A few years ago, when we needed new couches, we got these big, cheap brown couches that have recliners in each end.
(flickr)
We had issues with something breaking under one of the recliners and had a guy out a few times to fix it, and I think we even had one of the couches replaced at one point. A few months ago, I noticed that my end of the couch was getting to be pretty uncomfortable, and I started talking about buying new couches in the next few years and Fred would cover his ears and chant that he couldn’t hear me, because HIS end of the couch was perfectly comfortable.
Tuesday, Fred called.
“My Dad called and asked if we want their old couches,” he said. “I told him no, but then I thought I’d check with you.”
Fred’s parents, unlike us, buy good quality furniture when they buy it, and although I couldn’t remember what the couches looked like (I remembered them being blue), I knew we wanted them. Anything would be better than the instrument of torture I was currently spending my evenings perched upon.
So Wednesday, Fred’s father and stepmother came over and delivered the couches to us.
(flickr)
They’re old couches, but they are SO MUCH BETTER than the ones we had. When you sit down, you’re not sitting on saggy old springs, but springs that have a lot of life left in them. I do miss the reclining function of the old couches, but I’m going shopping later today and I’m going to be looking for a couple of ottomans, which should solve that problem.
I actually think the new (old) couches look a lot better in the front room than the ones we had. Two thumbs up to the new (old) couches and parents who buy quality furniture!
After a year of living in this house, I finally have a shelf in the computer room upon which I can put all the little things that make me smile. I wanted to just buy a shelf at L0we’s, but Fred decided he could make me one a lot nicer than we could buy, so we bought a piece of wood and some brackets.
When the shelf was done, it turned out that the brackets were too big for it. What is a homeowner who doesn’t want to make yet another trip to L0we’s to do?
Make his own brackets, of course! Which turned out way nicer than the store-bought brackets.
And now my shelf is in place and I love it.
(flickr)
Have you seen this? Cat adopts chicks.
Yeah, I’ve seen it. It’s about the cutest damn thing on earth!
Does anyone know how to get a cat to stop spraying in the house? Toby was a stray, but has been part of the family for over four years with two cats who were here before him. When Toby first came in the house he sprayed sometimes and I put him back outside. I never hit him, I just picked him up, told him NO!, put him out on the porch, and closed the door. He stopped spraying in the house. Now, years later, he has started again.
Nothing has changed in the house. No new animals, no new furniture, no new boyfriend — nothing! If anything, the other cats get along better with Toby; I’ve seen Mischa walk up to Toby and rub his head under Toby’s chin so Toby will lick his ears and head.
The vet checked him out and he’s healthy.
Has anyone used Feliway for spraying? Did it help? Petco didn’t have it, and I haven’t gotten around to ordering it on line. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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The Feliway hasn’t worked too well for us. We took in an adult male, who apparently had not been fixed early enough, so he wants to spray to mark his territory. Feliway was supposed to help with that, but it didn’t make much difference. I used it for about a month and then quit. While the little shit does not spray as much as he used to now, he still does it when we are not looking. Why, oh why, do I always have to take in any stray that comes along????
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Apparently the Feliway Diffuser works or you wouldn’t be getting a refill. Is that the reason why you never write anything about any of your cats spraying? I have six cats and have had to isolate a couple of them for a while to calm them down because of spraying. I have hear of Felway before but hesitate to buy it because it’s expensive and if it doesn’t work. But I want us to be one big happy family so I’m willing to buy it on your good recommendation!
I’ve actually never had a problem with a cat spraying, but I can’t really credit the Feliway because we have a diffuser upstairs and downstairs, but they’d both been dry for about six months now. I got the refill because I thought it might help chill out the kittens.
When I use the Feliway, it might make our cats a little calmer, or I might just be seeing the behavior I want to. It’s never been a matter of the cats being assholes, plugging in the Feliway, and the cats turning into little angels. If there’s a difference in their behavior, it’s more subtle rather than really obvious.
So I consider it worth a try, but I can’t guarantee it’ll make a difference for anyone else!
