Note: In case you didn’t read her response in yesterday’s comments, Nance and Rick’s camera is a Nikon D70.
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(From the move last week)
I brought everyone but Mister Boogers in my car – Fred brought him. Miz Poo and Spot did a call-and-respond howling duo all the way to Smallville. 20 minutes seems a lot longer when cats are howling the entire way.
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Yesterday morning at 4:30 found me standing buck nekkid in the bathroom with the light on, earplugs in my ears, cats milling about my feet watching me perform surgery on my pinky finger with a needle. Without glasses on or contacts in.
That just screams “Monday”, doesn’t it?
(For the record, at some point over the weekend I got a small splinter under my fingernail. I thought I’d gotten it out, but apparently not, because I woke up Monday morning with my finger throbbing. After cutting my fingernail as short as humanly possible and digging at the area just under my fingernail for a good fifteen minutes, I got the little fucker out. It’s sore today, but it feels 10,000 times better than it did.)
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Y’all, this whole no-internet thing in Smallville just sucks like nothing you could imagine. No internet, no cable. IT’S LIKE LIVING IN THE GODDAMN 1800S!
Yesterday I left Smallville at 7 to drive to Huntsville to clean cages at the pet store, and didn’t get home that night until after 8:00. That’s a long fucking day, and too long for the cats to be home alone. After I left the pet store I went to Target, filled up my gas tank at the cheap gas station, then went to the Madison house to hang out, write my entry, do some picking up, do some laundry, and do some web surfing. Etc etc etc.
At 3:00, the lady from the carpet store came to measure the house and quote us a price for having the carpet replaced, and while it was more than we wanted to spend, I think the cost will be worth it when we don’t have to fork over a $5000 carpet allowance at closing.
They’re coming to carpet the computer room and the entire upstairs next Wednesday. And the other guys are coming to paint the house this Wednesday or Thursday.
That’s right, you heard me – we’re hiring professionals to paint the majority of the house. Because we? Are burned the fuck out on the painting. Fred’s back hurts when he uses the roller for too long, and Sunday afternoon I was stuck with painting the edges of the dining room, and I was filled with hatred like I have never felt before, I hated this goddamn house so fucking much that in retrospect I am amazed because my hatred should have set fire to the fucking thing. And my hatred spilled over to everyone in the vicinity and I stomped around and had a temper tantrum like a five year old and then had to go upstairs and lay down in a fetal position and do some lamaze breathing before I went on a killing spree.
Then I suggested to Fred that I would offer him 2,000 sexual favors (hey, my kid reads this journal, I’m not going into details) if he would just fucking call a professional painter.
And he did, and the guy came over and took a look around and quoted a price, and I fell to my knees and thanked god when Fred asked the guy how soon they could get the job done. And the paint guy said he’d do everything he could to get it all done by Saturday, HALLELUJAH.
It’ll take a day or a day and a half to get the carpet put down, so at some point – possibly this weekend – I’m going to spend an entire day cleaning the bathrooms and scrubbing the floors, so I’m thinking that next Friday our house will be up for sale.
I hope like hell it sells as fast as the house two doors down sold (a week), and I hope we make nearly what they did, though we’re planning to underprice it by a bit so it’ll sell faster.
We’ll see.
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Comments:
That is just so cool — I’m glad y’all had such a good time and that the move to the Smallvill house is finally over. Now you get to unpack — whee!
Now I get to unpack? What’s this “now”, kemosabe? I spent half the day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, and most of the day Thursday unpacking. There are maybe three boxes left to be unpacked, and I’ll get to those when I damn well please, because I am the boss of what gets unpacked when. Ha!
Being a farm girl, I want to warn you not to let the cats near the baby chicks. They will eat them. Sad but true.
I was going to squawk indignantly about how I’m NOT that dumb, but god knows I’ve done some dumbass shit in the past. For the record, the cats aren’t allowed unsupervised access to the chicks – I let them in to sniff around while I’m changing out the water or feeding the chicks, and they seem a little interested, but mostly scared by the chicks. I’d never let a cat hang out with the chicks if I weren’t around – we keep them in a room with the door shut so the cats can’t get in there. Unless they can figure out how to turn the doorknob, I’m not going to worry about it. Though Tommy IS an awfully smart little bastard.
