Five Things I Learned This Weekend

I accomplished nothing this weekend.  NOTHING.  No painting, no deck-fixing, nada.  But in the process of accomplishing nothing, I did learn some very interesting things that I am going to call "The Five Things I Learned This Weekend."  Sometimes my creativity amazes me.  We'll see if this becomes a routine Monday post... I'm not sure I learn five interesting things every weekend.  Here goes:

1. You only wish roller coasters would last longer than a minute until you've been stuck on one.  This weekend, five of us hit up Six Flags as part of a work event and ended up trapped on Superman for about 45 minutes... stuck in the hanging position.... fortunately over solid ground, however, and not in a loop.  We did have to be rescued individually though, and some of us really had to pee... others took the opportunity to take a little snooze.

After 10 minutes stuck while it was still kind of funny.

Sleeping or dead?  

Rescue!

Also, I can now add this to my list of things I've been rescued from.  This includes:

- Rescued by the fire department from an elevator that had been stuck between floors for an hour with 20 people in it including most of a wedding party (and the groom) the night before the wedding.

- Rescued by my mom from The Cheese Factory at Chuck E. Cheese.

2. Dogs do not like Teddy Ruxpin.  Maybe it's his shifty, blinking eyes or perhaps Olive just has a thing about ancient technology because when I put a cassette tape in that little bear, she was outta there.  However, in his "off" position, he is an acceptable pillow.

Stop looking at me, swan!

3. Pay phones still serve two purposes - photo opportunities and a reason to use hand sanitizer.

Only funny after day-drinking.

4. My self-confidence as a five-year-old bordered on narcissism.  Though, in my defense and based on my other answers, I'm not sure I understood the question.  The fifth answer, which is offscreen, was CATS... so yeah, I was pretty AND smart.

Thanks to my Mom for bringing down a box filled with every school project I ever did.

Also, apparently I liked to talk and daydream... a lot.  Yeah, that hasn't changed... and I'm pretty sure that's how I ended up here.

5. Finally, I'm pretty sure I believe that, in my lifetime, I will never hear the words: "World Champion Milwaukee Brewers" and that makes me sad.  But hey, at least I'm not a Cubs fan.

Digging for Clams

Remember when you were a kid and you'd roll up your jeans because you thought it looked cool?  (Not gonna lie, I'm still a notorious jean-roller-upper...) And then gramps would come up and say something like, "What are you doing?  Digging for clams?"  Well that's all I could think about while looking at the new curtains we just hung.

Um, yeah... just a bit on the short side, right?  So how'd that happen?  Well, lets start at the beginning... somebody cue up a Wayne & Garth dream sequence for me.

So I was hanging out at the Max with my friends, Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski... oh wait, wrong dream sequence...  I was shopping at the TJ Maxx when I stumbled upon some teal blue curtain panels that were, wait for it, 9.99 a piece.  So I was all like, "sweet, these will look perfect in my living room when I have my awesome charcoal couch and gray walls and we'll live happily ever after."  The end.  Not really... but look how cute they are with my new pillow.

By the way, I think this pillow is now my inspiration for everything.

So now we needed some hardware to put these babies up and there we have our problem.
The guys who lived here before us had kindly (didn't patch ANYTHING) left the holes in the wall where they had their curtain hardware so my thought is GREAT - no drilling!

Hardware all from Lowes.  Pay no attention to the other curtains in this pic.  Those curtains are too long and this is the story of the too short curtains.  I'm starting to feel like Goldilocks here.

So we put everything up with the already established holes - I never even thought about measuring the curtains because, yeah, I'm awesome like that... ding ding ding, we have high water curtains.

And that's how I learned that just because there's a hole there, it doesn't mean you should stick something in it.  Sorry... I can never resist a "That's What She Said" joke.  And also, that's a lie.  The first time I learned that lesson was back in elementary school when I was out playing with the neighbor kids and we found a hole in the ground with a bunch of bees flying in and out.  Of course the best idea ever is to put a stick in the hole right?  Well, not if there are about a hundred bees that were apparently out & about doing their whole bee thing and then needed to get back into said hole.

So here's what I decided to do with the curtains, it's a very technical and complicated solution, prepare yourselves.  I took the hem out.  Don't judge.  Still not perfect but at least slightly better.  However, now I have an unfinished curtain bottom.  So now I'm thinking about adding a contrasting panel at the bottom.  Any suggestions?  White?  Gray?  Different shade of blue?  Any ideas out there?

Left curtain still short, right curtain less short.

