I Can Haz Kitteh?

So here's how it went down. Wednesday evening when we met Millie, I was a bit concerned. She was so unbelieveably calm and ... tolerant. She let us pet her & scratch her neck & at one point she even flopped over & let me pet her tummy. However, I was afraid that Millie didn't like us. I feared that she was just being polite or something. Crazy, I know. But honestly, I felt more like I was meeting a potential roommate than my future fur baby.

I voiced my concerns to Tim. He tactfully told me to get over myself. "We're getting the cat, okay? No excuses." Thank goodness my husband is as patient and loving as my adorable new cat.

Friday night Annie and Tony (the foster people) brought Millie over to our house. I was worried that Millie would hide or be distant. I figured that at the very least she would choose to sleep in her cat bed rather than with us. But I was wrong. She happily ate the food we provided and purred at our every touch. When we went to our room to sleep, she jumped up on our bed, where she curled up & drifted to sleep at our feet.

I have not stopped smiling since.

I am officially in love. I feel this urge to go out and tell everyone how splendid Millie is & post oodles of photos of her & write long posts about the cute little noises she makes & the funny way she walks or about the tiny white tip on her tail that is so cute I just want to eat it.

Dear, sweet, silly Millie. Definitely the best $50 we've ever spent.

Meet Millie

Daffodils

The daffodils in our front yard are blooming. Just thought you'd like to know. :)

Because it's the view from the street ... get it?

Yesterday I got a phone call from Veronica.
V: "What color is your house?"
Me: "It's, uh, kinda a creamy yellow?"
V: "Okay ..." pause "You live on a cul-de-sac?"
Me: "Yeeaaaaah ..."
I was a tad confused at first, but then I realized that V was looking up my house on Google StreetView.

Yup, that's right, kiddos. We've hit the big time. Last summer legions of camera-bedecked cars were wandering our streets. Now the fruit of their labor is available for all to see. Our town is now on Google StreetView. And if that isn't cool enough, V & Travis' house is on StreetView, too. So V and I had fun looking up one another's homes & saying, "I can see your house! Oh my god! That's so cool!" and blahblahblah.

V and I will both warn you, though, that StreetView is seriously flawed. When you put in V's address, it drops you in front of a house on the opposite side of the street and many doors down from their actual house. Ask StreetView to show you my house & you get dumped in the middle of an intersection. But with a little guidance (via cell phone in our case), you, too, may look at poor-quality photographs of the homes of loved ones and strangers. Hooray! Ain't technology grand?

PS: I would post the StreetView pic of our house, but I can't figure out how to copy the image. Damn you, Adobe!

PPS: My friend Laura & her family move away on Thursday! How fast was that?!? I held a going-away party for her last night. Mmmmm ... mohitos ...

PPPS: We put in an application for Millie the cat. Fingers crossed.

Anti-kvetch

So ... I've been MIA for nearly 2 weeks now. Sorry about that. I've been pretty stressed out, but I'm starting to get over it. I could write a long, detailed post about my recent "kvetches". However, I've decided to focus on the positive. Won't you join me?

1. Tim and I celebrated our 3rd Elopiversay. Yes, spicecake cupcakes were consumed. Tim even bought me flowers. Aaw!

2. Tim had a birthday! And received his first ever birthday card that poked fun at his age. They should make a birthday card that says "You know you're old when you receive a birthday card that starts off with, 'You know you're old when ...'."

3. Inspired by Tim's rejuvenated interest in music, I have rented a flute! I'm playing it almost daily. I'm not as good as I was in high school, of course, but I'm holding my own pretty well.

4. Derek got a great job! And will be making more money while working for people who appear sane! Hooray!

5. Our friend John who was laid off a while back also got a great job! Too bad it's in Austin. But now he and Laura can feed their kids & that's all that counts.

6. My dear old friend, Karen, had a baby girl! Her name is Chloe Ellen & is super cute.

7. My pal, Janice, is a published author yet again. Her new book "Have You Found Her" - is out now. Run to a bookstore & buy it!

