Talking about dogs:
Matt: [Shiba inus] are not as a cute as a Chinese Watercress
Me: A what?
Matt: …a Chinese water….cress?
Me: A Chinese watercress….
Matt: What’s the David Bowie dog?
Me: A Chinese crested?
Matt: Yeah, that’s what I said.
You gotta admit, they do look pretty similar….
We’ve all seen the perfectly styled bookshelves right? Magazines, Pinterest, Blogs… they’re often heavier on the decorative objects than reading material, which is all well and good, but what if you’re an obsessive book hoarder like moi?
This is what’s been sitting in our living room for months. I got as far as grouping the books together and then just petered out. With guests coming this weekend I figured I should get cracking again.
I started by grouping the books in a way that made since to me (by loose category, by author, and by personal preference). I once caved and experimented with organizing by color but it was very much not for me (but hey, if that’s your jam you do you).
Don’t get stuck with perfect rows of books. I stacked mine in multiple directions, partly because otherwise I’d run out of room, and partly because it adds some visual interest and leaves some space for accessorizing.
Once you’ve got your books organized fill in with things you love. If you’re not a tchotchke collector you can leave it at the books, or add in some family photos or art. You don’t have to go overboard since you’ve already probably overloaded with books. Top some vertical stacks, use heavier objects as bookends, layer smaller items in front of the books.
Don’t worry about making it magazine perfect, make it livable. First and foremost you want to be able to find your books. The secondary purpose (for the book whore anyway) is displaying your collectibles.
These shelves still have a ways to go–I want to redo the back and make them built-ins with more substance–but it’s a solid start at least.
We skipped town this weekend to go to the wedding of one of my college friends. We drove south along the Mississippi and got to take in some lovely fall color. Matt also discovered that he had met the sister of the bride before since one of his college friends married her sister in law. Life is weird.
*Open bar, cake, archaeology-themed candy bar, giant pile of oreos arranged into another tiered cake… it’s a miracle I didn’t explode.
**Both mine. I have some phenomenally cute T-strap vintagey shoes, but they’re not good shoes for standing/walking/dancing in.
***If you head south along the Mississippi you cross into WI, then back into MN, then back into WI again.
So tonight there’s supposed to be a Harvest Moon/Super Moon/Lunar Eclipse, but I apparently fail at life and Matt called me on the way home from his board meeting to remind me.
Matt: So the eclipse is just starting
Me: I can’t see the moon!
Matt: Well of course you can’t, it’s being eclipsed*
Me: I even looked up what direction the moon should be in and can’t see anything! I’m so bad at astronomy that I can’t even find the moon!**
Matt: Um, ok then. I’ll just head home then.
Once he did get home he dragged me across the street to where you could actually see the moon and, despite the light pollution of living in St Paul (and it being a lot smaller than I expected for a Super Moon), it was pretty cool. And it really did turn reddish near the end… and that’s when we went inside because we’re totally not astronomers. Obviously.
*He thinks he’s funny, and sometimes he is…this was not one of those times
**This is pretty true. Don’t even try to point out constellations to me. I’ve spent several summer evenings sitting in a hot tub with friends and making up my own dam constellations like Jump Roping Kangaroo and Two Headed Sloth. This is was in high school so there wasn’t even any alcohol involved, although we did skip Senior Ball in favor of the hot tub, a tea party, and a Monty Python Flying Circus marathon so it’s entirely possible our families and fellow students thought we were doing drugs.
Me: I HATE OUR STAIRS!
Matt: You love our stairs.
Me: I hate our stairs; they tried to kill me this morning! And that goofy mini landing that I said I was indifferent to last night? I changed my mind. I like it, it tried to save me. Also, I hate being thirty.
Lesson learned for the day: socks and wood treads do not mix. Especially first thing in the morning. Thankfully (?) I was slightly twisted as I went flying (falling with style?) so I didn’t bounce down on my tailbone, but rather my left butt cheek. I’m now sitting on an ice pack and Matt just pointed out we have a 3 hour car ride ahead of us this afternoon. Joy…
We also currently have a plumber in our basement replacing our main water shutoff so hopefully we can finally get our tub faucet replaced since it’s leaky as all hell. We got it into our heads to try and do it the night before we left for Europe (are we brilliant or what?) but didn’t get anywhere since there’s not a shutoff right at the tub and we couldn’t get the basement one to budge (and were concerned about breaking it since it was pretty old). Fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong since this week has been pretty beastly already.
Update: I was all disappointed because before we left I check myself out in the mirror and nothing! Not even the vaguest hint of a bruise. Sooo disappointed! If I was going to be in this much pain I wanted something to show for it! Then we went to Wausau, we weddinged it up with my family (there is now, unfortunately, photo and perhaps also video evidence of me doing the Macarena. Beware the open bar….). I couldn’t sit comfortably all night. Then we got back to our hotel room and I discovered I now had a giant-ass bruise. A giant-ass ass bruise if you will. It’s like the size of my hand and almost entirely dark purple. It’s the most impressive and horrible looking bruise I have ever gotten and I can’t even show it to anyone without being indecent! I just dissolved into giggles at this point. My sister and brother-in-law were in the hallway at this point because they had managed to lock their 2 year old in their room* and were probably wondering what in god’s name we were up to.
