How Can You Hate a Cat in a Sweater?

Now that I've got a wall full of frames, I can start thinking about what I'd like to put in them.  Right now they're filled with black & white photos - mostly from our wedding.  And that's great but there's so much other awesome stuff out there.

Take this cat in a holiday sweater for example.  He's pretty much inspiring me to do an entire wall of Christmas pictures.

I will call him Sweater-Puss.  Found Here

I obviously need him... but guess who thinks I don't? This guy:

This man hates cats in sweaters.  Clearly he has no sense of humor.

If I can't have Sweater-Puss, I think I need to check out some other frame-able options:

Found here

YES! This is totally appropriate (well maybe not the fighting, crying and guilt but booze... that's spot on) - especially for those of us who have family who imbibe in a few too many Old-Fashioneds every year. This is exactly how last year's Christmas dinner conversation began this way:

Anonymous Family Member (name removed to protect the innocent): "Dinner's almost ready, I just need someone to toss my salad."  

Does anyone else's holiday dinner include salad-tossing?  Or is it just mine?

Or how about the year before, when I told my entire family about that one time I drank too many gin & tonics and ended up locking myself in the bathroom, slipping in the tub and ripping the whole shower curtain down on myself. Grandpa's response was, "And that's my granddaughter." Pretty sure he was just expressing his pride. 

Or maybe I really need this one:

Found here

I know, I know... I be hatin' on Dollar stores.  Yes, you can score sweet deals on cleaning products and wrapping paper and canned wieners... but it's totally obvious when your office secret santa spends his entire gift limit there or in Target's everything's-a-dollar bins.  I mean, come on, at least get me the reindeer that poops jelly beans... never mind, don't get me that, I actually already have one. 

Or how about this guy:

Found Here

Are zombies still cool?  Or passé like ninjas and pirates?  I hope still cool because I think this Zombie Santa really pops.  I hate when I jump on a trend when it's on its way out.

Gosh, I feel all holiday-spirity now.  And I'm pretty sure that after hubby sees my alternatives to Sweater-Puss, my St. Nick stocking is going to be filled with one really awesome photo of a cat in a Christmas sweater.  And if I don't happen to get Sweater-Puss?  I'm putting this up instead:

Santa Hubby

Balls

So when is it acceptable to start a fight with an 80 year old man?  Is it after he builds a soccer field in the residential lot behind yours with the soccer goal against your fence? Or after teenagers start kicking the balls over and climbing your fence to retrieve them?  Or after that soccer field starts getting used by adults who kick the soccer balls into your fence, breaking the boards?  Yeah, that's what's been happening and now there's a big damn hole in our fence for our dog to escape through.

Let's rewind a bit.  I first tried to address the situation with Old Man by phone months ago:

Me: "I am concerned about adults using the "soccer field" you put behind our house.  They are kicking the ball into our fence and trespassing on our property (this part wouldn't be such a big deal if we hadn't already been robbed).  Also, they are going to damage our fence... and it's annoying to have loud soccer games behind our house every single night."

Old Man: "Well the soccer field is only for the kids in my organization and I don't know why you want to spend time outside anyway.  You should just enjoy your air conditioning inside like I do."

Me: "We bought a house with a yard because we like outside and the soccer field is being used by more than just your kids.  This is a problem."

Old Man: "Well you had kudzu growing on your fence. It harbors rats and snakes.  Who do you think cut that down for you when we built the soccer field?"

Me: "Super... didn't realize kudzu harbors rats..."

Old Man: "Really?  Where are you from?"

Me: "Wisconsin"

Old Man: "Really?  But people from there are usually so nice."

I'm pretty sure Old Man just inferred that I was a bitch.  This was going nowhere.

Me: "Could you take the nets down when you're not playing?"

Old Man: "That's too much work"

Me: "Could you put up signs with rules that state this field is only for kids?  I'll even let you post them on the back of our fence."

Old Man: "The state of the economy has made things difficult - signs are expensive."

Me: "I'll pay for the signs."

Old Man: "I did put up signs but someone ripped them down."

Me: "See!  Clearly this is a problem - now the people are ripping down the signs."

So then I decided to make some signs of my own.  Here is sign #1:

But some people didn't think that was effective enough so I made this one:

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to hang either sign before today's destructive events happened. But I totally think people would have appreciated our concern for their balls.