8. I think we might possibly maybe possibly adopt a cat. Maybe. The agency will only adopt their animals out to US Citizens, so keep those fingers crossed.

Painting madness: revisited

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I painted the living room and hallway? Remember how I had trouble posting the pics? I think I found a solution. It's called PictoBrowser. Check it out.



Thanks to Jessica over at "How About Orange" for the heads-up.

An axe to grind

Warning: Rock Band is a dangerous, dangerous game. Not just because you can get blisters from pushing those buttons for hours. And not just because you can strain your voice if you sing Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" too enthusiastically. Rock Band is most dangerous when it reminds your loved ones of how much they miss rockin' out with their buddies back in college.


Back In The Day, Tim owned a number of instruments, his favorite being the bass guitar. He was briefly kinda-sorta in a band. He only played in public once (at a PETA Greenpeace fundraiser back during his brief stint as a vegetarian treehugger). But public performance has never been a major source of joy for Tim. He just likes making music. Rock Band reminded him how much he missed that.

So Tim is now the proud owner of a new bass guitar. Ta da! Pretty, isn't she?


I don't think we can only blame Rock Band, though. Over the past few weeks we have been watching the first season of Flight of the Conchords on DVD. Pretty inspiring stuff. If listening to "Business Time" doesn't make you want to pick up a guitar, I don't know what will.

C? Really?

As is the case with so many people, the new year has inspired me to think about changes and improvements: Things I can do to improve my environment, my relationships, and even myself. Being the person that I am, I started to do research. In my quest towards improvement, I came across the following pamphlet.

Here is The Big Question, kids: What is this pamphlet attempting to sell? Is it ...
A: A local theater company's upcoming season
B: The latest is anti-depressant medication
C: Countertops

Yes, that's right. The answer is C. Baffling, isn't it? Take another gander at that picture and tell me what about it makes you long to spend thousands of dollars renovating your kitchen. Honestly. I find myself deeply concerned about the mental state of the marketing department at DuPont, because they have got to be seriously messed up if they think this is a successful way to market their quartz countertops.

Anyway, The point is that, yup, I'm thinking about the kitchen. I have finally decided on a color scheme. I'm going for red. Red with creamy white. My inspiration - other than my pots - is a set of coasters I found at Target last week.

My other inspiration is this little piece of art from Patricia Zapatra. It's called "Hiding". I bought it for myself as a reward for all of that painting I did a couple of weeks ago. To see more work by this artist, go to her website: ALittleHut.com

Inspiration isn't everything, though. At some point you have to do something. I decided that new countertops are just a little too expensive for us right now, but there are other things I can do. I finally got sick of looking at the old navy blue, pock-marked backsplash, so I covered it in primer. It took 4 coats, but the room looks brighter already. Also, Tim and I ordered our new over-the-range microwave to replace the one that died last summer. Thanks to the advice from a timely issue of Consumer Reports, we ordered a highly-rated model by LG. Gotta love LG. They make the best stuff. Did you know that they even make quartz countertops now? It's true! And based on my research, their marketing department seems far happier than those poor souls at DuPont.

Whoa Baby!

Lately, Wednesdays have been pretty crappy for me. And Thursdays even more so. And why? Because my *&%!$#%+* cable company does not carry Bravo. Hence, I cannot watch Project Runway.

But this week I don't care. Even Time Warner Cable cannot diminish my glee. Because this week our dear Rhiannon had her baby! Little Amelia Elanor arrived Wednesday afternoon. Hooray! Another girl in the family! Many congrats to Rhiannon, Poppa Ed, & big brother Max. I can't wait to see the new addition!

Back when Rhiannon gave birth to Max, Tim and I celebrated by raising a toast - or rather, we raised slices of toast - in his honor. Unfortunately, this time we found that we had eaten all of our bread. What should we do instead, we wondered? Tim suggested that we have a real toast with alcohol and everything. But when I saw the Bailey's and butterscotch Schaaps, it struck me that Buttery Nipples were not the appropriate way to welcome a baby girl into the world. So I'm sorry, dear Amelia, but we didn't do anything special in honor of your birth ... other than send you and your family the very warmest of wishes.

