Sweet Sweater Shindig, Take 3

I would be remiss if I did not start this off at the very beginning.  Before sweet sweaters can be worn, they must first be acquired or, in my case, made.  For weeks...make that months...I scoured the internet and the wonderful world of Pinterest for ideas.  Any ideas would not do; I needed the best possible ideas so that we could bring it harder than it had ever been brought before.

Once I found the ideas, it was time to start crafting.  Easier said than done with a fat cat who loves to play with shiny things that dangle.  (And did I mention I waited until the last possible moment of the evening before the party to work on my beautiful creations?) 

After he sliced in half the thread holding several balls with his sharp claws, he was evicted for the duration of the crafting session.  While I know you are dying to see the outcome of this (doesn't it look absolutely gawgeous in the picture?), you will have to wait.  Let these delightful shoes tie you over for a moment.

 Next, was the sweater for the elusive hubby.  That went something like this...

Oh yeah, you like that!  Just wait until his mug is placed right above that tiny elf body.  Yes, he actually did agree to this sweater prior to construction.

 

What would a sweet sweater shindig be without awards?  I needed to amp up the award categories this year!

 

Craftiest for the (duh!) craftiest sweater, ballsiest for the person you can NOT believe left the house wearing THAT thing, and ugliest for the overall ugliest sweater winner.  Why I did not take a picture of the ballot box is beyond me.  However, it was wrapped in the sweetest sweater wrapping paper you can imagine.  Is there anything better than a reindeer in an ugly sweater?  I can't think of one thing!

After this came a brief period of time (by which I mean at least two hours) during which I lost the award for craftiest sweater.  I was beside myself checking all nooks, crannies, and driveways that could possible be the hiding spot of the lost award.  It was terrible!  I gather random bits of craft supplies to create a makeshift, far worse and nonmatching, award.  As I was about to piece together the misfit award I stumbled upon the missing award!!!  It somehow attached itself to the inside of my ugly sweater...close one!

Please pardon the ridiculous outfit.  I promise I do not leave the house looking like this.

I could not wait to crown the winners.  With all of the prep behind, I now present the moment you have been waiting for...a sampling of delightful sweet sweaters from the party!!

Just dynamite!  These pants are just dynamite!

Ahh, another crafty one!  Those bows are in impeccable lines!

 

You can't forget the drunken bearded Santas!

 

Alas!  A Christmas tree and Santa's elf!

And now I leave you with the winners....

Shower Restoration, Part 2

The universe must not have been impressed with the selfie that I posted the other day, because THIS arrived in the mail yesterday!  Either that or this is a sign that I actually should include a ridiculous amount of selfies in my blog...what do you think?

And that brings me to part deux of the great shower restoration project.  Remember I finished cleaning all the scum and grout in the shower a few days back?  Well, caulking became a two day project after that.  Here's my pooch right after trying to help me out...I believe this was the point when she notified me that it is impossible to remove caulk without first applying a "softener" and scoffed on her way out of the shower.  Naive humans.

Fine, dog!  Off I go to the home improvement store to buy some caulk softener.  Little do I know that this is also not going to help.  Nice trick, dog!  Off I go to the home improvement store to get some real tools instead of these crappy red plastic caulk removers (you know, the kind that are only good for scraping crud off tiles).  Can I just say putty knives are amazing?  After that it all became pretty uneventful.  A little bit of painters tape and some caulk go a long way. 

Ooooh, pretty!

Take off the tape and voila!  Four trips to varying home improvement stores and $35 later, this is the shower. 

I guess now I can cross that one off the bucket list... 

The New Pad...Eventually

Today was a busy day!  Before I can even begin to tell you about that, I digress.  Monkey munch...mmmmm.  If you don't know, do an internet search for the recipe and make yourself a batch.  You will not regret it.  The hubs and I each have a bowl.  And a picture is worth 1,000 words.  I laughed my butt off for a solid 5 minutes over this one. 

Ok, now back to the busy day.  I went and put in an application for our new apartment.  You know, the one we will live in after we move out of this house!  I know what you're probably thinking.  What?  Is your house even on the market?  Well, not exactly.  Allow me. 