Readers, your experiences with Feliway? And suggestions on stopping a cat from spraying?
I forgot about this…a few months ago, we bought the 20th annual “Bathroom Reader”. I have only read the first 20 pages or so, but it is very entertaining! I picked it up for 10$ at Sam’s Club.
I was clearing off the bookcase where Fred keeps his books that he hasn’t read yet, and came across one of the Bathroom Readers. They’re interesting books, even if you’re not the sort of person to read in the bathroom!
I’m so glad you ended with what windows you had open, since until then, I thought you were talking about windows in your home and while I also love open windows (I’m sitting next to one right now!), it seemed a bit…odd to me that you and your sister would have to jump up from the computer and go open windows at random.
My sister is spazzy enough that it wouldn’t surprise me to find that she often jumps up from the computer and runs to open a window. HEE.
I got to thinking about all the tomato plants you have and was giggling about the mountain of tomatoes you will be buried under, when I realized that I just put in 36 watermelon seedlings and if I get one watermelon off of each vine I will have approximately 1440 pounds of watermelon. I’m not laughing anymore. Want to set up a trade?
Oh, I suspect the pigs and the chickens would be MORE than happy to take some watermelons off your hands!
In other comments, I am glad to see that most of us are “normal” and do read on the potty. Not normal would,um, be that woman that was in the news a few weeks ago.
Is it wrong that I read the story about that woman and thought “That must have been a REALLY good book!”?
Does anyone have a local or in-depth story, like with pictures and all the “gory details,” of the woman who was stuck to the toilet for two years? My mother has formulated the idea that the woman was OBVIOUSLY massively obese (like, “needs a flatbed truck and a Becker sling to leave the house” obese) because there’s “no other way” that could have happened. I haven’t seen or read anything to indicate that the woman’s weight was in any way a contributing factor, just that she stayed put for so long and.. well.. yeah. Anyway, I want to make her shut up about “OMG just think about how HUGE she must have been!!” but I don’t want to be wrong. Anyone?
As far as I can see, they appear to be keeping her anonymous and there don’t seem to be any pictures available of her. Readers?
My husband has been finding marbles in our front and back yards for the last twenty years, whenever he turns over the earth to plant something.
DUDE. Seriously, what’s up with the marbles? We find them every once in a while in places you wouldn’t expect. I mean, it seems kind of normal when we find them in the chicken yard, because the chickens are always digging stuff up (especially pieces of glass), but they’re all over the damn place. I can explain the golf balls – the children of the previous owner liked to hit balls into the back forty – but the marbles, I just don’t get.
I posted this site on Fred’s blog on where to buy humanely produced eggs and meat in their own neck of the woods….
Readers, you wanted to know where you could get humanely produced eggs and meat? There you go!
A question for Friday: My friend has a cat that loves to eat cantaloupe. In fact she and her husband prepare a separate dish for the cat every time they have some. She wants to know if any of your cats have a similar passion.
I once had a cat that ate grapes but only after he played with them for a while.
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Hey Mary Ellen, we had a cat long ago who not only loved cantaloupe, but loved corn and *peeled* lima beans. The kids would always leave one row of kernels on their corn cob for her. In the summer, she’d even drag home corncobs out of the next door neighbor’s trash. Current furball loves yogurt–will climb up on you and get in your face when you’re eating it. All our other cats could not care less about people food.
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My cat goes nuts for peanut butter sandwiches… We can’t eat one without him going bonkers – we usually give him a taste of PB just because it’s funny. He also loves cooked beans – I guess they taste meaty???
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We had a kitty that went ape shit over bologna and Popeye’s chicken – the spicier the better. He also loved chips, especially Doritos. For any one of those, but especially the chicken, he’d literally try to take it out of your mouth as you were taking a bite. He’d get soaked with water for a bite also. Unreal.
Sugarbutt always dives face-first into the dry oatmeal container when Fred’s making his breakfast in the morning, and he likes to share Fred’s cottage cheese, AND he enjoys the occasional egg yolk. Tubby once ate a piece of broccoli. Other than that, I’ve got nothin’. None of our cats appear to care for fruit, but I’ll have to start testing them to make sure one of them isn’t quietly pining for a raisin or a strawberry!
