You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care....
I hope that you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday season!
It’s been two years since we’ve put up a Christmas tree in our house. In 2006, we were too busy with me graduating and the Engineer putting down new floors in the living room. Plus, we didn’t spend Christmas at home, but were with our parents in Middle/West Tennessee. The same applied for 2007 except the floors and graduating part.
Since my parents have opted to come see us in Knoxville this year, I knew we had to put up the tree.
I’m happy with our tree this year. It’s kinda sparse on ornaments (I didn’t want to overdo and I didn’t want to put any ornaments at the bottom where the cats could eat them) but is really lovely at night with it’s clean white lights.
My biggest concern though was the cats. Sophie had only been with us for one Christmas where we had a tree but Buster had never even seen a Christmas tree. I knew that our poor, artificial tree was in for it.
To Buster’s credit, he waited three whole days before scaling the tree. Kudos to him!
Investigating... "Hey.. this looks like a great place to climb"
"I'm just going to get a little closer"
"We have lift off"
"Hey... this tree is pretty sturdy!"
"And now.. for a little snack.."
Thankfully, our tree is very sturdy and while it swayed a bit, it didn’t even look like was going to fall over. And EVERY.SINGLE.ORNAMENT stayed in place.
Tree 1, Cat 0
My husband. God love him….
You see.. he’s a very minimalistic person. He’s a “no junk lying around the house, pick up your shoes, stop stacking mail, put it away and behind closed doors so I don’t have to look at it and it doesn’t collect dust” kinda guy (and then he bitches that our house doesn’t look like a model home with art and fake plants and everything.. and I’m all like “this is bull shit… if our mantel looked like that you’d tell me it was all cluttered and to clean it off” and he’s all “pshhhhhahhhhh” because he knows I’m right).
Anyway… where was I? Oh yeah…
Kitty Condos! (Nice transition right??)
We got our first cat, Sophie, by accident in October 2005. She just wandered up from the woods behind our house and began to socialize with the Engineer while he was mowing the yard. He, being born and bread a cat person, fell head over heels. Me? I wanted a dog (mostly because I had cats growing up and I have NEVER had a dog). Having a soft spot for animals, I wasn’t going to leave her to be eaten by some wild animal, so I told the Engineer that if she was around the following day, we’d keep her in the garage until her owners were found. Well 30 “Found Cat” flyer’s and 3 years later, we still have her. We named her Sophie because at the time we were addicted to the HBO show Carnival and her eyes got all black and crazy just like the shows Sophie character. It didn’t take long to realize she was a “man”-loving cat. She loves the guys, and while she tolerates me, I am NOT her favorite person. After a year of her snotty behavior, I decided to teach her that she wasn’t the only cat in the world and that it was time for a sibling. I was getting my own damn cat (this really could be where it all went wrong. I should have just gotten a dog).
Sophia Lousie Cattington
She couldn't decide what color to be.. so she chose them all!
Enter Buster. I picked him up in September 2006 at one of the animal shelters in Knoxville. Well.. correction: He picked me out. I went in wanting an orange kitten (neither the Engineer or I had ever had an orange kitty) and several had been listed on the shelters website. As I looked at the website lethargic kittens in search of that perfect orange one, I felt a tug at my pant leg. There.. attached to my shin, were the cutest orange paws that you’ve ever seen. I squatted to see what was inside and was meet with a very loud, assertive (another sign this was going to be a wild ride) mew from the smallest marble orange tabby kitten I have ever seen. I was sold. I called the Engineer and demanded that he drive over to see this kitten. I wasn’t letting him out of my sight until he got there. While at first the Engineer wasn’t so sure… Buster climbed his pant leg, then his sweater, and then headbutted him. The Engineer took one look at me, and at this tiny 2.2lb kitten, and sighed. We took him home two days later. We named him Phil after our beloved Volunteer Football coach, but it became painfully clear he was NOT a Phil. He was a Buster. And he’s always in EVERYTHING.
Phillip Buster T. Catsworth
Ahhh...