Fast forward to today's broken fence.  Here's what things are looking like:

Clearly broken

This is the spot Olive can escape from.  Hubby nailed the broken piece back to the fence.

So how do we deal with this?  Well, hubby walks around back to have a conversation with the folks who busted our fence.  I don't do so well with civilized conversation.  Instead I run out of the house, barefoot, like a raging maniac.  RAWRRRR - WHO'S GONNA FIX MY FENCE SO MY DOG DOESN'T ESCAPE???  I'm 5 foot 3 inches of FURY. 5 foot 3 inches behind a 6 foot fence. But once I climb up that fence I'm like 6'5 and totally intimidating... in my mind. To the people I'm yelling at, I'm just 5 foot 3 inches of crazy.  I'm like an insane robot with only two settings.  

Setting 1 - Terrified of confrontation. Afraid to order pizza. Scared of the bank teller.  STRANGER DANGER!

Setting 2 - Raging monster.  The only thing scarier would be a cross between Cthulhu and an angry narwhal.

How do the soccer players respond to my craziness?  "Don't you have like some maintenance man to come fix it or something?" Seriously? Sure, let me just call the property manager and get him to come out and fix this. Oh wait, that's me... cause this is my house and not an apartment complex. Ugh.

So we assess the damage and between our fence and our neighbor's, we've got seven broken boards.  This is where we call Old Man again and ask him to come out so we can figure out how to get our fence repaired.  Here's what happens next:

Old Man to Soccer Players: "You're not supposed to be here.  You're ruining this for the children"

Soccer Players: "Well, how are we supposed to know we can't play here?  There are no signs" 

Bam.  That's what I said.

Old Man: "This field is for the children of my organization"

One Soccer player: "But I used to play for your organization"

Bahahaha.

Hubby: "Let's talk about fixing the boards"

Neighbor: "Yeah, we don't want people going all Pele on our fences"

Old Man: "Well this board just looks rotten"

Side note: Our fence was built less than 10 years ago.  The boards are perfectly unrotten.

Hubby:  "Our fence is not rotten.  It's broken from soccer ball impact."

Old Man: "I was relaxing at home, enjoying a movie on my couch and I didn't want to have to come up here and deal with this."

Baaahhhh!  This is hopeless!  Anyway, Old Man got out his insurance information while I held the dog back from her newfound escape route.  Then we nailed a temporary board over the hole in the fence and are now crossing our fingers that they will actually repair the damage.

Later, husband and I argued about discussed how we both responded to the situation. I was ready to grab the nearest sharp object and defend my property to the death.  Hubby just wanted to use his words. His response was probably more socially acceptable but I still believe mine would have been more effective.  

Oh and I didn't fix my messed up lamp but here's the other shit I made this week.  It's a picture wall. 

So I had this bare wall:

And I hated that the thermostat was all up in your face in the dining area.  Also, I had a ton of frames that were left over from our wedding that we had used for our table numbers.  I bought all of the frames from Goodwill for almost nothing and then antiqued them.  I figured I could use them again later and voila, here we are... using them again.

First I cut up my Anthropologie catalog (fear not, they always send me two... I totally circled the iPod victrola for my Christmas list in the other one) and used the pages as placeholders for the frames.  I cut them to the exact size and then marked where the hanger was so I could nail right through the sheets and then just tear them down.  Also, I numbered them all so I knew which was which.  Fortunately, most of my frames already had numbers in them since they used to be table numbers.

Then I arranged everything the way I thought I wanted it on the floor.

Ugly Box...

Oh and the dog did not help at all.

Then I translated that to the wall. This way I could try different placements without putting holes in the wall.

And then when I decided I like the arrangement, I nailed straight through the paper, ripped it down and then hung the frames.  And it looked like this:

And I like it.  I want to add a few more frames and fill in some small spaces with some other meaningful things but I think it's a good start... and it totally hides the thermostat.

Here's a close up of a couple of my favorite photos:

Yes, we did take our wedding photos with the Bronze Fonz and the Klements Racing Sausages. This is why the hubby puts up with me.

MIA

I have been MIA for a while.  Mostly because I'm a train-wreck and I broke my face.  Like stitches-all-up-in-my-mug-broken.  Most people who end up with stitches get to tell a really cool story like:

"I did thirty flips through the air on my dirt bike and landed on my face." 

Or

"I climbed into the lion's den at the zoo and this is how they had to reattach my arm."