No Knead Bread

Painting the living room has got me thinking creatively. Or at least it has got my fingers twitching. I find that I want to make things and change things and improve some of the basic little details in my life. So in the last week I've started on a few little projects. Today I'll talk about my latest success: homemade bread.


As much as I adore bread and baked goods, the idea of making yeast bread has always seemed too fussy to me. Actually, anything that requires me to flour a surface and [gasp] touch the dough with my bare hands just seems wrong. I don't like having sticky dough all over my hands. Nasty. So last year when all of the food & cooking blogs started talking about No Knead Bread, I thought, "Hooray! A bread for the rest of us!"


Well ... here's the thing. At one point in this recipe, you do have to dump the dough on a floured work surface. And you do have to touch it with your bare hands. But ya know what? It wasn't so bad! It was a lot neater and easier than my previous experiences with doughs that require actual kneading and rolling.


Yes, that's right. I touched that. And it wasn't messy. The key: wet hands! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This recipe really delivers. It's easy and yummy and costs oodles less than if you'd bought it at the store. The only draw-backs:
1. You need a big pot with a heavy lid
2. You need to let the dough sit for 12 to 20 hours. Yes. Really.
The good news:
1a. You spend less than 5 minutes actually fiddling with the dough, total.
1b.You don't have to do anything to the dough during that long resting period. It just sits there on your countertop.
2. Four ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, water. I like it when I can easily pronounce the ingredients in my food.
3. Fresh baked bread smells fabulous.
4. It tastes lovely, too. Especially if you eat it warm with a bit of butter.

Want to make some for yourself? Here's a great step-by-step tutorial: SteamyKitchen's Tutorial. This person had her 4 year old son make the dough for her. It's honestly that simple.

Note to Le Creuset: You seriously need to made a rectangular pot with a lid so that people can make sandwich bread with this recipe. Please! I'll be your friend forever!

Painting madness: Living room and hallway

Every time I've spoken to my mom over the past week, she has asked me if I've put pictures of the new paint job on my blog yet. Well, Mom, this post is for you!

Unfortunately, I've been having some trouble posting pics. Until I get this straightened out, just click here to see the before & after shots.

New year, new happenings

Neil Gaiman wrote the following in his on-line journal:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Lovely, yes? What a wonderful thing to hope for. And how wonderful when you see it all start to happen to you.

This young year has been extremely busy for me, which is why it's been 10 days since I've posted.
1. I painted the downstairs hall and living room, which makes me happier than a very happy thing. Photos to come. Tim is so impressed that he told me multiple times that I am wonderful & even called me "SuperWife".
2. My friend, Laura, organized a Ladies Night for a bunch of our new female friends & acquaintances, so I got to spend many fun hours with 12 great ladies.
3. We played Rock Band for the first time at Laura's house. I'm a better singer than I knew! Or at least my pitch is pretty good. Tim had a great time playing bass and has the blisters to prove it.
4. We finally - FINALLY - had our regular little group of friends over for dinner and gaming. Kevin & Shawna even brought Hedgie with them, so Jennifer and I took turns cuddling the wee widdle hedgehog for much of the evening. Sadly, it's been many months since we've done this (Kyle had not even seen our house before last night! Shocking!), but now that most of the painting is done, we hope to have them over at least once a month.

A pretty promising start to the new year, wouldn't you say?

Finally home

Two whoooole days of driving. Again. And I survived it! Hooray! I felt a bit sick at the beginning of the trip, but I fought through it. Now it's all over and we're back in North Carolina. Maybe next year I can convince Tim to fly. If we get tickets early enough, it might even be cheaper that way, let alone faster!

Strangely enough, I'm actually glad to be back. I think this is the first time I've felt this way about returning to NC. Perhaps I feel differently because we were returning to our home - our very own lovely house. Or maybe I was just relieved to get out of that car! Either way, it's nice to be home.

