Whoo-hoo! It’s almost Christmas! I’ve been busy with holiday stuffs so I’m behind on house stuffs, but here’s some fun stuffs for your holiday weekend.
DIY 2016 Dumpster Fire Ornament. Daaang this year was rough. Not only was it possibly the crappiest election year ever, but amazing people were dying left and right. I may be making one of these…
Our current tree-topper is a star from the dollar store which is a little too dinky for our new tree, and also doesn’t seem to fit the floofy top spike of the tree, I love the modern-ness of this Himmeli-Style one! I think it’s made my holiday to-do list too!
Here’s a roundup of the cookies we made this year. Even though it’s probably too late for cookie-baking for most of you, you may want to file these recipes for next year.
We had got our first snow of Friday. It was nice because it was so late this year (and it’s been unseasonably warm , but also crappy because snow. I’m already done with winter (I may be living in the wrong state…)
At least the sunsets have been pretty lovely lately!
If you’re also getting snow and not thrilled about it (or even if you are) here are some amusements to help get you through the week.
Homesick Candles. They’re supposed to smell like your state, but WI doesn’t smell like beer and cheese with a hint of cow so I have my doubts. On the other hand, MN basically just smells like winter so maybe they’re actually on to something. I’m also a jerk and thought ND should have just been “unscented.”
Do you Twitter? I don’t, but if you do and sometimes find yourself running out of ideas you can always check out Yes, That Can Be My Next Tweet. It’s also Bloggess approved. (and if you’ve never read her blog, you really should… unless you’re super put off by random taxidermy. Then it may not be a good fit).
A friend and I hit up a local craft fair this weekend. If you’re looking for handmade (and green!) gifts, some of my favorite vendors were Made by Liz P. (there’s not a lot in her etsy shop at the moment, but look at her sales history to get a better idea of her full range), Tired Ol’ Belts, Raju’s Arts, and Nest Pure.
I’m taking the week off because this week off because I’m in tight with the boss (aka, Me) and Holidays are hectic (plus it’s getting dark early and I have things I need to photograph yet). Enjoy your Thanksgiving!
We may not all like the outcome, but I doubt there are many people out there who can deny that these Obama-Biden memes are the greatest thing to come out this election.
I indulged in some Retail Therapy on Friday and Michaels had most of their Christmas decor at 50% off! Some people may judge me, but Holiday Cat don’t care… partly because she thought pine cones and fake foliage might be edible. #festivecatisfestive I’m surprised this wasn’t a used hashtag yet and wonder if it will ever catch on. You might just see alternating pictures of a Siamese and white/tabby if you check in later because I have Plans.
Kirby Jenner’s Photoshopped Instagram photos are pretty amazing. And amazingly hilarious. They’re probably even better if you’re more in tune with pop culture than I am (I may live under a rock, but I like it here).
I forget why Matt showed me this post, but it’s hilarious. And chilling. And probably reasonably effective birth control. My sister’s comment was “What is that man doing with [niece]?!” To everyone out there who has survived small children… ya’ll gotta be superheroes or something.
A lot of people are surprised that I have an Android instead of an iPhone. But here’s why.
I know this is a design blog, but it’s also a personal outlet for me. If politics aren’t your jam, go ahead skip over it. If you read it and don’t agree with me, fine, these are my opinions, not law. Right now I just have a lot of complicated thoughts and I think (or at least hope) I’m not alone. Also, I consider myself a liberal-moderate and this post is very reflective of that. You have been warned.
11/11/16 ETA: tl;dr Yeah it sucks, but don’t be a Trump about it
Why yes, that bottle does have my name all over it.
First I want to say that I am disappointed in a America. I did not want this at all. It also literally frightens me that so many people could support a xenophobic, misogynist, bully with no experience to be a world leader. That doesn’t mean that his supporters are all racists or women-haters themselves, it just means they were ok with it. They didn’t care.
I get that career politicians seem to suck but to go from that to someone with zero legal experience and a history of shady businesses tied to him? That makes no sense to me.
There was a lot of hate happening in this campaign on BOTH sides during the campaign. Trump was spewing hate, and the Dems were inciting violence at his rallies. Neither side was perfect, in fact they were both far from it. I’ve seen a number of Facebooks posts since the election that were essentially “If you voted for Trump I’m unfriending you because you are a worthless piece of scum.” While I am pissed as hell right now, I can’t support this attitude. I cannot encourage further division. I cannot tell people their political attitudes matter more to me than family or years of friendship.* Also, if someone really offends you, have a private conversation that’s not plastered all over the internet. Then if you still really feel like everything’s been ruined, unfriend them without making a giant stink about it. I.e, act like a goddamn adult.**
Right now I’m mostly pissed with the Electoral College. Hillary had over 300,000 more votes (and counting!) than Trump and still lost. This is why people feel their votes don’t matter because for three hundred thousand people, they didn’t.
11/11/16 ETA: I’m pissed with the DNC for giving us a lackluster candidate. Would I have preferred her to Trump? