In which there is sun

We've had four days of perfect, brilliant sun and no clouds. Oh, and it's warm. This, my friends, is the false spring that hits the foothills every year. I will not be taken in this time!
Oh, who am I kidding? I'm taken in every time. The sun sticks around just long enough that you begin to form a fragile sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, winter is over. Maybe global warming is working for YOU.
And somehow, this never works out.
Whatever! I've bought a couple of (cold hardy!) plants, and lo! I have planted them. And, because spring fever has hit me ferociously, I have photographed them:


I need more plants.
I was going to plant some bulbs in the front yard yesterday, when I looked at this*:

I put down my shovel and declared "You have mocked me for the last time, lattice! Nay, you have mocked the neighborhood for the last time! You are done, sir!"
That nasty falling apart lattice has been bugging me ever since we moved in. So yesterday, I put on some gloves and did something about it.
Behold the results of three hours of hammering, breaking, and kicking:

So much better!

Here's hoping that some sun finds you, where ever you are. ^-^


*Photographed right after we moved in. Hence the many trashbags. Believe it or not, the lattice looked even worse yesterday.

Recycling!

Lemon Juice
Originally uploaded by absolutely small

When I was a little kid, I saw my dad's habit of hoarding bottles and cans for months as smart, and earth friendly. I was especially in it's favor when he offered to split the proceeds with me if I would help him crush the aluminum cans and take them to the recycling place with him. Ways for an 8 year old to make money tend to be limited. Stomp, stomp, stomp.
We'd hop in the truck and drive for miles in the heat to some horrifying smelling place in the middle of nowhere, loud with the sounds of hundreds of pounds of beer bottles being transferred from one container to another. After all the sorting and weighing, I'd be presented with $4.87. Wow! $4.87! I can buy SO MUCH STUFF with this! Like...candy!
My dad still hoards bottles and cans, taking them to the recyclers every so often. He stores them in 5 gallon paint buckets and trash cans. They are delightful to look at.
"Don't toss those bottles out!" He'd say whenever visiting.
"We're not throwing them out, Dad, they'll be picked up by the garbage guys to be recycled."
"Don't you want the money?"
"Uh...I don't really want to go to the recyclers."
"Well then, save them for me."
Being a good daughter, I did. I wound up with bags of recycling in my pantry after all.
When we moved into the new coop, the old lady had left behind years worth of recycling. Maybe there was something to be said about this recycling after all. Score! I thought. We'll make some money off of this house yet! I too began to hoard the bottles and cans, for months. Delightfully overflowing garbage bags adorned our back porch, until I couldn't take it anymore and took them to the recyclers.
45 minutes of feeding bottle after bottle after bottle into an automated machine while talking to the guy who worked there about his son's art education later, I had made...$8.05!
$8.05? I kept bags of garbage on my porch for months for $8.05? I made a special trip and wasted a bunch of time to shoot the breeze with a guy for $8.05? We looked like alcoholics with a hoarding problem for $8.05?
All the cans are gone now, and our porch has never looked better. We'll by all means keep recycling...but no more hoarding cans for cash, thank you.

Life in the country

Boy, it must be charming. Living in the country, and all that.
Yes. Yes it is. And also...not so much.
Here's a typical morning in the country:
You are woken up extra early by insane barking dogs in the house. What's the commotion? You run to the living room to see deer in the back yard. Lots of deer. 8-10 deer. This is normal. So you return to bed, only to be woken up 10 minutes later by what sounds like small dogs being torn limb from limb. "The coyotes are here!" you think. "All those dang deer finally brought them upon us!" But no, this time it's the neighbor's dog. The tiny red-dirt colored one with the nightmarish bark. Ha ha! He used to be white, but going outside has turned him salmon colored. Ha! You return to bed, only to be woken AGAIN, this time by what sounds like extra loud knocks on the door. "Now, who could that be? I hope they don't mind being yelled at." You fling open the front door...and no one is there. Yet the knocking continues. Really loud ghosts? Nope, woodpeckers drilling giant holes into your siding. Ha ha! Oh, nature. You yell at the bird, the bird squaks at you and flies off. For now.

In addition to the 8-10 roaming neighborhood does and babies, there's a herd of bucks. They too are drawn to your yard. "Hey, hey Tony! This looks like a great place to fight!" "You're right, Toby! Listen to that small dog barking applause. Engarde!"
As they commence locking horns, the rest of their herd eats what is left of your yard. Then, they poop all over it. Did you know that deer don't just poop pellets? Amazingly, they poop giant dog like things. Also amazing: dogs love to eat this, and then throw it up on your clean carpets. Why this abomination of deer digestion? Hey, is that your next door neighbor feeding them by hand? What is that, bread? YOU'LL BRING THE COYOTES DOWN UPON US ALL, WOMAN!
Wild turkeys also cruise through your yard. Lots of them. This too will cause your dogs to have conniptions.
Why all the wildlife? Well, you made the choice to move into a "gated" community way out in the country, which you knew was nuts but hey! they had cable internet so how bad could it be? And guess what one of the 100s of CC&Rs is? No killing of deer or other wild life.

You start thinking about 10 foot tall fences and guns with silencers several times a day. How much poison would it take to take down 8-10 deer, and just how deep would you need to bury them? Would the neighbors notice? Do you think they might come over with shovels and help? Shock collars to get dogs to stop barking...unethical? Or just unethical enough to work?
All this is just what is happening in the battle field that is what is left of your yard. Never mind how my younger brother opened the door one morning to find a bear sitting right in front of said door, eating his garbage. And how seated, he looked directly eye to eye with it. We won't talk about the rattlesnakes, or the fires that consume the other side of the canyon every summer and fall. Or how a bear fell into another friend's hot tub. Or the giant unexplained monster bugs. Or how you get to see chickens and goats frolicking every day. Exotic cows in the fields, grazing peacefully. Gorgeous views. How quiet it is at night, and how you can see so many stars. The sinkhole/possible mine that suddenly opened up under your parent's house. How we don't have pet stores, we have feed stores, and high school boys wearing cowboy garb unironically (hay bucking champions!) load the heavy stuff into the car for you. (Seriously!)
Yes, life in the country really is charming.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Are you ready for more finds from the depths of the bowels of the basement? Are you ready for finds that involve cake? Cake with boobies?
Brace yourselves, and shield any kiddie's eyes. No, seriously.
Imagine going through a box, pulling out prayer card after prayer card, and then suddenly, YOU SEE THIS:

Hey baby, nice armless legless torso!

Are those plungers?

Is that breast personalized with a mole?
Oh the horror.

I don't even know which aspect of this cake is more terrible. The rubbery looking plunger nips? 70's man about to take a bite? The MOLE which says, hey, not only is this cake lewd, it's modeled after SOMEONE YOU KNOW WHO IS PROBABLY AT THIS PARTY! Or is it the "Happy Birthday DADDY" inscription? Yeah, that may be it.

Curioser and Curiouser...

We've been chipping away at the boxes the old lady left behind in the basement. We've gone through maybe a dozen of them so far, and we've barely scratched the surface. Gauging from the weight of what's left, it looks like there are a lot of moldy books in our futures.
Some of the more interesting finds include:
* a very small kid's size Get US out of UN t-shirt
* lots & lots of John Birch Society stuff...including information for a kid's summer camp.
* More prayer cards than you can shake a set of rosary beads at
* Old newspapers complete with full page cigarette ads:

* Books. And books. And oh, hey! More books! Old books. First edition books. Books I am now trying to sell on ebay. Can I interest you in a 1929 copy of O. Henry's Finest?
* A swim cap
* Tons of vintage patterns, some of them very old and very cute!
* Hundreds of lids to containers that are long gone
* A bunch of really cute cards from the 30's:

* Three movie projectors
* More Avon promotionals than you can shake a handful of John Birch Society pamphlets at
* A wresting bumper sticker:

* And more! So, so, so much more...

And, perhaps the weirdest and saddest thing of all: a greeting card with the following written inside:
Dear Mrs. G -
Thanks for all the rides home. I really appreciate them. And congratulations on finding your daughter after so long!
Love - C.W.

What? WHAT? No seriously, WHAT? I want details!! Also, this makes it a lot harder to mock her hoarding problem. Once you loose something as important as a daughter, I'm sure all the screws are going to come loose in your head. You go on and save that 1973 Publisher's Clearing house packet. And that other Publisher's Clearing House packet. And the Reader's Digest one, too. And all those looser lottery tickets. And...

On that note, I'm trying to profit off of someone else's hoarding problem. Hop on over to the shop to have a peek at the best of the gems. And as we pull up more stuff, I start to worry more and more about developing a hoarding problem myself. Yikes!

Almost unpacked!

Life is slowly returning to normal-ish around here.
The pugs are settling in nicely:


Paintings are getting up on the walls:


The studio is 97% set up! Which means I should have some new creatures to share with you very soon. I love this wall the most:

Best studio I've ever had.

Oddly enough, I've even got a bit of the baking bug:

So maybe things aren't exactly back to normal. They're better than normal.

...and after

This Saturday marks three weeks since we've taken possession of the house. I think this photo sums up everything pretty well:
(And if you need to see this in graphic detail, click here to see it larger.)
I am so, so tired. And very pleased.
Fresh, clean, new carpet goes in tomorrow. We move this Sunday. Yay!

(I just uploaded a bunch of new photos. Hop on over to Flickr to see the lot.)

In which I am tired

There has been painting. Oh, the painting there has been. So much with the painting. And today, as soon as I finish my coffee, I will head back over there...to do more painting.
It is beginning to feel like there will be NO END to all the painting.
Was it a mistake letting paint ninjas move into my house?
Or was it the only thing between me and bare white walls?
And speaking of white:
The kitchen cabinets are coming along nicely. No more yellowed oak! While I am in love with the change, I still can't believe the work involved. "Are you sure you want to do this?" My father the professional painter asked. "I painted cabinets for a client, and it took ME 5 whole days." Pff. 5 whole days. Yeah, but that client probably had a giant Martha Stewart style kitchen, and you're a perfectionist, and...such was my reasoning.
Turns out 5 whole days is quite a good estimation. What day are we on? Oh, I don't know, 3,562?

And speaking of tired:

Here's me on a good day. See how I actually managed to do my hair at some point? Can you see the multicolored flecks of paint in it? Because trust me, they're there. I keep finding them. "What the...pink? But we painted pink back on Thursday!"

Things we've found

We're going to do this bullet point style, because I am so very tired. Who thinks it is amusing to work 12+ hour days several days in a row? IT IS NOT.

• A coffee can full of old Snickers bars


• Several bloody bandaids


• Carrying case full of rockin' 8-tracks:


(note: this was in a pile of things marked with blue tape...as if this was meant to go to someone in particular. Awesome!)


• A coffee can full of half empty bags of toasted coconut...very, very old toasted coconut. Which had been deeply buried in a box, deep in a pile of boxes, deep in the garage. Why? WHY??


• A headless plastic skeleton:



• 3 mason jars full of reddish brownish mystery liquid, with semi-solid fatty looking stuff on the bottoms.


• Barrels & barrels of beans! Rice! Powdered milk(?)! Bacon Bits! Survive the end of the world with the goodness of bacon!


• And of course, an entire case of dried canned beef:

Photos. Tired. Words going into paragraph doing.

I posted some new photos of the house, sans crazy old lady:
Check it!
Can I just say OH THE HORROR? Because, OH THE HORROR. I have never seen such a filthy place. It may be hard to see the brown cobwebs on every surface and the thick layer of sticky grime that coats every last thing from these photos, but trust me, it's there.
They left behind a goodly amount of junk. And they cleared out most of it.
Also, can I just say that I'm writing this post at one in the morning after working alllllll day, like hard working, with scrubbing, and I am so so tired and so this may not make a whole lot of sense, but so help me I am updating this blog, because OH THE HORROR. People must know.
Where was I?
There have been some decent junk scores already, and some nicely bizarre ones, too. More on that later. (Go see the photos! Funny things are there.)
Still no sign of that horrid German Shepard head candle, alas.

We're in!!

The little old lady is officially GONE! We have the keys. We went inside. We threw out stuff!
Most of the junk is gone from inside the house, with a few exceptions. (Such as all the contents of the fridge on the kitchen counter. Eeeeew.) The only place still fully stocked with garbage is one of the under the house storage areas. The big one.
The house is SO dirty. No, really dirty. Like brown cobwebs, carpet that's never been vacuumed, windows that haven't been touched in 10 years dirty.
I am completely exhausted, but expect some photos of one dirty house soon.

Saturday. Saturday? Saturday!

The wall has officially broken on Littleoldladygate 2009! Papers have been signed, and little old ladies will be out on Saturday afternoon, or face the consequences. Death by wild diseased bunnies may have been threatened.
Rejoicing in the streets will commence! Ticker tape parades may happen! Confetti will rain from the sky!
I don't know what else to say, except that to get to this point we were faced with two choices. Either a. Let them have another 3-4 days and they promised to remove every last piece of garbage and pay us, or b. have them just get out on Saturday. After much, MUCH hemming and hawing, we went with option b. (Turns out we aren't allowed to gouge them. And I was ready to gouge them a new pair of Jimmy Choos, folks. So neryhe to that. Besides, wouldn't it have been sort of a let down if they didn't leave some horrible junk behind? I think so.)
To celebrate and blow off some steam, I went thrifting. (Well, first I went on Etsy and managed to add a whole bunch of goodies to my wish list. Bathroom of Natural History needs some exhibits!)
I found some really wonderful glass:

I'm thinking of using them to hold odds and ends in the studio.


Look upon my faux-bois base, ye mighty, and weep!

Meanwhile, my sewing table looks like this:

Erg. Yeah. Hopefully I'll get crackin on that very soon. Or, you know, packing. Erg.

And then...

Remember the dumpster? With the broken garbage furniture, and the yelling?
Well.
She had a neighbor fish all that back out.
And then she ordered ANOTHER dumpster.
And then she turned down paid assistance to get the rest of the moving done.
Despite the fact that perhaps said neighbor might spend his time better helping pack.
Despite the fact that to her, NOTHING is garbage and she wants to keep everything with her.
Despite the fact that an entire team of professional movers claimed they would take seven days, and how exactly is she planning to get this done with "volunteer" help, when she's been turning down volunteers, yelling at them, and just generally not letting them do anything.

And then, on top of all this crazy, my own grandpa is not doing well. Really not doing well. The variety of not doing well that says things like "Guess I won't be swimming anymore" and "I don't think I'm going to last until the end of the month". And this grandpa is the SANE one, the one who is possibly the most beloved human being I've ever met, and the one who is NOT prone to drama, exaggeration, or fishing for attention. (So I guess I didn't get all that from him...)

And then I looked at a calendar and realized that all this could not be happening on a better week. You know, the week before Aunt Flo visits. Of course.

This, my friends, is what they call "the perfect storm".

In which there is more yelling

Remember how in that last post I mentioned we tossed things into the dumpster? And by "things" I mean trash. Did I mention the gallon ziplock bag full of burnt matches that was found, by the way? No? Well, anyway:
We're in trou-ble! (say it in a sing-songy voice)
We had been told numerous times by the little old lady that she was leaving everything on the back porch for us. Everything. Including three sets of table legs that were missing their tops, ratty, brittle broken plastic furniture up the wazoo, and a chaise lounge missing most of it's plastic strips. Someone who seemed in charge said go for it, toss that junk out! I didn't need to be told twice.
So into the dumpster with them! We were all feeling pretty good about cleaning up the back porch. It looked...halfway decent with all the junk gone.
But. Then. I spied our agent walking back up the driveway with the aforementioned chaise. "I got caught! We've got to put the stuff back!" Crud. So we spread what remained out on the porch, to try to fill in the gaps.
"It doesn't matter," said the seller's agent. "She knows all the pieces."
We left soon thereafter.
The next day the phone calls began. "She's really upset! She's made an itemized list of everything that's missing!" "DON'T GO OVER THERE!" Yikes.
She required an apology from our agent. When he called, she demanded ones from us, too. He put his foot down and said absolutely not. She proceeded to yell at him for the next 20 minutes. She referred to the garbage on the porch as "a gift", and that it was horrible that we threw out her gifts. Because clearly, you should never ever throw out a gift. Or anything else for that matter. Then she wanted to know when we'd be back to help pack.
Let that sink in for a moment.
We came to help twice now, one time with disastrous consequences. And now she wants us back?
Um, no.
In other news, professional movers came over to give her a quote. They said there was no way they could have her out of there by Saturday. With a full crew of guys it would take seven days. (And an awful lot of money.) The selling agent's boyfriend offered to do the job for less. She turned him down.
I have a feeling this is not going to end well. Or on Saturday.