We're pretty exhausted from the drive, but before I head off to bed I thought I'd post a few pics from Christmas day.

My mother decided to get me yet another wacky Christmas tree ornament. I thought we'd retired the tradition after the lobster ornament from 2 years ago, but when she saw that frog she just couldn't resist it. They look like they were made to be together, don't they?


Here's Dad minus one mustache and plus one paper crown from our Christmas Crackers.


The princess poses. And no, I can't remember why I was staring at the ceiling.


I am such a sucker. I simply had to get an ornament commemorating the purchase of our house: "First Year in the New Home - 2007".


And here is my gift from Mom: a stained glass window that she made all by herself. She was thinking of selling it, but since this is her first window I think it's nice to keep it in the family.

Dec. 26th

So I'm at the 'rents house. We left NC on Thursday afternoon and arrived on Friday night. This means I survived a 2 day car trip - a truly signifigant and amazing thing. The only thing more amazing is that I'll have to do it again next week. Oof. Trying not to think about that.

Anywoo, I don't have my laptop with me & can't upload any photos, so like the rest of the blogospere I'm going to abandon the internet for a bit and enjoy real life for a change. Hooray! Hope you all are safe and warm and enjoying your holidays!

Dining Room: After

On Saturday afternoon I made a roast chicken with potatoes for lunch. While everything was cooking, I started cleaning up the dining room with the idea that we could eat lunch in there. The chicken was ready before the room, but that's okay. The point is that by Saturday afternoon, we finally - FINALLY - had our dining room back. Here's what it looks like now. And I must say that I am in LOVE. My love for this room now surpasses my adoration of my washing machine. Didn't think that could happen, didja.

The sad truth is that, for months now, the only table we've eaten around is the coffee table. We haven't even had friends over because we had no place to put them. Well, we did feed Kevein and Shawna in the living room that one time, but it was a bit of a headache. But those days are behind us now! We wasted no time in taking advantage of our new dining room. On Sunday night, Kevin and Shawna came over for dinner, video games, and a movie (the last in the Bourne series. The four of us have been catching up on them together). Very fun & a great way to break in the new room. And they were impressed by how nicely it turned out. Yay!

The other great thing is that we now have our breakfast nook back, too. For months it has been crammed with furniture from other places, but no more! Now we have two proper tables where we can eat! Will the wonders ever cease?!?!

Painting madness: Success!

This, my friends, it what is commonly known as a vast improvement.

This is a before & after shot all in one. Above the chair rail is the original color. Below it is the new lovely green. I think the old color looks a lot better in this photo than it does in reality. Just please believe me when I say that it was foul.

And here's a bit of what the dining room looks like now!

I still have some work to do on the ceilings so I can't completely remove the rosin paper yet, but I thought I'd pull back a corner just to see how the wood looks with the green. Don't worry about the white stuff on the floor to the right; that is NOT paint! It's leftover dust from when I scraped the ceiling.


Speaking of Scooby Do, I ordered a rug off of Overstock.com. My hope is to put it in the living room. I'm a bit nervous, though, since I wasn't able to touch it first, but Laura says that she's bought tons of stuff on Overstock before & has always been happy with her purchases. Fingers crossed!

And speaking of Laura, I went to her house on Wednesday and met a bunch of REALLY wonderful ladies! A couple of them asked me if I'd be interested in having lunch with them sometime which thrilled me to bits. Two others have invited me to their home to watch Project Runway. And Laura and I decided to organize a tea party at a local tea house for sometime after the holidays. Talk about a successful evening! I'm especially thrilled because it means that I have something to look forward to after returning from Oklahoma at the end of the month. Leaving "home" & returning here can be so difficult for me, but I think me new-found friends will make it easier.

Must run. Tim's work place's holiday party is tonight & I need to make sure there's no more paint stuck in my hair.

Painting madness: Buying!