When the Engineer and I consolidated our households back in October 2004 (yes… we lived in sin for a LONG time before we got married… bla bla bla.. get over it) we had two sets of living room furniture, but only one living room. Being the doting, ever loving, girlfriend I was at the time I was tricked graciously sold my living room furniture. That meant we were stuck with blessed to keep the 1970’s orange shag couch that has been in DH’s family since.. well.. the 1970’s.
After 38 years (and likely a dozen moves) the couch has lived with numerous animals (cats and dogs). And in those 38ish years, the couch has put up a good fight against said animals. That was.. until it meet our cats.
So when I blogged recently of getting new living room furniture and the purchase of a new couch.. it wasn’t because we felt like being frivolous during these economic times. It was because we NEEDED a new couch… badly. Our cats have literally torn the stuffing out of this couch. It’s quite embarrassing. They’ve torn the back, the stuffing and piping is sticking out. At any given time there are couch bunnies that float across our living room floor. You don’t sit on the couch because you’ll have tufts of couch attached to you when you get up. OMFG… You can see the FRAMING.. that’s how bad it is.
It’s not like we encourage this behaviour. We yell, we throw things (soft things) at them, we chase/scare them while in the act, we squirt them with water. We’ve tried it all (beside declawing..which I don’t believe in, SoftPaws..which I can’t seem to find, and/or that tape crap you put on the corners… which.. knowing my cats.. won’t do shit) but they still claw. Since I didn’t want this behavior to continue and I didn’t want to kill our cats or have them declawed.. I’ve begged (BEGGED PEOPLE…BEGGED!!!) the Engineer (for the last three years) to let me buy a Kitty Condo (see.. I’m getting to it).
This was what I had in mind
From here
It’s small… no more than 2 feet tall, and adorable. But my Husband huffed and puffed (and whined.. OMG did he whine) and said it was WAY TO BIG. And he said that knowing our cats, they wouldn’t stop clawing the sofa, but would instead claw BOTH pieces. So.. for the last 3 years, we’ve been kitty condo-less.
However.. after the incident with the little puncture marks in the new chairs and purchasing a new couch… well.. he started rethinking. My mother-in-law swears that her cats stopped clawing her furniture when she got them a condo, and really.. what did we have to lose (A new fucking sofa.. that’s what!!!).
So.. I’m all happy thinking we’re going to be buying a kitty condo. But no… oh oh nooo…. My husband.. the minimalist.. wants to engineer his own kitty condo. He wants to be fully in control of what it looks like, how it’s made, what it’s made of and even the color. A weekend later is was done.
You guessed it my faithful bloggy readers. After 3 years of telling me that kitty condo were too big and messy, my husband built THIS!!!
The Kitty Condo that ate New York!!!
For some scope of size.. that’s our 3.5′ tall sideboard on the left and our 4′ tall DVD case on the right. So the condo is a little over 3.5′. Not exactly what I’d call small.
Of course, our cats LOVE it.
Has it stopped them from clawing the sofa? Sort of. Sometimes they get distracted and still claw a little bit, but it’s not nearly as much as they did in the past. The condo looks great, and the Engineer did a great job putting it together.
It is quite large, and for someone who wanted a large condo, I’m thrilled. I just wonder why it was ok for the husband to build a ginormous kitty condo but it wasn’t ok to buy one?
Counting.
I mean.. what… we all learned to count when? By age 1 or 2 (maybe you were 3 or 4.. it’s ok late bloomers.. we’re not going to make fun of you) ? By the time you’re twenty-holy-cow-I’m-getting-old-eight, one would think that you would have the whole counting thing down pretty solid right??
Soooooo…..last night, as I’m stuffing our Christmas cards into the plain white envelopes that came with them, I was attempting to keep a running total in my head. I had ordered 100 and I knew we didn’t use them all. At the end of the night (a la around midnight) I had counted 88 cards in total.
