Back Off

We had on Animal Planet, and he wanted to make sure we kept it that way.

I Need a Purpose

Don't you hate it when you wake up in the middle of the night and it is way to early to get up, but late enough to annoy you that once you fall back asleep, your alarm is going to go off seemingly immediately?

Me, too.

Know what I like to do in those moments?

Get up, locate the camera, and take a picture of my alarm clock to post on my blog.

I need a grander purpose in life.

Oh, The Things He Does For Me

What is it? It's a smoke detector. Covered in electrical tape. Why is the smoke detector covered in electrical tape? Because it has an annoying green light that has caused me to sucuumb to the wonderful world of insomnia. I finally asked Tim if there was something he could do about it.

Tim: Seriously?

Me: Yes, seriosuly.

Tim: The traffic on the turnpike barrelling by less than a mile away from our bedroom doesn't bother you, but the tiny green light on the smoke detector is a problem.

Me: Earplugs. There's nothing I can do about that green light when I wake up in the middle of the night. It mocks me, and then I can't get back to sleep.

Tim: Overdramatic sigh, clomping to his room to search for electrical tape. Ovrdramatically drags dining room chair into bedroom and slaps piece of electrical tape over the tiny green light. Turns off bedroom light. Green glow still present. Turns on bedroom light.

Me: Ugh! Can't you just...break the lightbulb or something?

Tim: What if that breaks the whole smoke detector and it starts beeping again?

Me: Valid point. Carry on.

Tim: Slaps another piece of electrical tape over the first. Turns off bedroom light. Green glow fainter, but still there. Turns on bedroom light. It's not the bulb. It's really thin plastic, so its just shining through.

Me: Can you cover the whole thing?

Tim: See these vents? I think they are somehow involved in DETECTING the SMOKE.

Me: Well, you have to do something! It's making me insane!

Tim: Huffily slaps electrical tape all over the smoke detector.

Me: OK, you didn't need to go that crazy.

Tim: Oh, no! My wife needs to sleep! You just better hope there's never a fire in here. "Well, sir, it seems that your smoke detector has been rendered useless by electrical tape." "Well Mr. Fireman, sir, my wife couldn't sleep with the TINY GREEN LIGHT attached to the smoke detector. I'll miss her, though."

Me: Funny.

Tim: Turns off bedroom light. No green glow.

Me: Yay!

Tim: Freak.

Me: I love you!

Vampire Skunk

When people hear that I have a skunk as a pet, they inevitably have a myriad of questions. The first is always, "Can he...spray?" But the runners up are, "Does he bite?" and "Does it hurt?"

To the first question, I always say "yes" and then explain that I have discovered that he has four types of biting. There's the "Hey, notice me" bite, the "playing" bite, the "Dude, you just scared the crap out of me" bite, and the "That's mine and you can't have it!" bite.

As far as the second question, it hurts in varying degrees in accordance with the bite types. From a "Eh, not so bad" hurt to a "Dude, you better watch yourself" pain, to an "Oops, shouldn't have scared him" discomfort, and finally the "Sweet Mother of God! Fine! Keep it!" debilitating agony. Evidenced by the picture below. It might not look so bad, but keep in mind it has had a whole 24 hours to bleed out and heal, and I have the lowest end of digital cameras.

This is what happens when you get in between a skunk and a Twix bar. (Please also excuse the horrendous state of my nails and cuticles. I have foregone manicures in order to be able to pay my mortgage.)

Question of the Day

No pictures to go with this post - I just figured I would add a question of the day:

Why is it that when women put on a skirt, they are suddenly so much more attractive then normal? (I hope you detect the sarcasm in this question.)

I dressed up today, because our biggest clients are visiting the office, and have received numerous comments. (Note to self: turn work access badge around when in elevator so creepy guys can't hit on me by name.) I suppose being complimented is nice, but I kind of want to respond with, "Seriously? I look the same as I do every day, only now you can see my legs."

Men are dumb.

What I'm Thankful For

They're finally here - pics of the new house!

Driveway

EntrywayFront Hallway

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Eat-in Area (used as the cats' eat-in area)

Bedroom (not a crappy paint job - crappy photography job)

Bedroom view 2

My Bathroom

Filled closed! (Almost)

Patio View from Living Room

Patio view from Bedroom

Hallway where Azrael consistently gets lost whenever he goes to the bathroom

Guest Bedroom/Styx & Loki's Room/Computer Room

Tim's Room/Hydra's Room/Drum Room

New Beginnings: Promised Pics

Here they are! Picures of the preparation and destruction! I will have pics of the new house, all set up and lived in, soon!

The "wrong colored" kitchen that turned out to be not so bad.

Taping the bedroom!

My AMAZING walk-in closet with custom built-ins. Wait until you see the pictures of it full. I need more shoes to fill the shoe closet!

The apartment in total disarray as we pack and get ready to go. We still have to go back and clean to ensure that we get our security deposit back, but neither of us is in any hurry to spend any more time there. We love the new house!

New Beginnings: Day Seven

I have pictures. I do. But I have been so thorough in my packing, that I already packed the cable that connects the camera to the computer. I almost wasn't able to blog today at all, because in my thorough packing I started to dismantle the PC, since I have my work laptop at home today. Then I realized WHY I have my work laptop at home. Because I'm supposed to be working from home today. Which, technically, I am. I've checked email three times now. Go me!

Anyway, point being if I dismantle the computer, I dismantle the modem, making my wireless Internet connection useless. I'm already freaking out a little that this will be the last day I have Internet until Monday, and I will only have it at work until next Wednesday when the Comcast dudes come hook up my brand new cable modem. Yippee! But never fear, Tim will not be without TV for even a day, because Comcast cable is included in our HOA fees, so we can simply hook up the TV and away we go.

So, pictures. Probably not until Monday, and then you will get the whole slew of them. The painting debacle at the new house, the wrong-colored kitchen that has turned out to be not so bad, the painting prep and finished product in our new bedroom, which turned out really cool, and the disaster area that is currently my apartment. The cats are having a ball, because I decided to be organized about the packing this time around. I have all the boxes, hefty bags, and small pieces of furniture in what we used to consider the dining room, and some more in the kitchen. You practically have to be Houdini to access the bottle of orange soda that is the only thing left in the refrigerator. I have a feeling Tim is going to flip out when he comes home, because while the packing method makes sense to me, it is most likely not in the right order for loading the truck tomorrow. Whatever. He'll figure it out.

And when I tell you I have gotten rid of roughly 25 Hefty bags full of crap over the past week, I think I may be estimating a little on the low side. And I can only cringe, because if we managed to accumulate so much stuff over the past two years in this small apartment, can you imagine what we are going to be able to hoard over the next five or ten years in a house with a garage and an attic? It boggles the mind.

So, I will resume my method of packing organization for the rest of the day, and tomorrow morning at 10AM the moving madness begins. Ugh. Honestly, the part I am dreading the most is what to do with the zoo. They need to be out of the way, and the three furry ones are all going to freak right out with all the activity going on tomorrow. Loki is already in permanent stomp stance in his cage.

Tangent! We ordered pizza last night because cooking has not been an option at all this week, since I packed all the appliances, pots and pans last Sunday. We left two slices of pizza in the box on the kitchen counter. A packed box stood on the floor in front of the counter just below the pizza box. The master of mischief otherwise known as Loki managed to pull himself up on that box, grab the pizza box, and snatch a slice in his tiny little jaw before Tim or I really knew what was happening. We had to tackle him and wrestle the slice of pizza away from him, and then we put him to bed for the night. It has not ceased to amaze me how strong that little brat is when he really wants something.

SO - I am worried about the furry ones' well being for the weekend. Not only are we going to lock them up and freak them out with all the commotion, we are then going to stick them in carriers, put them in the car, and transport them to their new home that they are probably going to hate for two weeks straight. Until we let them out on the screened-in patio. I'm thinking they're going to love it because, frankly, it is bigger than our current living room, is home to lizards galore, and they all love to be outside. The other two I'm not so worried about. Styx and Hydra will be all "Oh, this looks like a new wall outside my cage. Interesting. When can I eat?"

Wish us luck - tomorrow is going to be insane and exhausting, but it will be worth it. Because tomorrow night I get to sleep (among other things) in my very own house.

WOO-HOO!

New Beginnings: Day Three

No, still no pictures. Instead, I will share a funny story (at least I think it is funny) that is just so Nanci, you will have no choice but to laugh. Just know that I was originally going to leave this post at two simple words: painting sucks.

I was so excited to be painting my own home the wonderful colors that I meticulously picked out at Home Depot over the weekend, I refused to listen to my husband when he told me that painting was hard, tedious and time consuming. Bah! Grab a roller, slap some paint on the walls and away you go. I can have the whole damn house painted in three days. I am a painting dynamo!