By the way, since I still haven't found my awesome charcoal couch that I'm going to live happily ever after with, we've still got the red one.  And you know what that means?  Yes, my living room is currently red, white and blue.  Boom.  Patriotic.

Also, I'm still on the fabric hunt for my thrift chair.  I thought I found something awesome but it totally doesn't match... way too green.

So now I'm thinking that gray and white chevron print I found a few days back is the frontrunner.  Trying to match blues is giving me the blues.

Also, here's a little Olive love for the night... just because.

Guess we'll be sleeping on the couch.

Our "Kids" Walk On All Fours

I would like to properly introduce our four-legged family members.  While they don't help us out with too many projects around the house (actually, they add more projects to the list... dang those scratchy little paws), they do play a huge part in our lives.  So on that note, meet Panthro and Olive.

Ah man, there are those dang Twilight books again.  You'd think I had multiple copies.  Side note: this is the one and only time they've sat together like this and it lasted just long enough for me to get this picture.  Can't you just feel the anger in Panthro's eyes?

I don't like to get too preachy about anything on the interwebs, it's just not my thing, but I do feel like I should mention that they are both rescues... and it's October which is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month! I will always recommend checking out rescues when looking for an addition to the family but everyone's entitled to their own opinion and what works for someone may not work for others. We just happen to love mutts, especially our own!  That doesn't, however, mean it's been smooth sailing with either of them.

That ear just kills me.

We rescued Panthro (formerly named Juan Pablo) from a shelter when he was about a year and a half old. His owner had passed away and family members had brought him and his dog & cat siblings to a no-kill shelter when they couldn't find anyone to take care of them. Poor guy watched both of his buddies get rescued before him and he sat for months without an adopter.

Panthro loves fetch (his interest has dwindled as he's gotten older), "walking" on a leash and snuggling with all of our guests... especially the ones with cat allergies.

Olive (formerly Fergie... yeah, that name had to go) was rescued from animal services. She was picked up as a stray on the mean ATL streets at about four months old. She'd obviously had a rough time out there as she had some scabs and a damaged ear that has stayed half flopped over (we think she got in a tussle that left her with some cartilage damage). She also had worms and kennel cough... awesome.

Olive's puppy photo courtesy of Dekalb County Animal Services.  That face sold us!

Introducing Panthro and Olive was not easy... at all. I actually ended up in Urgent Care the first weekend we had Olive.  Panthro didn't take the new addition too well and four cat bites to the head later, my face was swollen and I was on antibiotics. I kinda looked like this.  Panthro also now has a permanent record as all animal bites have to be reported.  Yeah, my cat is a badass.  He will cut you.

Cat, you are invading my personal bubble.

We have no idea what Olive is.  Some people say Chow mix and I see it because of the fluff and coloring but she doesn't have the typical black tongue that Chows get (just one little spot that lots of dogs get). Some have said they see Shepard, others say Golden.  We think she looks a lot like a really random and rare breed mix called a Eurasier. But the chances of her actually being that mix (intentionally) are pretty slim.

Photo from dogsbreed.net

What do you think?  Maybe a Chow, Keeshond and Samoyed all had a wild night in some seedy Atlanta alley and a few months later we stumbled upon an accidental Eurasier. Who knows.

What we do know is that she's prey driven, a great watch dog and reactive.  What is a reactive dog?  Well, it basically means that lots of little things can "set her off."  It could be someone out walking that she thinks is too close to our house (again, great watch dog but it can be really annoying when we have to restrain her every time someone approaches the house.  I really hope this means she's doing a good job of keeping the bad guys away... yeah, that means you, guy who stole our lawnmower) or it could be seeing or hearing another dog or a cat while we're out for a walk. Things that don't bother other dogs can cause Olive to go crazy... pulling, barking, jumping. But it's all something we're working on and honestly, it could be something we work on for the rest of her life.

We're ok with that though because we made her a promise when we took her home that day.  We wanted to give her the best life possible.  She brings us so much joy and the least we can do is give some back in return.  Besides, look at that face!

So there it is, a proper introduction to our furry helpers.  Yeah, Olive got a little more press here than Panthro but even a cat lover can admit that dogs can be slightly more interesting than cats.  Sorry, Panthro.  Oh and if you just can't resist Olive's charm, you can actually follow her adventures on twitter... yes for real... at twitter.com/OlivePazuzu.

On the project front, we've got a bunch of things planned.  Painting, lighting, painting the lighting... way too much to list but definitely back soon with a new project.  We're actually off to Home Depot now.  Later!