Fast forward to my lunch break today. It’s been raining here for the last 80 years two weeks and while I love a good cloudy rainy day… quite frankly, I’m sick of it. SNOW ALREADY!!! I forgot my umbrella (as usual) so I was planning my escape lunch break around the strength of the rain fall. At around 12:35, the rain had let up enough, so I made a mad dash for the car and I was off to the post office. I should have guessed this wasn’t going to be easy when the first thing I’m greeted with is a line 10 people long and a GINORMOUS sign that says, “WE ARE OUT OF CHRISTMAS STAMPS”.
WTF?? How is that possible ? Your the fucking POST OFFICE??? How are you out of Christmas stamps??
I became ever so slightly ‘huffy’.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t deterred. These cards were going in the mail TODAY, Christmas stamp or not. After waiting 25+ minutes in line, it was finally my turn. I asked for 88 stamps. I was rewarded with 80 mint green 42¢ heart stamps and 8 Disney stamps. Weeeeee
Being the supurbe customer I am, I took my cards and my stamps and headed to the lobby to put stamp to paper and drop them in the mail. Easy-Peasy right?
Psshh… Oh you do’t know me. It’s never easy.
You guessed it….
OH SWEET JESUS!! Apparently I had 89 cards to mail!!
Thankfully the line was only 2 people deep and after another 5 minute wait… I purchased my 89th stamp (this time a purple heart stamp.. Hey.. it’s what she gave me) and handed the entire batch over to be mailed.
The irony of it all (the always prepared, counting/sorting OCD, analyst, who stood in line for 25 mintues at the post office looking at nothing but the comings and goings of other people, didn’t RECOUNT the damn cards!!!) got to me and I chuckled as I took the picture with my phone. When the post office lady looked at me all funny.. all I could say was:
“Um… I write a blog”.
**Side Note**
Is it just me or is “I write a blog” the blogosphere’s equivalent of “I carried a watermelon” ?? (10 extra points if you know where that line comes from! minus 1000 if you don’t or you have to look it up)
Anyway.. the cards are in the mail. It took me every bit of my lunch hour to mail them, but that’s one thing I can cross off of my “Shit that has to get done before Christmas” list.
What’s still left to do on your list??
Today, around lunch time, I heard a commotion in the conference room next to my teeny-tiny office. Lately, since the weather has gotten cold (and they can’t eat outside), some of my colleagues have been taking their lunch break in said conference room (the room is rarely ever used, and almost never during lunch hours). Anyway… today, they finally discovered that the satellite TV still works. Over the buzz of conversation I hear the familiar tinkling of sounds that are only produced during a 30 minute session with Pat and Vanna. They were watching a very old episode of Wheel of Fortune on the Game Show Network.
As I meandered my way to the break room to get my lunch and join them, they called me over to view the antics of a particular contestant (she had some interesting body movements and her intonation of letters and words was quite comical). As the contestants took turns spinning the wheel, I found myself curiously reading the wheel to see what prizes were popular back in the 80’s.
The flashing colors and monetary amounts whirled by after each spin, and it didn’t take too long to phase out the surrounding conversations as I became mesmerized by the wheel. At one point.. the letters R.U.G spun by.
Me: speaking unusually slow ”What’s an R.U.G?”
Coworker: “Huh??”
Me: Displaying puzzled Jessica Simpson face
Coworker: “an R.U.G? It’s a RUG. You don’t know what a rug is??”
Me: Realizing that the piece of the wheel was in reference to an actual rug and NOT an abbreviation for some other prize , my puzzled face was instantly replaced with face that says “I’m a totally dumb ass”
Me: ” Buwwwhahahahahahahahahahah”
The combination of our hysterical laughter clued our other coworkers into the fact that they had missed something golden.
Oh yes folks… I really do have an MBA!
In my defense though…… when was the last time you can remember a RUG being a valid game show prize??
** Oh I wish I could say that this was the first time my brain and mouth haven’t been in-sync, but it isn’t. I’ll share more of these lovely jewels with you as I remember them. Because you know what they say … “If you can’t laugh at yourself…who can you laugh at?” **
Things that haven’t gotten done (and I’m running out of time)
- My Christmas tree is up.. but isn’t decorated
- My house needs to be cleaned before my parents arrive for the holidays
- I have two packages to ship to California this year….