Yes, you're already laughing, but that's not the funny part. Here's the funny part:

After four hours of hard, tedious and time consuming painting, we realize that we are most likely going to need more paint in order to properly complete the second coat on the kitchen. No problem, I say. I'll just run to Home Depot tomorrow and get a quart or two of Mystical Seas.

This isn't Mystical Seas, Tim says, reading the top of the paint can we have been using to paint the kitchen for the past four hours. This is Lion, he says. And I freeze. I freeze right there in my Lion colored kitchen, carrying on an internal debate as to whether or not I should admit what I have done. The debate is ended when I can't contain my laughter at my own stupidity. What's so funny? Tim asks. So I tell him.

We just spent four hours painting the kitchen the color that was intended for the bathroom.

Needless to say he wasn't all that amused. Luckily he got over it pretty quickly and we have spent the past two hours spontaneously laughing out loud at our ridiculously ugly kitchen. (In my defense, the paint color is actually quite nice. But in painting it a nice color, we realized that the non-wall parts of the kitchen are so hideously mis-matched, there's really nothing we could have done to make it any better. Or worse, for that matter.)

So we march on toward Day Four, hoping I don't screw up tomorrow as badly as I did today. And if I do, at least we can laugh about it.

New Beginnings: Day One

I'm a bad, bad person, and did not take any pictures of Day One in the new house. And I suppose technically yesterday was Day One, since that's when we officially signed our lives away and received the keys to our new home. BUT, today was the first day we were in it after receiving those keys, and even though it was hard work, it was AWESOME.

We changed locks, and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. I think I would have made my mother very proud today. I went into the house armed with two boxes of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, a brand new mop and bucket, Easy Off oven cleaner, various household cleaners, two rolls of paper towels and a large container of bleach. I washed walls for crying out loud, even though we are going to paint right over them. I cleaned windows, inside and out. (Something I've never been able to do living in second and third floor apartments. It's interesting, being able to see outside without a thin film of dirt, grime and rain spots.) I cleaned light fixtures. I mean, I actually made Tim take the plastic cover off the huge fluorescent light in the kitchen because it was icky. And once it was clean I realized that the kitchen was not supposed to have an eerie yellow glow, but that the cover was well beyond icky. I tore down wallpaper, I cleaned cabinets, I scrubbed doors, I bleached the crap out of all the surfaces that bleach is safe for. I mopped the entire house three times. and I can guarantee that number will multiply by leaps and bounds before we even move in. I evicted dozens of spiders, all the while yelling, "You don't live here anymore! This is my house now. Be gone with you, and tell your friends that this house is no longer vacant! I have a broom and a can of raid, and I am extremely adept at using both!" I swept up countless cockroach (excuse me, Palmetto bug) carcasses and many more legs. (What's that about? Do cockroaches shed legs periodically? Because there were an awful lot more legs than there were bodies. That's what I should have taken pictures of.)

So, overall, the house is pretty clean. And at the end of the day, we don't have a very daunting to-do list:

• Replace front screen door. (Tim was going to replace the missing screen in the door, but the longer he looked at it, he decided it would be well worth it to make another trip to Home Depot and replace the whole damn door.)
• Paint. Paint. Paint! We thought we were going to get away with painting only the kitchen and 2 of the 3 bedrooms. Natch. The entire house needs to be painted. Everything is ugly colored, badly painted, and it appears that the previous owners (probably upon learning that they were being foreclosed upon) allowed their small children to run through the house wielding permanent magic markers. And the master bathroom is PINK. Still not sure how I missed that the first time around, but friends, I don't do pink.
• Replace garbage disposal.
• Hang ceiling fan in the big gaping hole in the living room ceiling.
• Replace toilet seats. Why? Do you seriously need to ask why?
• Figure out how to make the alarm stop beeping incessantly every other minute. There's no way I can live with that, but you know the second I call the alarm company to find out how to disarm it, they are going to suck me in with some safety sales pitch, and before you know it I'm going to be a home owner with an alarm system that I will probably set off every time I come home for the first six months after it is functional.
• Buy refrigerator. Small detail.

And so tomorrow will be another big day. We are going shopping for paint (yay!) and returning the toilet seats I already bought because I was absolutely convinced the toilet seats were round. (Nope. Oblong. Oval. Whatever the weird shape is.) I'm probably going to clean the house again, because why not? I need to evict the foreclosure germs and get my own good karma in there. Then, as if all that weren't enough, we have to start packing. As if I want to do anything in my crappy apartment now. It pains me to even be sitting in it when I have a perfectly good house less than five miles away.