Who is putting up the joint podcast? I want to hear it.
It’ll be up over on Nance’s site, once she gets home from SC and has a chance to have her kid edit it a little (or maybe she’ll just put it up unedited – I don’t think she’s decided yet). She’s going to be in SC for a few more days, so I don’t know when she’ll get a chance to do that. I’ll link to it once it’s up, I promise!
Where the magic happened.
What do the city cats think of the salty country cats?
I thought there’d be a lot of hissing and growling, but for the most part the city cats don’t seem too interested in what Newt and Maxi are doing. They’ll sit on the cat tree and watch Maxi and Newt sometimes, but they’re more interested in the birds and the traffic. We did crack the front door and let someone – Mister Boogers, I think – sniff at Maxi through the crack and they both growled, but that’s about it so far.
Sugarbutt’s favorite hiding place.
Some questions:
How is the house stuff going?
How is Mr. Boogers? Does he still hate me?
How are you and your family?
Are you coming back to us?
House stuff is going well – I think I need to get dark curtains for the master bedroom, and I still need to get the trim in the guest bedroom painted, and the entire house needs to have the floor scrubbed (we’ve had a lot of delivery people traipsing in and out lately), and the pipe to the showerhead in the downstairs bathroom cracked and needs to be replaced, so I’ve got to shower in the upstairs bathroom for the time being, and the “cold” knob in the upstairs shower keeps falling off, but other than that, it’s all okay.
Mister Boogers makes himself at home.
Mister Boogers has adjusted the best of all the cats – he seems to think this whole thing is quite the adventure – but, yes. He still hates you. But that’s fine, because I hate him back for you. He’s been waking me up at 5:30 every morning with his incessant howling, so I’m about ready to kick him out the damn door. I bet the country cats would kick his ass all over the yard, though. He talks a good game, but he’s really a wimpy little bastard.
Fred, the spud, and I are fine, but I’ll be glad when the Madison house sells and we can all be under the same roof again.
I’m coming back to you, my darlings. Though, fair warning: updating will undoubtedly be spotty for a little while. I’ll still write every day, Monday through Friday, but I may not be able to get them all posted on the day they’re written for, because there are going to be the occasional days when I stay in Smallville all day. So you might get a day or two of no entries, followed by multiple entries at a time. Once we have an accepted offer on the house, Fred promises we’ll get internet in Smallville.
In fact, this might be the last entry posted until the end of the week. It all depends on the painters and when they decide to come, and how long it takes them to finish.
Until then, I’ll play 63,000 games of
Snood (I hadn’t played it in years, but when I was bored in Smallville and not in the mood to read, I realized I had Snood on the laptop, so I sat in the living room and played game after game after game. I’m getting better, thank god – I got so frustrated at how poorly I was doing that I turned the difficulty level to “child”, just so I could win one fucking game!), do chores around the house, read, and watch TV shows I’ve downloaded from iTunes.
iTunes is THE SHIT, I tell you what.
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My new bed – which I LOVE – and my new comforter. I’m not feeling the love for the comforter just yet, but it may grow on me. What I really wanted was something like
this in aubergine because I adore the Matelasse bedspreads, but Bed, Bath and Beyond and Linens and Things and Target had nothing like that, so I went with something I thought would go well in the room. I haven’t completely discounted the Matelasse bedspread, though. Maybe I’ll get it in the future.
I absolutely adore this bedspread I got for the guest bed, it’s too bad it doesn’t come in some shade of purple as well. What really rocks is that it
lists on Amazon for $100 for the full/queen size, and I got it at TJ Maxx for $35. LOVE IT.
The shower curtains I got for the downstairs bathroom. The problem with a suspended-rod bathtub/ shower is that the shower curtains have to be wider than the standard. And it’s close to impossible to find a wide-enough shower curtain in a pattern I like. I ended up getting two shower curtains and overlapping them a little, and you honestly can’t tell at all. Plus, I really like the dragonfly design, and I think it goes well with the bathroom color.
Sleepy.