I made a decision. I bought paint! Wee!!! I was inspired by a video I watched on the TED website about the paradox of choice ( Click here to watch it ). Basically, he talks about how sometimes when we have too many options, we become paralyzed & cannot decide which choice is right for us because we're so worried about getting it wrong. If you've ever been to a home improvement store & stood in front of a wall of paint chips, you can understand why this message resonated with me. So I just said, "Screw it! I'm buying paint!" Maybe I'll start working on the dining room tonight. We'll see.

In other news, the weather madness continues. My parents & about 600,000 other people in the Tulsa area still do not have power. Dad says that most of their trees are damaged. At least George and Derek still have power ... or at least they did when I spoke to Derek last night.

On the other side of the coin, it has been extremely warm here. Yesterday's high was 81F - an all-time high for the entire month of December. And here's the forecast for the rest of the week.

It's suposed to be much cooler this weekend, so I better get all of this painting done quickly!

Painting madness: Testing

My mother called this morning to let me know that they have no electricity at their house. An ice storm hit Green Country last night & she is trapped at home with nothing to do but watch the icicles grow.

Meanwhile, it is unseasonably warm here. Check out the weather forecast for Raleigh & Durham this week.

Madness! Yesterday we went to the Durham Chorale's Christmas Concert (Jennifer was singing) and it was so warm that we didn't need jackets. Some members of the audience were wearing shorts. Granted, I'm grateful for the warm weather because it means I can get a lot of painting done this week, but it certainly doesn't feel Christmas-y.

Speaking of painting, we tested some colors this weekend. I am in love with Oklahoma Wheat! Or rather, "Safari". You see, there's a particular type of paint that I want to use (Benjamin Moore's Aura). It's very durable, washable, & has low fumes. In the Aura line, Oklahoma Wheat is known as Safari. It's the same color (the paint chips look exactly the same) so I'm just going to keep on thinking of it as Oklahoma Wheat.
Anyway!
I put some patches of it in the living room, downstairs hallway, and upstairs hallway. It looks 1000% better than the dreary beigey-lavender-grey that we currently have all over the place. It's warm and homey, while also feeling light. It's yellow, but it isn't YELLOW, if ya know what I mean. The house is going to feel so much happier & more welcoming when we're done. I can't wait!


Meanwhile in the dining room, we're tinkering with different shades of green. We've tested 3 so far & found a lighter green that Tim likes (Croquet - the color on the right in these photos), but I'm afraid it has a little too much grey in it. Honestly, I'm so sick of looking at paint that I feel an urge to just paint that room Oklahoma Wheat, too. Kevin & Shawna were over on Saturday night & we asked them what they thought. Kevin was noncommital. Shawna said shes like the old color. Clearly these people cannot be trusted.

Maybe I should look at the other side of the color wheel. A part of me thinks that a warm pink could be a great color for a dining room. Or not. Hmm.

Painting madness: inspiration

Once upon a time, I worked in a costume shop for a university. We made all of the costumes for every play, musical, dance, and opera that went up on our university's stage. It could be stressful, but we had a blast. I worked with 3 flamingly gay men, which made it all the more interesting. Just me, a drag queen, a couple Bears, and all the fancy, creative costumes you could possibly imagine. How could that not be fun, ya know?

My specialty in the costume shop was hand sewing - or as the boys loved to say "hand jobs". As in, "Hey Mary, I need you to give me a hand job [snicker]". Note that only gay men speaking to their beloved fag hags can get away with this kind of humor. Note also that this never. gets. old.

The reason why I became Queen of the Hand Jobs is because I have meticulous attention to detail. If something needs to be done just so - if you really truly care about the placement of every single stitch - I am your girl. The only drawback is that perfection takes time. Also, there are very few things in stage costuming that require fine detail work (the audience was always at least 20 feet away from our university's stage). And yet, I had this urge to make ALL of my work perfect. Therefore, I was slow. My boss, Robert, learned this sad fact about me. Whenever he gave me a job that needed to be done quickly, he would tell me to be a Speed Demon. If he saw me poking along on my machine on some silly sleeve for a supporting character, Robert would bellow, "I need you to be a Speed Demon, Mary! Speeeeeeed Demon!" & I'd wake up from my reverie of obsessive focus & pick up the pace.