- They haven’t been shipped because I’m (a) waiting on one last gift and (b) haven’t wrapped a damn thing
- My functional resume needs a serious makeover… and I’d like to have that ready to go before the meager job market picks back up again (post holiday season)
- I still have shopping to do (1 gift for Dad and 1 gift for the Engineer..)
- I have laundry that’s been sitting… CLEAN.. in a laundry basket for almost 2 weeks now
- My Christmas card isn’t even addressed, let alone stuffed, stamped, and/or mailed.
- None (repeat: NONE) of my holiday baking has even remotely been started.
And OMG.. if one more holiday shopper gets all feisty with me… I’m going to lose.my.shit.
I love Christmas… the meaning behind the season.. spending time with family and friends… but Man.Oh.Man I hate holiday shoppers. They’re rude, hateful, and overall .. just stupid. They all think they are above the rules of general politeness. No one wants to wait in line, no one has patiences, and they all forget how to DRIVE.
OK.. enough bloggity blogging. I’m off to … address some Christmas cards (or decorate a tree… )
I’ll probably be posting later today.. but until then…
I long for the warm weather again.
Pellissippi Hot Air Balloon Festival - 2008
So in the last post I made two comments.
The first comment was about showing you pictures of the HUGE new chairs.
**I’m showing you guys these on the contingency that you say NOTHING about my cluttered, horribly messy living room. **
So.. that’s the corner that the section will fit into. The chairs and the table (which match… miraculously.. since we bought them at different times) take up the WHOLE corner of the room, which is about 7′ x 10′.
Please ignore the mess. But see.. they take up like 1/3 of the living room. (That hideous orange thing in the right corner.. is our current couch. Think shag version of the couch from the opening scene of The Simpsons). Also.. the red/white blob on the couch? One of the many “cat friendly” towels laying around the house.
And for good measure… a close up shot. See nosy cat in lower left corner. IGNORE box of Lemon Heads on end table.
**********
The second comment was about how my mother has growing concerns about how her future grandchildren will be raised based on the way we currently ‘disciplined’ our cats (and by disciplined I mean.. do nothing..). Oh my.. does my cat have the best timing ever. It’s almost like he has a sixth sense..
Buster: “Mom is talking about how freakin awesome I am on her blog and therefore… I should provide living proof of my awesomeness”.
This is what I came home to today.
Me: <thinking> What the hell is that? Oh… well.. I guess that would be tissue paper.. but what’s it doing on the kitchen/dinning room floor?
Buster: ” What tissue paper? Oh.. THAT tissue paper… well.. you see Mom… it was violating a specific tissue paper tarriff while trying to cross the boarder and well… I use the necessary force to detain it.”
Me: “Damn it Cat! That’s the tissue paper I was suppose to wrap Grandma’s Christmas gift with!!! And could you have not gotten it everywhere???”
Buster: “Grandma-Schmandma… how can you fault me? I was keeping the peace at the homestead while YOU left us alone all day… humm?? What have you to say about that??”
Me: “Get off the table…. Please??”
(end scene)
And where was the other cat during this escapade?
Hanging out in the office.. in my office chair (which she’s not suppose to be on unless there’s a towel covering it).
Sophie: “I saw nothing.. besides… he’s not MY responsibility. Can I have some freeze-dried salmon now? “
**********
Lord help us when The Engineer and I have kids….
Image from here
It’s the Elway Home Elite Motion Sectional by Bassett. We didn’t order ours in leather, because the day we went to look at the sectional (AKA: the day we bought the sectional), we noticed that Sophie one of the cats had decided to claw at the bottom of MY new chair. She Said cat left little puncture marks on the foot rest and it was at that point we saw the proverbial ‘writing on the wall’. We knew we couldn’t go with fabric since the cats have already destroyed one fabric sofa.. but we didn’t want little puncture marks all over a new leather sofa (because this would result in the beating of the kitties and then the ASPCA would have to get involved and they don’t understand that it’s ok to beat your cats when they attempt to shred your yummy new leather sofa. Really people…. it all gets ugly from there).