Readers, what weird things do your cats like to eat?
I have this mental quirk where I always feel like you can’t have everything. For example, if you have a loving husband and healthy kids but issues with money; then you win the lottery or you get an inheritance and you don’t have issues with money anymore, then possibly something will happen to your marriage or your kids health or your health? Weird, I know and probably pretty stupid too. I just know that when things are going good in my life, which they are most of the time, I always have this sense of gloom and doom, like I’m waiting for the shoe to drop!
Yeah, if things go along too well, I expect something to happen to kind of balance it out. I’m glad I’m not the only freak out there!
I love that you are sharing your open tabs! How neat is that. I saw that Sideswipe blade in Real Simple this month and I think I have to have it. Do you (or any of your readers) know of anyone with one and if it is really all its cracked up to be? I just made the bigtime and finally got the fancy schmancy Kitchenaid from Santa and do not like how you cannot stick the spatula in there at all lest it get ripped from your hand. I had a nice Sunbeam one and I think I still like it better in some regards, but it wasn’t heavy duty enough to do 2 batches of cookie dough, which the Kitchenaid scoffs at and stirs it like the pro that it should.
Actually, the entire reason I was looking at the Sideswipe blade is ’cause I saw it in Real Simple and tore out the page to check it out online. I love the hell out of that magazine!
Has anyone out there tried it? I think I want one, but I don’t want to spend the money without knowing that it’s worth it!
Are you now reading Baby Proof? Thoughts? Is it going to piss me off when the wife finally relents and has a baby to please her husband/ex? This situation mirrors my life closely, except that so far my husband hasn’t given any ultimatum. I never ever ever want kids. Never have.
Warning: Possible Baby Proof spoilers in this section. Don’t read this if you plan to read the book. I finished Baby Proof last week (MAN I need to update my reading list!) and while the end was left kind of open-ended, yeah – she was willing to have a kid, in the end, to be with him (though to be fair, he was willing to give up the idea of having a kid to be with her, too). There’s a part near the end where someone tells Claudia to have a baby to get Ben back, and when she says that’s an insurmountable issue, he says well, then, I guess y’all aren’t soul mates, are you? and she buys into the idea that true love conquers all and after a stupidly OBVIOUS plot twist to keep them apart a little longer and make her very sad, they get back together, but whether or not they’ll have a kid (or try for one) isn’t really resolved.
It’ll probably make you cringe and get pissed off; it annoyed me more than a little, but I have to say that I think Emily Giffin’s books are getting better and better. The first one I mostly liked, the second one I liked more (I like to think that Emily Giffin wrote Something Blue to see if she could make a character who was very unlikable in Something Borrowed become likable) and Baby Proof, despite the too-obvious plot twist toward the end, is the best of the three, I think.
Heads up: she’s got a new one coming out in May!
HG is coming along, very very slowly. Last night when Fred and I were hanging out with him, he actually lowered his head for a pet, and it’s the first time he’s done THAT, so that’s an improvement. And then he stood and let me pet him for a long time. But, best part, I had him kind of cornered at one point and I started rubbing his ears and back, and finally FINALLY he purred for me.
One day he will sit in my lap, I promise you.
“YEOW! I feel GOOD!”
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“Ah hets Spring and ah hets pollen. Ah hets grass and ah daffodils. Ah hets sun and ah hets rain. But what ah really hets more than anythin’ are porky black kitties, TOMMY, who jump on me and bite mah neck and run away before ah can kick their porky little butt.”
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Previously
2007: 002. Do you have a pet? Six cats. Six. NOT EIGHT.
2006: “Brrrrrrrrrrp!” Mister Boogers said with great displeasure.
2005: E’gar comes home.
2004: No entry.
2003: “Hi. What R U doing to loose weight and how much weight have U lost?”
2002: Burned fucking beans.
2001: No entry.
2000: Diane Sawyer is so uncomfortable around kids, it’s laughable.