*Believe it not this is becoming a trend at weddings we attend. You have adjoining rooms and some well meaning parent bars the main door so the child can’t wander out when they can’t see. Child then closes the adjoining door (or babysitting grandparents go to sleep) and you can no longer get in through the main room door since the extra latch is in place. Good times.
Want to see something shameful?
This is our bathtub:
And this is our bathtub after I pulled off the grody non-slip sticker things.
Can I get a collective EEEEEEWWWW? Yeah, I thought so. I’m a little ashamed to have my watermark on them…. although I am posting these filthy pictures on the internet so apparently I have no shame.
This nastiness is one of the many issues lurking in the Brown Bathroom of Despair, but it’s also the easiest to do something about. And who doesn’t love scrubbing a tub while recovering from some crazy back spasm thing?* Well, ya’know, desperate times and all that. Thankfully I mastered claw foot tub cleaning a while back so it’s actually not too bad.
Here’s what you need:
That’s it.
Sprinkle the tub with a coating of baking soda (a mesh strainer or flour sifter can help you sprinkle more evenly). Then fill a spray bottle with vinegar and good squirt of dish soap and spray down the tub surface so there’s a nice vinegary paste over the whole thing. Let it sit about 15 minutes and then scrub away. You shouldn’t have to use too much elbow grease since the baking soda does most of the work. Finish with a good rinse and you’re done!
Ta-da!
It’s not perfect but SO much better. I think the only way to get it perfect at this point would be to completely re-glaze anyway which is not high on our priority list at the moment. We’re hoping to completely gut the bathroom at some point in the future (probably WAY in the future) and Matt’s even talked about replacing the tub with a non-clawfoot. *gasp* I’m going to fight to keep it though.
The vinegar/dish soap combo also works wonders on soap scum.
Note: I’ve only ever used the baking soda/vinegar method on enamel tubs so I don’t know how acrylic stands up to it.
Matt and I also tackled plumbing for the first time today! And were successful!!! The fill valve in the upstairs toilet was faulty. Basically the water in the tank should fill until it causes the float to, uh, float and that will trigger the water to stop… only ours kept getting stuck so the water wouldn’t refill until we reached into the tanked and jiggled it loose. We also tried to add a dual flush system at the same time but the one we picked up didn’t quite fit our tank. I’m not going to make any claims of being a master plumber and certainly have no intention of reinventing the toilet-fixing-tutorial wheel, so if you’re looking for a how-to here’s what we referenced.
* I realized a few days later that my back spasmed like the second I turned 30. WTF? Matt lost his super memory as soon as he turned thirty (he can’t even remember my favorite flavor of ice cream anymore, it’s sad) and I apparently will have my body just rebel against me. Awesome. The bright side is that I’m now officially old enough for the NSFW deck of Exploding Kittens.
Matt and I just returned from a pretty epic European vacation–London, Prague, Amsterdam, and Reykjavik. It was delightful (minus some minor mishaps) and gorgeous, and we managed to experience the worst summer storm in recorded history in Amsterdam. I’ll do a mini rundown once I get my pictures sorted, but if you want an even briefer rundown you can check out my Instragram feed.
Also, as soon as I stepped off the plane in MSP my back spasmed or something so now I’m pumped full of pain meds and wedged into the couch so my crazy optimistic plans for today (counter tops! kitchen faucet! window repair!) have kind of stopped in their tracks. Matt tackled the window repair since a nasty storm here the day we left did a number on 2 of our windows leaving our (awesome) cat sitters to have to come up with a temporary fix. I’m hoping I’ll be functioning again by this weekend since I’m itching to finish up in the kitchen and start work on the Brown Bathroom of Despair.
If you are, say, planning an international trip after moving but before you are actually unpacked, it is very important to make sure the keys to the safe (where the passports are kept) are put in a Safe Place. And because we all know what happens when you put something in a Safe Place you probably want to write yourself reminders of where that place is, and possibly get that reminder tattooed on your forehead as well.
Seriously, hearing “So… where did we pack the keys to the safe?” from Matt freaked me out way more than the news on the London Tube Strike and potential Grexit combined. Thankfully the keys were found*, I double triple quadruple checked that the passports had not mysteriously vanished, suddenly expired, or spontaneously combusted, and EuroTour** 2015 is still on!***
Unrelated: This is the best thing I’ve read all day. I sort of want to move Toronto now… I may have found my people.
Also, there will be more actually design related updates coming. The boxes need to be moved out of the kitchen so I can paint, and my temporary counter top solution needs to arrive so we can fix the beat up laminate and replace our faucet and then I can move on to the Brown Bathroom of Despair!
*The Safe Place turned out to be the bottom of my purse. Naturally.
**We’re going to 4 countries and only one actually uses the Euro. Are we efficient or what?
***Matt moved the keys to a new Safe Place. Wish us luck for when it’s actually time for us to leave.
This conversation just happened via text today:
Me: OMG THE IKEA PARKING LOT IS INFESTED WITH GIANT CREEPY SPIDERS
Me: And by infested I mean I found one on my car
Matt: Yikes
Matt: But I’m on hold with Century Link
Matt: So I’m in a worse spot than you
I may or may not have danced around the Target parking lot waving a shoe menacingly at my car. Also spiders and ISPs both suck.