“Hellew.”
All of today’s uploaded pictures are
here.
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Previously
2006: “I prefer ‘va-jay-jay’,” he said almost prissily.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: And why is it that I ALWAYS have my period when it’s time to leave on vacation? Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?
2002: I don’t want to have to think about Ozzy having a boner, thankyouverymuch.
2001: Fortunately, I have many more lazing-around-the-house-reading hours in the day than he does.
2000: I didn’t think cats did such things once they were fixed.]]>
Are you painting before pulling up the carpet? Seems to be the better way to go, so as to not have to work so hard to keep the paint off the new carpet.
Robyn — I have found amazing bedding on smartbargains.com for ridiculously low prices. We just got some awesome 500 thead-count sheets (Cal King) for $40 (which came with four (FOUR!) King pillow cases). They have tons of comforters on there, too. That site is the shit, I tell ya. Check it out when you have a minute — you won’t regret it, I promise.
Roseann: Are you painting before pulling up the carpet? Seems to be the better way to go, so as to not have to work so hard to keep the paint off the new carpet.
From the entry:
They’re coming to carpet the computer room and the entire upstairs next Wednesday. And the other guys are coming to paint the house this Wednesday or Thursday.
Just had to tell you – I LOVE your kitchen cabinets!
We’ll all pray for a speedy sell on the Madison house. Bitchypoo with no internet is pure hell for the rest of us….. Love the snippets of pictures.
Okay, okay–where’d you get that fabulous iron mug-holder paper-towel-hanger? We’re moving into a new place in a few weeks and I’m a little bit in love with it.
Ooooooh a Sleigh Bed.I love them. It’s beautiful, Robyn. Sweet dreams, baby!
I love your dragonfly shower curtain. In fact, I love it so much I’m considering a change. Where did you get it?
Wise decision to have professionals do the painting. The Smallville house looks great!
I love durable bleachable matelasse coverlets. I try to buy them in white or off-white. In a house, on acreage, with pets that go in and out they’re a lifesaver and a great way to protect a more decorative expensive duvet from muddy footprints of coffee or tea spills. They’re much more attractive than an old white sheet but stands up to nearly as much laundering.
I also love the guest room bedspread, I have sheets from the 70’s in a very similar print that don’t fit any bed that I still own but I can’t give them up.
I love the iron mug-holder paper towel hanger too! Where did you get it?
Sugarbutt and the kitchen cabinets are a match! How did he get up there?
Did you get a new car? Or did E’gar get a paint job? Or WAIT! Is this the mystery Fredmobile?
Robyn,
Coming from a Catholic background, this is something my dad has always told me. If you want to sell a house, put a statue of St. Joseph in the ground.
Here is a snippet from a article I found:
Just as vague is how and where St. Joseph should be buried. Some say the statue should be placed in a hole in the backyard upside down, with his feet toward heaven, facing the home. Others say he should face the new home, be in a corner or in the front yard. Most condo owners simply stick him in a flowerpot.
But one thing is certain: When the house is sold and the deal is done, St. Joseph should be dug up and placed in a spot of honor in the new home. How many people actually follow through and unearth the saint is unknown, says Binz, but he estimates that there are “a lot of buried statues out there that people have forgotten once the house is sold.”
Rest of the article is here:
here
My cat sits up on my cabinets too… I swear sometimes when I walk into the kitchen and catch him out of the corner of my eye I practically have a heart attack!
I wish you luck with the sale of your house. I have had mine on the market since Sept!!!! I sold two other houses in the past 4 years and both went so quick but the market today is just the shit I tell ya! I am about 4 hrs north of you in Southern Illinois, so hopefully your market is better!
Sorry if I missed an explanation of this, but I thought you were going to wait until the Spud was out of school for the year to sell the Madison house. Is the Smallville house in the same school district? Or are they less anal there than they are here about moving to another district and staying at the same school.
Good luck with selling your old house, I hope it goes very quickly for you. We are also in the process of moving from a condo to our first actual single-family home, which has been exciting. Of course, our contractors found a leak in the roof today. Murphy’s Law! We had it inspected, but it wasn’t there then. Sigh.
