around, it's my biggest problem area.

Laundry Room - another problem area because it's usually piled with either clean or dirty laundry. This is also the room that houses the cat box, pet food, cleaning items. Sometimes there is literally a PATH going from the kitchen to the back door.

SOOOOOOOOO - my reason for explaining all this is that I've decided I need to motivate myself to CLEAN UP already. I think alot of what I think is stress around the holidays is from the fact that my house is a mess. If I just got a bit organized I think I would feel much better. Right now, it's kind of overwhelming. My plan is to take pictures...no matter how embarrassing it might be...of the room "before". Then I'm gonna bust my butt to clean and organize it, and then I will take an "after" picture.

This will include closets - although I think I'll have to focus on those seperately because they are a MESS, as seen in the above picture. That picture was taken back in August by the way, and seriously? hasn't changed much and it's now December. How pathetic huh?

When we have company coming over - hubs and I magically manage to make our house quite presentable. Course this includes cramming stuff into drawers and cabinets and closets and running around like mad squirrels cleaning everything in sight...and it sucks and I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want my house perfect - but it would be nice if I didn't feel embarrassed when people just "dropped by" you know what I mean?

So yes, come with me down my road of self improvement...and laugh and gasp in shock and horror as you witness the mess that two people can make in an 1150 square foot house. I think you'll be surprised and shocked and you might think I'm a bit white trashy after all this is over. HA! oh well..it's all in the name of keeping myself accountable anyway - and possibly destressing my holidays a bit.

Long time, no write

How bogus am I? I've been reprimanded by friends and family for not updating this thing...and it's been in the back of my mind to do so, but for some reason I just kept putting it off, and since this year is going by at lightening fast speed - before I knew it, here we are in December. How can it be flippin DECEMBER!?!?!?!

Okay, so let's see, my last post was at the beginning of August - yikes. Well let's see - we went camping twice in August...Miss Georgia's first camping trips! She of course loved it, we set up her crate in the tent and the first night she kinda flipped about every little noise that she heard outside...which can be alot of noise when you are camping outside. Oh yes, and especially when racoons raid your campsite. The first night, I left a bowl of her dry food out and they munch, munch, munched their way to the bottom of the bowl - and then decided to ransack the basket that I had a big ziplock of her food in. The second night, hubster had made a chocolate cake with vanilla icing (yes, thanks to T - we have a camping OVEN in which biscuits and chocolate cake were produced) - but we stupid people covered the cake with foil and left it on the table...which is why we woke up to this:

Can you believe those little bastards scraped of all the vanilla frosting??? SUCK!

Here's Georgia during the day (remember this was like 5 months ago)

and here she is at night...hehehehe

Oh, my poor baby - I know some people would be all "gimme a break, she's a DOG" - but seriously? she was shivering. And after about 10 minutes, we put her in the tent and let her snuggle on our air mattress under all our blankets until we went to bed a couple of hours later. That second night we let her stay on the bed with us instead of going into her crate and she slept like a BABY. I thought she would be squirming around, but she was so cozy she snoozed all night long.

Let's see, not much happened in September - except I turned 29. yikes. How did that happen so fast? This means that next year I will be 30. 3-0...what the hell?

October and November are kind of a blur...there was candy and kids in costumes and turkey and then it was over.

Blogger is acting up and won't post any more pictures...so before I start pounding my keyboard in anger I'm gonna just post this and call it a day. More later! I promise! I won't forsake you my lovely readers! (if I even have any readers anymore now that I ditched my blog for so long...rude I know)

Making her point clear

Don't you hate it when your dog doesn't approve of the brand of toilet paper you purchase?

Something different and a hubster story

A couple of days ago, hubster and I noticed that Georgia looked different. She would look up at us from whatever toy she was chewing on, and she just looked DIFFERENT somehow. We finally figured out what it is, and took a bunch of pictures...does anybody notice a difference??

*****

In other news, I've got a typical story involving hubster and my mom. Now, those two are hilarious - constantly ribbing each other and joking with each other. They talk on the phone constantly and hubster has no problem having long conversations with my mom. I love that.