In which we close escrow

Escrow is now officially closed! No more worrying about whether it should be capitalized or not! Hooray!
All the sudden financial responsibility seems to have made me a bit giddy, so I proceeded to set up free shipping sales in both my Etsy & Artfire shops. (Or seriously discounted shipping in the case of sales not in the US/Canada.)
Go forth and buy things! Help me to buy some much needed paint! And/or fumigation!

Here are some highlights from yesterday:

• There was yelling. Oh, the yelling. By the little old lady to both my agent and hers. YELLING! "EXCEPT I'M NOT YELLING, YOU'LL KNOW WHEN I'M YELLING!!" Yeah. So we still don't have the keys, but there is hope that we will on Saturday.



• One of many things she was very upset about was that her dumpster was not yet full. As were we. So we came over to help: Dan, my little brother, our agent & his wife, her agent & agent's boyfriend & son, and me. And also to drink champagne in the driveway and laugh. We managed to fill the dumpster, and there was much rejoicing. (Or maybe that was the champagne talking...)



• And there was this:
  
  Slated to be "moved to Tahoe" (thrown out, but don't tell her that!) Well, it just so happens that we collect odd musical instruments. Especially ones that don't work that well. This will be great next to the bongos and ocarina!

In which I am "helpful"

Things I "helped" pack at the little old lady's (really, our house, come Monday){Oh, did I not mention how escrow didn't quite close on Friday thanks to a certain public utility company* dragging their feet? Odd.} house today.

• Multiple fanny packs


• Gummy bears of mysterious age


• One very old package of sardines

All these items were in her bedroom. YES. BEDROOM. SARDINES. I KNOW!!

Okay. I'm going to warn you right now. This post might get long. And my little finger might just hit SHIFT an awful lot in the next couple of paragraphs. So if you like the non-complaining, happiness and sunshine Claire, just stop right now. Complaining will begin right after this photo of pugs and bulldogs, gettin' along. Ready?