Where’d you get the dragonfly shower curtain? I love it!
“and I fell to my knees and thanked god when Fred asked the guy how soon they could get the job done”
Whew, only 1,999 more sexual favors to go!
I too love the shower curtain and the added fullness is very pretty!
Who knows, Tommy may figure out the doorknobs in due time! If my siamese wants out of the bedroom and I’m doing that half sleep half ignore and get the hell back in bed thing, he gets on the bookcase (which is level with doorknob) and goes at it. If he had front claws, I have no doubt he could open the damn thing!
Loving the bedspread/quilt for your room. Very country home, but Robyn sass. From this side of the internet anyway.
I cannot believe you are almost totally unpacked! You are awesome! Also, a question for you (or Fred)…what is the name of the color (actually there are 2 so I should say colors!) that you used in your new bedroom?! It is beautiful!
Congrats on the new home…hope the old one sells supah fast!
Are the NotYours cats okay with no longer being allowed inside the Smallville house? I know they have the condo of kitty luxury on your front porch, but I wasn’t sure if they’d have hard feelings since they can see the City Crew inside hanging out where they used to be allowed. I have to say that you have balls (figuratively) for transporting that many cats at once. You’re a braver person than I!
“…And my hatred spilled over to everyone in the vicinity and I stomped around and had a temper tantrum like a five year old and then had to go upstairs and lay down in a fetal position and do some lamaze breathing before I went on a killing spree.”
I can relate to this more than I’d like to admit.
Oh, Robyn! I am SO with you on the temporary hatred of the house and the never-ending project freaking painting (when will it end for f&ck sakes)! Last year at exactly this time my husband and I decided that we had too many dogs for town and bought a little old farm. The house hadn’t been lived in for many years and needed an enormous amount of work. It was a huge project that seemed so fun at first but after months and months of work never-ending freaking work? It got old. I got tired. I got cranky. I developed a hatred for all things paint related. I developed what I thought were permanent kinks in my anatomy and I ached all the time. And you know what? Now it’s done, and life is good. You will be there soon, too, and then you too will enjoy living the good life on your own little slice of heaven… hold on a little while longer, and good job convincing Fred to hire painters! Go, girl!
Ralph Lauren makes some very nice Matelasse covers… you can find them at polo.com or sometimes tjmaxx or at a Ralph Lauren dealer (major department store, like Macy’s. I would also add in some larger pillows, behind the standard shams, maybe a European square in a solid or something. It’s an impressive bed, it needs some equally impressive bedding. Love the bed! Love your stories!
The new house looks great – I have a question, though. Do you ever get creeped out staying there by yourself at night? My husband works nights a lot of the time, and even though we have lived in our house for over 20 years (and we’re in a very safe area), there are those occasional odd times when my imagination takes over. Usually it’s because the cats are on “alert” – and I know it’s either gotta be a serial killer outside the window … or a moth.
I’m with Sarah….loving the dragonfly shower curtain!! Please share where you got it!
Hi! Somebody probably already asked, but are you going to put up a Virtual Tour of the Smallville house? I lubs me them tours…
Congrats on (mostly) finishing the work on the Smallville house and best of luck selling the Madison house.
I came to read thru your comments to see if anyone had mentioned to you about the HUGE pet food recall. I’m sure you’ve seen the news.. http://www.menufoods.com/recall/Press_Recall_03162007.pdf .. but I wanted to let you know just in case! I saw that Publix brand was on the recall list and thought immediately of the And3rson kitties.
Question – I also have six cats, and we just installed laminate flooring. Since shedding season is starting, how the hell do you control the cat hair tumbleweeds?
My husband is going to take the computer away from me thanks to YOU Robyn… it’s all your fault!!! I have no idea what time it is other than… ohhh very late, or very early depending on which way you look at it and was just informed that I needed to stop playing Snood and go to bed. Very addictive game! *Kick* errr Thanks for telling us about it. LOL
Oh, Yawning cat pic… I posted a fangy one of Miss Kitty on my front page and there is a cuuuute one of her down a bit farther.. “Amewica’s Next Top Mewdel” is what I like to call the second. Ha.. I slay myself.