So a few weeks ago, my entire family got invited to a wedding in Half Moon Bay. My parents and brother's family left on Friday - and hubster and I left on Saturday. So on Friday night, we went up to my parents house to feed their animals. I was toodling around feeding their dog, when I hear hubster say "mmmm! Cookies!". He found a ziplock bag of cookies that my mom had made sitting on the counter. He of course grabbed one and bit into it, only to discover that they were hard as a rock. He goes "what the.....what did she DO to these cookies?" - I just laughed and went about my business.

When I came back into the kitchen, I saw hubs standing there with an armful of bags full of cookies...and with a mischievous grin on his face he said "I found her stash!"

"you can't take all her cookies!" I said

"nobody's going to eat these things, they're hard as a rock...I'm takin em!" he responded

"hubs, they're not yours - you can't take them"

"oooooh no, I'm taking them...and I will be offering your mom a cookie at the wedding tomorrow"

I just laughed because this is the kind of thing that they DO...and shrugged figuring if he got in trouble, it was on HIS shoulders.

Fast forward to the following day - we're all dressed up and at the wedding...my mom is holding my 1 year old neice Gracie, and we're all standing around waiting for someone to tell us what to do (it was an outdoor, very mother earthy type of wedding) - and hubster sidles up to my mom, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cookie...puts it in front of her face and says "wanna cookie?"
My mom just glances at it and goes "no thanks" (which is funny because she didn't even bat an eyelash that my husband had brought his own cookies to a wedding...hahaha)

Hubs goes "no...ummm...WANT A COOKIE?" and proceeded to make her look at the cookie a little closer...

She started laughing and said "HEY! you stole my cookies!"

She then told us how she had some of that already-made cookie dough, so she threw some cookies in the oven, but then overcooked them, and didn't want to throw them away (because mom doesn't throw ANYTHING away) so she crammed them in several bags and figured she'd deal with them when they came back home.

Gracie saw the cookie in hubster's hand and proceeded to screech until he gave it to her - which was funny because throughout the ceremony when she was done gumming down one peice of cookie, hubster would have to quickly pass down more peices to prevent her from screeching in the middle of the wedding...hee! They may have been hard as a rock, but Gracie didn't care!

My sister in law leaned over and whispered in my ear "I think your mom is the only one I know who could screw up ready-made cookies"

BWA!!!

Later on, after the ceremony, I was chasing after my neices when I glanced over and noticed that there was a big...um...circle...around hubster's "nippular area". I walked up to him and said "uh, hey...you leaking or something?"

and he looked down and laughed and said "NO! it's from the cookie!!! hahaha"

The oil from the cookie had permeated his shirt and now he had what looked like a big wet circle on the front of his shirt. My mom said it was Karma...I said no, it's just hubster.

Later on during the reception, hubs was being a major smart ass about something and my dad and brother threatened to throw him in the pool...and weigh him down with rocks...my sister in law raised her hand and said "um, we could always use your mom's cookies!"

Damn, she's good....HAHAHAHA

Fast forward again to the next day at my in-law's house. My entire family was coming over for a quick visit before we all headed for home...and hubster's parents had set out some munchies on the table. Hubster proceeded to get the stash of cookies from the car and place them all in a big bowl on the table. So what did mom see when she walked into their house? A big ass bowl of her burnt cookies...HAHAHAHAHA!

She laughed and turned red and said "I'm so embarrassed! I'm gonna get you!"

Payback is a bitch isn't it? I'm still waiting to see what she comes up with...mom can be pretty darn creative and SPICY when she wants to be!

By Special Request

Allright, so I really didn't want to BOMBARD my readers with too many pictures of Georgia in all her cuteness - but since SOMEONE specifically requested more cuteness, who would I be to deny her?
You might remember that on the first day that we got our sweet pup - she was a bit funky (a la puppy le pew) so we attempted to give her a bath. I say attempted because from the moment we put shampoo on her, she began squealing and screaming as if we were pulling off her toenails one by one...so of course being the suckers that we are, we stopped, and proceeded to pet her and whisper into her ear until she stopped quivering. In the meantime, we've been spritzing her with a special puppy spray that makes her smell like an odd mix of puppy funk and cherry jolly ranchers...
Recently we got her nails trimmed by a groomer because every time we would attempt it ourselves we would again be accosted by the "terror squeal" in which we AGAIN assumed that we must be hurting her...until we got to the groomer and realized that she's a BIG FAKER! And we are easily manipulated new puppy parents.
So now that we are in-the-know about her big fakeritis...we decided it was TIME FOR A BATH.
If any of you heard a mysterious howling and whining and squealing a couple of days ago - you can be assured that everything is fine, it was just our BIG GIANT FAKER pitching a holy fit because we dared to put her in the tub and scrub-a-dub-dub her stanky butt.