OKAY. Hi. Thanks for joining me on the crabby side of the blog. You won't be disappointed.
So. Today Dan and I went to the little old lady's house to help pack, or move, or really whatever they needed. We just wanted to be of service. It was simply how we were brought up. Someone needs help? YOU HELP, or drown in guilt forever. Your choice!
Her daughter flew in from Texas the day before. The original plan was to pack everything into storage and fly the little old lady out on Sunday. Well. That plan changed as soon as the daughter came in and saw the unbelievable mass of garbage/our new house. "Oh well, things happen, it seemed to good to be true anyway", we reasoned. HA! Reasoning!
The daughter seemed surprised to see us, though the old lady was expecting us. We were surprised to be the only other ones there. Out of her six children, her daughter from Texas was the only one there to help. No friends. No church members. No neighbors. No one else. We made a grand total of four.
So, we set about to work. Dan helped the daughter to take the truck(already loaded with the daughter's things- long story) to the storage unit. The old lady decided I would keep her company, so keep her company I did.
"Okay! What shall we do?" I asked, bright and cheerful. (I had not yet had the soul beaten out of me.)
"I have a box I'm working on in the bedroom."
"Okay!" (Yes, I was way too cheerful and enthusiastic. But don't worry, they did beat it out of me.) So, there in the bedroom was a three quarter full box. But we weren't packing the hodgepodge of items strewn around the bed. We were packing random objects from all around the bedroom. Items that were exactly the size of the spaces created. Previously packed items were taken out, reexamined, and placed again. When I placed an item in the box as directed by her, she removed said item and placed it in there better. Well, she's older and wiser! I've only been through 14 moves in the past 11 years. What do I know of packing?
It took a solid half hour to "fill" the box this way. She was very insistent that everything be placed right side up, regardless of containing liquid or being fragile. Or, you know, not. But! There were AIR SPACES between some of the objects! Priceless treasures, like the box of sardines. Old expired vitamins. Hair brushes. And more "survival kits" than you could shake a dead hamster at. So we bunched up old magazine pages in twos and threes and crammed them in. "TWOS AND THREES! It gives them enough weight!"
At last! We had finished packing a box! So, I grabbed the tape gun, and noticed it was already jammed. I pulled a little tape to get it working again, and then the yelling started back up. "DON'T WASTE THAT!!!" she cried, ripping the tape out of my hands. "I ONLY HAVE ONE ROLL LEFT!" (We won't mention the two other identical rolls sitting right there on her bed in plain sight. And that, you know, there simply is no more tape in all the world to be had.) "Push the sides together like this! No! Like THIS!" She squeezed the box so it was as close to perfectly square as she could get it. "BE CAREFUL! You don't want those inner pieces to buckle up at all!" Then I readied the tape gun again, now that the sides were held together perfectly, to tape the seam. "NO!! DON'T TAPE THE SEAM! You have to tape the other sides first so it will hold together!!" It was at this point that she just took the tape gun from me and did it her way. "PRESS IT DOWN TIGHT OVER THERE! YOU HAVE TO PRESS IT DOWN, I CAN'T REACH!!" She literally spoke mostly in all caps.
While we were on the floor, the phone rang. Repeatedly. "HOW CAN I ANSWER THE PHONE?? DON'T THEY KNOW I AM ON THE FLOOR?" She turned to me "THIS is why it has taken me so long to pack! I keep gettin' interrupted!" So she walked, slowly to retrieve the cordless phone from the living room. Never mind that there are cordless phones in literally every room of the house. She only answers that ONE. And places it back on the hook every time.
Lo, it was the next door neighbor calling. "Would you like any help? I'd be happy to come over." I could hear all this because the old lady kept the phone on speaker and talked into it, walkie talkie style.
"NO, we don't need any help. I'll call you later if we do."
I wanted to yell "Don't listen to her! WE NEED YOU! Come over, quick!!" But of course I did not, as that is only something a sane person might do. Ask for help. Was she really turning down help? Yes. Yes she was.
At long last, the first box was taped. "Where's my list? And pen? And glasses?" She had me fetch them from the living room table. (HA! A table in the dining room. You're silly! That's where you store milk crates full of pills!) I lifted up the box and placed it in order with a stack of similar boxes, heavy with their burden of expired crap.
"I need a cigarette break," she said, leading the way to the porch. Hey, a break! Great! I sat across from her on a rotting wood bench so as not to be in her direct downdraft. She then proceeded to tell me of the time she rescued a "gay woman" who was in a car accident and it "gave her the willies". I. Have. No. Words. For. This.
"Look at her over there. Working in her yard. How is she supposed to be able to help me if she's doing that?" The previously mentioned neighbor was pointed at with a cigarette. She didn't look particularly untrustworthy to me, BUT WHAT DO I KNOW?
At last, the oh-so-restful break was over, and we attacked another half filled box. And so it went for a few hours. She would hand me something to pack, I would do it, she would redo it. She had a fantastically charming way of packing as well.
FOR INSTANCE:
There was a desk in the bedroom. Instead of, say, packing one drawer at a time as a "normal" person might do, she examined carefully a few random objects in a drawer, picked perhaps one to place in the box we were working on, and put some other objects atop various piles in the bedroom. AND ON AND ON. AND ON.
In this fashion we packed a grand total of four boxes in three hours...three of which were already mostly packed when I got there. Oh, how she regaled me with stories of ungrateful young punks she'd rescued from the side of the road! And shared helpful tips, such as this gem:
"Never throw out brown sandwich bags! You can pack small framed photos in them. And it's much faster than newspaper. And stronger!"
Embroider that on a pillow, ladies and gents! WORDS TO LIVE BY. And you know what? The brown bags were faster! Why, she only had to walk slowly to the dining room, dig around in the buffet for a few minutes, and return to the room she was currently packing! MUCH FASTER THAN HAVING YOUR PACKING SUPPLIES HANDY. And how wonderful to have these things clutter up said buffet when you move so very often! My, have you only lived here for the past 14 years? BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE LONGER.
*deep breath*
Later during a truck packing break, I spoke with the daughter, who seemed to be a really nice person. "I kept asking, but Mom didn't even let me know for sure that she wanted help until Monday. And then plane tickets were so expensive! At least I have a friend who can help me get standby." YES. THAT IS CORRECT. She was refusing help from her daughter, too. INDEPENDENCE, YO.
Now, look. I'm a fairly independent person. I get it. I don't like to ask for help from anyone for anything. But moving is hard! Especially when you've been in a place for a very, very long time and your health isn't the greatest. Sooner or later, someone has to help you lift things. Isn't that what family is for?
It was at this point that I realized that we'll probably have a crazy, expired things hoarding, stubborn, help refusing old lady live in our house forever. And ever and ever and ever.
So, how was your Saturday? Because mine ROCKED.**