(ZOMG…I would never beat my cats. They are our furry children and I’m pretty sure that everyone who comes to our house sees that the cats are OVERLY loved with treats and toys and a million places to perch. Stupid cats and their stupid ruling over my house…. THEY ARE LOVED DAMN IT!).
**Side note time**
My mother.. bless her. She lectures me often about how we need to better discipline our cats. It is true, our cats are very misbehaved (jumping on tables and counters and getting into mischief) and we’re pretty lenient with them. However, I know she does this because she’s terrified about how we’re going to raise children. Mom: Cats ≠ Children.
So, even though my oldest sister told me not to, because our big asses would wear out the fabric (In fairness, I think she said something more like “you’re bigger people”. The ‘asses’ part was my addition), we ordered the sectional in a light brown “latte” micro-suade. We also didn’t order one of the middle pieces (looking at the picture.. the second seat from the right is the piece we omitted) in order for it to fit PERFECTLY in the living room.
Buying matching, good-quality, living room furniture after the wedding had been a big goal of ours and with the economy being the way it is.. we figured this would be an excellent Christmas present. The only thing left to get is a new coffee table and matching end tables. We’ll wait until the sectional comes in before we do that, so that we get a better sense of scale (a lesson learned from the new large chairs in the small living room… hahahaha… I promise.. pictures later this week).
So there you have it. The Engineer’s Christmas gift to me, and vice versa, was new living room furniture (and of course.. as mentioned before, a new roof on the house. But I don’t think the roof counts… le sigh).
We bought our house 3.5 years ago, we got married 7 months ago, and in 5 short weeks.. it will no longer look like we live in a frat house. How exciting is that!?!?!?!
So….
You guys remember not too long ago when I mentioned in a post that the Husband and I had fallen in love with a said $2300 chair? (which turned out to be a smokin price for that particular chair. Who knew it really was on sale? And a great sale at that?? )
Image from here
Anyhoo.. so being the slightly broke wise, young professionals that the Hubs and I are, we (read: I) decided to try to find a nice ‘knock off’ chair. Now before you all lurch at me with pitchforks and torches.. know something. I rarely, if ever, buy “knock off” items. I’m usually under the philosophy that if you like the original, you save to buy the original. It’s part of what makes that purchase ’special’. (**Sidenote: did that last sentence make me sound as materialistic as I felt when I wrote it?) All that said, I am NOT above purchasing knock off furniture.
The Engineer and I had a tough time looking for a china cabinets last January. We couldn’t agree on anything we found in the stores and none of them even RESEMBLED a style we liked. When I found one that I loved.. it turned out to be a turn of the century antique that sold for over $15K at a fancy-pancy auction house in New Hampshire. Thankfully, after an hour of Googling.. the hubby found a spot-on perfect knock off for way less than the auction price. My rational with the chairs was that we’d (again.. read: I’d) find a similar chair for cheap a more affordable price. I figured.. if we LOVED them, then one day when we are old and moldy.. we’d buy the nice ones.
After many a heated discussions (ME: HUBS.. just because we want to buy a knock off doesn’t mean we have to buy a No-name chair. Seriously…. ) I found this beauty:
Image found here
If I didn’t know any better… I’d say chair #2 is a not-so-distant relative of chair #1. Sure Chair #2 looks a little more stuffed, has a few more slats in the arms, and has a more rounded cushion look.. but come on… you can’t tell me they don’t look alike!!!
So… chair # 2 is the Barcalounger ‘Artisan’ chair. I know right…. a BARCALOUNGER!!! What a riot! It just so happened that one of the furniture stores in town had them on super clearance (pennies in comparison)! SQUEEEEEE!! So last Sunday, we headed out to the west side of town to give them a test ’sit’. While they don’t sit as marshmallow-y as the expensive chairs.. they do sit in a dream-like -squishy manner. Good enough for me. We bought two of them and they were delivered on Friday.
And all I’m saying is….. Man.. they looked so small in the store!
(Picture of chairs in ACTUAL home.. coming soon!)