We are in the midst of sprucing up a few things in order to get our house on the market.  At the same time, we have been looking around at apartments and found the perfect one for us.  Smaller, maintenance free, new construction, downtown, full size washer and dryer, and they allow pets!  However, we want one particular apartment in the complex.  This apartment is next to the model, eliminating noisy neighbors, and backs up to a courtyard that I could easily use to entertain.  (And, if you don't already know, I am a FANATICAL hostess who LOVES throwing themed parties.  That was the one thing I was concerned about losing with the move.)  I've been keeping up to date with the leasing agent.  She knows our situation so I asked her to let me know if it seemed like anybody else wanted to rent OUR apartment.  Well, last week a couple almost did.  Thankfully they found out they were pregnant and needed a two bedroom.  Phew!  We dodged a bullet with that one!  Then, yesterday afternoon I got another message from her saying that a different couple was filling out the application and wanted OUR apartment.  Man, I just can not catch a break.  The hubs and I decided we should put in our application for a future date so they would reserve the apartment for us and we could stop having heart palpitations every few days because of this apartment.  We filled out all the necessary documentation and I drove down to the apartments bright and early this morning.    

Yep, that's me!

I was so eager to beat this other couple (evil, I know) that I got there before the leasing office opened.  Perfect photo op!  Here is the nautical themed "park" on site.  I know Popcorn is going to love peeing all over this joint.

Clock strikes 9 and I am in the door.  I turn in the application and ask if I can see the apartment to take some photos.  I knew my adoring fans would expect nothing less!  How could I possibly talk about my adventures with reserving an apartment and fail to have photographic evidence.  

The kitchen.  Notice the last cabinet on the right.  This is proof that I have the perfect spot for my human sized popcorn machine.  For some reason, the hubs has asked me on at least 4 separate occasions if I will be leaving my machine behind.  How rude!  I had to prove my case.  Winning! 

 

Looking out from the kitchen.  This will be the dining and living areas.  Sweet view to come later.

Bathroom.  This photo was taken more for my planning purposes than your viewing pleasure, but who am I to hold back on information?

And my personal favorite part...the courtyard where many a party will be had!  This area is complete with hammocks, fire pit, outdoors sofas, and a flat screen TV.

BTW, whenever an application is turned in you get a sweet schokolat bar!  In case you were unclear, that is the pool I will be floating in very soon.  There is still a debate raging as to whether the picture is printed on cardboard or edible paper.  I promise to inform you very, very soon.

So at least now we do not have to worry about some greedy couple snatching up our apartment.  Realtor comes Saturday to officially get our home photographed and listed.  Wish me (and I guess the hubs too) luck! 

I know you all are dying to hear how part two of the great shower renovation went, but I am still recovering from that.  There's always tomorrow.

When It Comes I Want To Wail....Mailllllll!!!!

Picture this.  The hubs and I have time to go out for dinner.  We get home, bellies full of pizza, and I check the mail.  Hmmm...traffic school?

Me: Honey, did you get a ticket? 

Him: Hahaha, oh yeah.  Forgot to tell you...

Me: Are you serious?

Him: Hahaha, yeah.

Turns out he got a ticket four days ago and failed to mention it until, you know, I pulled out THREE pamphlets from our mailbox!!!  I know we are busy, but I believe our paths have crossed at least once since then.  ;-) 

 

What happened, you ask?  Oh, nothing like an illegal (apparently there must have been a sign there somewhere...) U-turn at 4 in the morning.  The only thing I can say is I would have much rather paid for somebody to caulk the shower!

Shower Restoration, Part 1

I woke up this morning with great ambition to tackle the shower project.  First, I would clean all grout and tile.  Once that task was complete, I would remove all old caulk and put in new.  Easy enough!  I figured I would be done in no time.

So...here it is.  This, my friends, is what four years of cleaning your shower only once a month gets you.  A whole lot of dirt!  The only mystery about this picture is the solitary clean tile near the front of the shower.  How did that tile stay clean this whole time?  Does it have a secret I don't know? One that could have saved hours of my life? 
   

 

Thankfully, I was smart enough to buy all of my supplies last night before Home Depot closed.  If this pans out, I will have completed the whole project for the bargain cost of $25.  The caulk and caulk gun were free...courtesy of the last homeowner.  So you're telling me this isn't the first time this shower has needed a fix-up?  Really, the main thing I spent money on was my safety gear.  I was worried about burning my hands with acid or breathing in too many fumes and having the hubby find me passed out on the bathroom floor after work.   

First things first, since they didn't have doggy respirators at the store, I locked the pooch out of the bathroom.  She seems so distressed in the picture, but I can assure you within three seconds she was snoring under the bed again.  As a matter of fact, I didn't see her again until she heard me making myself a snack hours later.    

 

Next, I got geared up.  I am not usually one for selfies, but this situation seemed to necessitate one.  I can't decide if I have a tiny head or if all safety equipment is sold for giants...what do you think?  The good news is my neck was covered in case I accidentally started breathing through a trach!