*G.D.P.U.D. Uh huh. Yes, I called them out. You want me to explain those letters baby? Cause I will! Don't cross me, Georgetown.

**Special mention to a special lady, Miss C, who will soon be our new neighbor! She came over without being specifically asked to help! And help she did, allllll day long. C is a gem! We heart C! C, if you are reading this, there is a giant Falker Satherhood cake coming your way. With extra sprinkles.

Embroidered Pug Pillow

Let's begin this blog post by stating that this project was born out of procrastination. I almost never make things for myself or the house. But that is starting to change. Semi-Final walkthrough of the house is today (yay!), and all I can think about is making that house home. So when I saw this wonderful free pattern that Jenny Hart posted, I knew I had to make it.
To start, I realized, hey wait! I have two pugs. I want these pillows to be more personal. And I can draw a little. So I drew my own pattern. (Following someone else's patterns always feels like cheating to me. I'm a spaz that way.) Of course, I've never drawn for an embroidery pattern, so this was mostly winging it.

Then came the stitching. I did this mostly while watching Gilmore Girls (again), with a little old News Radio thrown in for good measure. (I remember that show being funnier. Oh well.) Stitching up Buster took about 5 hours. You may have seen this blurry late night image already:

Once the stitching was done, I cut a piece of faux fur to size and stitched up the pillow. Then I stuffed it with polyfill. (Have I mentioned I live waaaay out in the country and didn't want to spend two hours running to the nearest fabric store so I was determined to do this with only the supplies on hand? No? Well, okay then.)
This brings us to the finished project photos! Hooray!

Most awesome pillow on world's ugliest couch? Check!

The faux fur backside.

Buster, your name will be up in lights! Er, embroidery floss!

He-Who-Does-Not-Photograph-Easily with his very own pillow.

Up next: Topanga's pillow!

So, we're buying a house.

Facts about this transaction:

• Escrow closes on the 31st. Unless something goes horribly wrong.


• I am nervous that this is going to fall apart, hence I think blogging about it is probably a bad idea. No more details till escrow closes! Wait, do you capitalize escrow? ESCROW!


• Yeah, this is the first house we've ever bought.


• The house is currently owned by a little old lady. With a hoarding problem. The house is packed floor to ceiling, garage to living room to weird storage room under the house. You have no idea how much I wish I had taken photos of the chaos.


• It is quite the fixer upper.


• A woodpecker has a personal vendetta against the siding of the house.


• Photos will be forthcoming as soon as it's not rude to take them. Pointing and laughing will follow.


• Did I mention how I am nervous that this somehow won't work out? And that if it doesn't, it will totally be because I told people about it before the close of escrow? Is there a rule about that? Nervous.