I, on the other hand, get to tell people that I tripped over a chair and face-planted into the desk in my hotel room while trying to answer my wakeup call.  And that is how I ended up looking like this:

Doesn't look so bad here but it was a nasty hole in my face before the stitches.

But before that, I did this:

Tebowing in the ER - please note bloody towel on bed.

So there I was in Dallas on Halloween (for work) taking a taxi to Baylor Hospital to get my face stitched back together (it is totally acceptable to make Frankenstein jokes here) and I felt like I was guest starring in a holiday episode of ER.  The waiting room was filled mostly with people whom I assumed to be vagrants looking for a comfortable place to crash for the night while most of the hospital workers were wearing some type of Halloween garb.  Meanwhile, I was walking around with all of my luggage and bleeding all over myself.  I think my favorite part of this adventure (besides missing my flight home and having the company travel agent laugh at me after hearing my story) was the conversation I had with the Pharmacist:

Pharmacist: "Car accident?"

Me: "Hotel room accident."

Pharmacist: blank stare

Me: explanation

Pharmacist: "You know, no one is ever going to believe that story."

Me: "Actually, you don't know me very well.  Two weeks ago I was rescued from a roller coaster.  I probably shouldn't even get on a plane today."

Pharmacist: blank stare

Anyway, four stitches later, I left for the airport by taxi.  My cab driver was mean and yelled at me for not being at the right location for my pickup.  I looked at the guy (still bleeding by the way) and replied, "You're picking me up from a hospital and taking me to an airport, I'm bleeding, do I really look like I need to hear this from you right now?" He didn't talk to me the rest of the way... it was nice.

Now I have a nice big scar on my chin that I am trying my hardest to repair ($30 for Mederma? Seriously?).  I'm guessing this is some sort of retribution for my early childhood vanity (see #4 here).

In other I-Think-I'm-Defective-You-Should-Really-Return-Me news, today is day two of migraine/headache/brainworm that is trying to kill me.  Yesterday I'm pretty sure I had a fever.  So when I mentioned to husband, over IM, that I had a migraine and a fever and I was probably dying, he sent me this.

I don't think instant messenger was the appropriate form of communication to explain my maladies. I think he might read everything I write in my "sarcastic voice."  Which totally sucks because if I were ever being attacked by rabid squirrels and could only plead for help over IM, he'd probably reply with this.

So today I wake up with same headache day two.  Well, not quite the same, today the light sensitivity has dissipated so I'm less concerned that I'm turning into a vampire.  So I say:

Me: "Ugh, headache"

Husband: "Do you want me to turn on Dan Patrick?"

Me: "Um, yesterday I told you I had a fever and you sent me more cowbell, today you offer to turn on Dan Patrick. I am uncertain of this treatment plan.  Is this approved by the FDA or does it at least get the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?" (also, I kind of did want him to turn on Dan Patrick but it seemed weird to say: Yes, watching Dan Patrick is totally the cure for this headache.)

Husband: "I offered you an ibuprofen first.  You're making me sound like an idiot." (Now in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that he **might** have asked me if I wanted an ibuprofen first but all I heard was "Do you want to watch Dan Patrick?")

Me: "It's funnier the way I heard it.  Where else would I get all my material from?"

Husband: "Michaels or Forsyth Fabric. (well look at that, design humor)  Do you want one?"

Me: "Yes, I will have one Dan Patrick, please.  Thank you."  

And then he brought me an ibuprofen.  Win.

By the way... I painted some lamps.  Here's what they looked like before:

Along with all of my supplies.

And here is one now in its half done state:

This is the good one.

You only get to see one because one is good and the other looks like it was painted by blind monkeys.  How do two lamps that are exactly the same, painted with the exact same paint, turn out different colors?  One was happy yellow, the other was "I'm kinda yellow but I almost look like throw-up orange oh and I'm also bumpy."  And before anyone says that I didn't shake the can well enough.  I swear to you, I SHOOK it.  I shook it real good. 

I was totally bummed out by my mishap so I gave up... well for a week anyway.  I was also running out of painting light outside and I still don't have lampshades because the ones I found that I totally wanted were $80 a piece and that is NOT thrifty.  Lamp saga will continue this weekend, if this brainworm doesn't kill me first.  Wish me luck... or wish the brainworm luck.  I'm not sure whose side you're on.