So, I promise to try and remember to take pictures tomorrow, of the new house and the destruction area that will soon be my apartment. One of the things I am looking forward to the most? Watching Hades, Azrael and Loki flip right out the first time they try to hightail it away from one another with no carpet to grip. It's going to be like 3 little Bambi's on ice, and it is going to be hysterical. I'm not mean, I just take my amusement where I can get it.

And it is only Day One. Stay tuned for Days Two through Nine. I will probably only keep an official record until we are all moved and settled in, and I plan for that to be next Sunday.

Hell, yes I'm ambitious.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

Rare Moment

We think Loki might have weathered his terrible twos, because it seems he is finally starting to calm down. Even so, it is a rare moment that he decides to cuddle up and sleep when he could be chasing the cats, begging for worms, or causing destruction to things he is not allowed to touch. (One thing I am realizing as I post more pictures of Loki is that our furniture is not ideal for his photo ops - his adorable little black face and nose blend way too much into the couch.)

Wii Golf

This is what we (Wii) do now. I think Tim and I are both so desperate for time to pass while we are waiting to close on the new house, we will do just about anything to occupy ourselves. The latest has become marathon sessions of Wii Golf. We play about 27-36 holes per night, and are ridiculously serious about our scores. Tim currently holds the record for the only Double Eagle, but I've got the only hole in one. Right now we are tied at a record of -8 for 9 holes. When I told my dad this, he said he was going to take me out on a real golf courses to see if I could translate the skill. Oh, bring it on, Dad.

Kinda Looks Like He's About To Eat Her

Yes?

How to Occupy a Skunk

Tough, rubber Kong packed tight with raisins, walnuts and various assorted treats. Keeps him occupied for hours. Can you do this with kids? I rest my case as to why I am still childless.

The Foosa

His Block given name is Azrael, but over the years he has become "The Foosa". If you've seen Madagascar, you'll understand the reference. He's generally anywhere and everywhere he's not supposed to be, and unlike any cat I've ever met he is desperate for attention. One of his other nicknames is the Puppet Master. Whenever he gives this cute face, or lets out a pitiful yowl that would make most people's skin crawl, I'll do just about whatever he wants. Whenever this happens Tim starts singing "Puppet Master" by Metallica - because Foosa pulls my strings every time.

I Hate My Apartment

It's nice, right? Can't even tell from these lovely pictures that there is no refrigerator, the A/C condensor (hiding behind that quaint little partial fence) needs to be replaced, and that the kitchen is currently painted an unthinkable shade of puked-up corn yellow. Here! Take my hundreds of thousands of dollars! No refrigerator? No problem! Ridiculously high HOA fee that comes along with rules prohibiting being barefoot in your own front yard before six in the morning? Sign us up! Oh, the A/C needs to be replaced? Hooray - more money we get to spend! (Need I remind you that I live in South Florida? The land where it reaches 90 degrees in October.) And yet, the stupid heartless bankers are still reluctant to give us the damn keys. I don't understand why. Oh, wait. It must be the hundreds of people banging at the door begging to live in a puke yellow kitchen with no regrigerator and broken A/C.

The point of this whole rant? The idea of getting to live in this, and paint the kitchen a not so horrible color, and possible sweat to death with no cold drinks for the first three months or so, has turned me against my apartment. The spacious two bedroom with vaulted ceilings that I once adored I now despise. Simply because it is not this house.

Again, I Ask...

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS FACE??

Is This Not the Cutest Face You've Ever Seen?

If it's not, you are either heartless, or the mother of a human baby, and you therefore DON'T GET IT.

I Believe I Can Fly

Styx, right before she decided she needed more excitement in her life and took a swan dive off the entertainment center. Don't worry, the only one hurt was me when I caught her spikes out.

Taking the High Ground

Ever since Loki joined the family, it's not exactly safe for the cats on the floor. Tails are easy targets for skunk teeth.

Mom Makes an OK Tree

Circus Skunk

We're trying to teach him to balance a ball on his nose, but he just ends up eating it. (Yes, those are worms you see dangling above his nose. We're pretty sure he would recite Shakespeare to get the worms if we asked him to.)

Damn You Darwin!

Now if we could only get him to lift the lid and flush.