 

Through all of my research last night, I found out that I should absolutely bleach the entire shower before doing anything else.  Apparently, if you don't kill the mildew first it will just come right back.  Go figure!  I'll leave out the ridiculously boring details of how to use bleach, but I did find that scraping the dirt worked the best of all for removal.  Maybe it was loosened by the bleach?     

Note the huge glove as well...it's official! All safety equipment is, indeed, sold for giants!

 After a lot of bleach and some scraping, this is what I had left.  Ok, I can see a little progress.  It is a little disconcerting that even the parts I scrubbed with bleach are still not as clean as the miraculous tile that never got dirty, but I will take it! 

It was about this time that I realized I was putting way too much muscle in to this activity.  After all, I had gotten "no scrubbing necessary" tile cleaner made with multiple forms of acid.  Just spray, leave 2-3 minutes, and wipe off with a sponge before rinsing.  Great!!!  What have I been waiting for?  

Don't waste your money!  The results of this so-called "cleaner" were so negligible I even forgot to take a picture of the product.  Wah, wah, wahhhhhhh.  How the heck can I get this thing clean?!?  Well, scraping seemed to work the best in the beginning...I realized I just needed a "scraper" to help me out.  Cue me ripping open the package of the caulk removal tool; this things sole purpose in life is to scrape!  So what if this isn't technically caulk?  Within 10 minutes, the shower looked like this. 

 
Moral of the story is chemicals are useless.  If something needs cleaning, just wipe the dirt off.  You live, you learn!

Sadly, since this took me so long, I am going to have to do part two of the great shower restoration tomorrow.  Stay tuned for this cupcake's chronicle of caulking a shower...

Hey there, cupcake!

So here I am.  Googling around trying to figure out how in the world I am going to caulk my shower and clean the grout once and for all.  I have no idea!  Isn't this a man's job?  Shouldn't my husband be doing this?  And then it hits me...I am marginally married.  I have a husband, who I adore, but the man simply has no time.  He works far too much and sleeps far too little to do strange things like refinish our shower.  I am forced to independence. 

Countless events over the last few weeks scroll through my brain.  The images of me doing things alone that normal married people do as a couple.  I'm not sad or bitter; some of them are downright hilarious.  Apartment hunting downtown, cleaning the entire house so I can meet with a realtor to sell this place, giving away a metric boatload of items via Craigslist all while never opening my front door to a stranger (that's dangerous and I'm not crazy!), figuring out a plan to spay and neuter the stray mama cat and her five kittens that have taken up residence in my backyard, planning a "Through the Decades" party because I can, fixing running toilets, giving the in-laws back all of the baby stuff because how will we ever have time to conceive if we don't see each other...all alone.

And since no post would be complete with pictures, I dug up these gems from my pre-blogging life to prove that nobody could possibly make this stuff up.

Okay, friends, feral cats are VERY difficult to photograph, but look in the center for the cutest kitten around.  Here's the full scoop on this one.  Picture us on a week long beachfront vacation.  Ahhhhh.  Nothing better.  Then we come home to find life at home hasn't changed one bit.  First things first...the toilet has been running nonstop since we left one week ago.  I thought we checked that before we left!!  Oh well, no big deal.  We have PLENTY of money to pay the $300 water bill that will arrive in just a few weeks.  I wish I was kidding, but sadly I am not.  Next, I let the pooch out just in time for her to be attacked by a feral cat leaping from the bushes.  What the heck?!?!?  Cut to me very carefully rooting around to find five baby kittens.  Being the concerned citizen I am, I don't want them multiplying in my neighborhood.  Are there any shelters that will take kittens and adopt them out to a good home?  No, definitely not.  It's apparently cat season and everybody is full.  My only choice is to catch them all.  The lady at the Humane Society says they like Popeye's chicken best and it is my only hope of getting each cat in his/her very own trap.  Easier said than done.  Don't worry - the day before I am set to pick up the traps all of the cats move out never to be seen again.  Reason #389 of why we need to move out ASAP: Nine months from now there will be approximately 97 inbred feral kittens running amuck in my neighborhood because I failed.  In case you were wondering, my husband has absolutely zero involvement in this whole ordeal other than telling me, "They can not live in our backyard!"  Thanks for the advice, dear.  :-)  

Reason #420 of why we need to move ASAP: This will be my new backyard.  No feral cats, no grass that will die when the sprinklers break, no fence that needs to be pressure washed...I could go on an on.

Welp, better get to bed.  After all, I have a shower to caulk tomorrow....