I was in there with her of course and hubster was taking pictures and laughing - is this not the most forlorn little face???

And of course there were MANY attempts to get out - some of which may have been prompted by the 3 cats that were hovering and snickering at her forlorness (is that even a word? who knows...)

Now some of you know that we've talked about getting a dog since practically the minute we met - and more specifically, hubster himself has always wanted a dog who is part of the family since his parents aren't really "into" the whole animal thing in general. So suffice it to say that Georgia is a MAJOR DADDY'S GIRL. The whole time she was in the tub, he would wince whenever she howled too loudly and tell me the water was too hot, or I was holding her wrong....while I just laughed because he's such a pushover for his little girl.

After we got her towel dried off - he grabbed her and gave her some love...

"Oh no, he's gonna kiss me isn't he???"

(no, the hubs does NOT wear lipstick - they just look really rosy in that bathroom light!)

"fine...I'll take it like a bitch....hmmmmphfffff"

After her bath, she was full of energy - I think all that dirt must have been weighing her down, because seriously? The water coming off of her was filthy - I felt bad for waiting so long. I'm tempted to call her pigpen from now on...I even had to bleach and scrub out the tub after her bath! Yes, it was THAT BAD.

I managed to snap a few more "quirky ear" pictures as well - I'm telling you , her ears couldn't match her personality any better - clumsy and all over the place...hee!

And look - these are the paws she'll be growing into...I have a feeling she'll be able to knock us over in one fell swoop once she's full grown (by the way, I typed that saying "one fell swoop" and it kept repeating itself in my head which prompted me to wonder where in the heck that came from. It's from Shakespeare's Macbeth...who knew??)

Later on, she passed out from all the activity of the evening - and of course I had to wake her up and bug her with my camera and that darn flash in her face ONCE AGAIN...

HEH...

That's about all the cuteness I could muster up for today -hope it tides you all over until next week :)

Oh, and just a heads up?

HAPPINESS IS:

ADJUSTABLE DUAL SHOWERHEADS - you all must go by one RIGHT NOW...

I said NOW!

Our Zoo

Georgia's ears are doing a funny thing lately...one sticks up and one folds over. We've been told that at her age, they'll probably stay like that unless we train them otherwise.

Isn't that hilarious??

I guess some people either tape popsicle sticks to dogs ears until they stand up straight....or you can wrap them for a few weeks so they fold over. We didn't like the thought of doing that to her ears, just seemed kinda mean to be so concerned about her looks....so we decided to just let her be herself....quirky ears for a quirky dog! We think it matches her personality and gives her character...very clumsy and one-of-a-kind :)

We took her to hubster's parents house last weekend because we had a wedding to go to, and things went VERY well considering they are not especially animal people. They had it in their head that she was going to rip up their couches and pee all over the place...so I think they were really surprised that she didn't have any accidents, and didn't chew on anything she wasn't supposed to...hubs and I were all puffed up like proud parents over that one. His neices came over to meet her and stayed the entire time we were at the wedding. When we came home we were informed that she was "plumb wore out" by those girls...and when we walked into our bedroom, this is what we saw...

She pretty much slept the entire rest of the night...ha!

****

I finally snapped a decent picture of our Jackson kitty - he always looks like he's wearing eyeliner to me...sometimes we call him "The Sphinx"

and here's my Tweaker (who is almost 20 pounds thankyouverymuch)

"Get that camera out of my face woman, before I bite you"

Every afternoon when I get home...and come to think of it, every time I go into the kitchen...I find My Tiny in one distinct spot in the house:

On the butcher block table next to the stove....right next to....

The "Tub O' Treats" - OF COURSE.

He starts meowing and rubbing against it...and looking at me all wistful as if I've STARVED him all day long...

The little scavenger is hard at work...hahaa

Jackson is our screamer....he screams when he hears hub's car in the driveway...he screams when we're sitting at the computer...he screams when we're climbing into bed...he screams if any other cat gets attention...he screams when T comes over....screams, screams, screams...

And finally - my tomatoes have basically doubled since we went out of town...

and I have about 5 that are red and ready to be picked! YUM!