Ah, if only Robert was still in my life now, for I have gotten myself wrapped up into my little perfectionistic world again & I need someone like him to come over, slap me around, and remind me to stop sweating the small stuff.

The small stuff in this case is painting. I know, I know, I picked out paint colors ages ago, right? But getting started on the painting project is scaring me. Paint costs money! Plus, this is Our House - a major investment! And if I spend all of that time preparing the walls and painting and then I don't like the results, then that could affect the value of the house! Plus it's a lot of money & time wasted. Never mind the fact that I'm already wasting a hell of a lot of time agonizing over this. At least I'm not wasting money yet, right?

My biggest hang-up in the paint department - the sticking point that is causing me the most grief - is the kitchen.



Oh, the kitchen. Why must it torture me so. There are lots of things about it that are ugly, but we aren't in a position to change out things right now (well, except for the dead microwave/hood seen in the breakfast nook in these pics. We got rid of that last week). We can paint, though. And boy does this room ever need painting. I hate the blue paint in the kitchen with a loathing that I usually reserve for Jefferson Starship and The Eagles. However, I can't settle on a new color. And seeing as the kitchen is connected to the living room, hallway and dining room, I feel that the color I paint the kitchen has a major influence on the colors I paint the other areas. So of course I can't paint anything in any room until I've nailed down a final color pallet, yes?
Bah.

Anyway. I know this is getting long, so I'm just going to post some inspirational pics. You see, I've been feeling a leaning towards happy, colorful prints for the kitchen. Madness, I know. But the stereotypical yellow kitchen is such a boring cliche & I want to avoid that. I want something a little different. So here are some inspirational pieces that have caught my eye.

First: The sheets I recently bought at Target. Cuter in person, too. If you are smart you will buy some today. Only $20!


Concert poster for everybody's favorite band that features a trumpet, Cake! I don't own this poster, but I'm thinking about getting it despite the fact that I've never been to Milwaukee.


Third, this print from The Black Apple's on-line shop on Etsy. I don't own this yet, but I fully intend to. I've bought other things from Emily before & I think she's super fab.

Lastly, my Le Creuset cookware.

Luckily for me, I do own this. I have 5 pieces of Le Creuset cookware. And I LOVE their gorgeous red color. I have enough storage that they don't need to sit out all the time, but I don't mind at all if one is sitting on the stove just 'cause.

So that's my color story. But what does this say? What should I do? Well, besides paint the kitchen cabinets white (don't go there). Decisions, decisions ...

Amazing happenings

An amazing thing happened today, children. I had telephone conversations with three people and NOT ONCE did I erupt into a coughing fit during said calls! Not one single time! This is a huge milestone, people. I have been coughing soooooooo damn much over the last month. I have avoided going out with people & calling friends on the phone because talking - simply talking! - caused me to repeatedly hack and cough and spit up phlegm. It's been nasty. But now! Now I'm actually starting to sound like a person who is NOT dying of consumption! Imagine that! I mean, I'm still coughing a bit so it's not like a Healing Fairy flew down & hit me on the head with her magic wand or anything. But seriously. The difference is amazing.

Other amazing happenings:
1. My father shaved off his mustache for the first time in 35 years. No really. I have never ever seen my father without his mustache. Color me highly intrigued.
2. My brother, Mike, is currently in Los Angeles on a photography job. This is the same guy who got laid off from his old, sucky job a couple of months ago. Now he is pursuing his dreams & traveling around the country. How cool is that?!?
3. The house next door (dubbed "Scary House" by george when she was visiting last spring) was painted over the weekend. It is now a clean, cheerful white & doesn't look the least bit scary anymore.
4. I found a video game I like. The last time I liked playing a particular video game was back in 1983 when I played the Smurfs game on our ColecoVision. This new game - the game that sucked up almost my entire weekend - is Lego Star Wars II for the XBox 360. Tim doesn't seem to like it as much as I do, which is a shame, but he's still managed to log in many an hour playing the game with me.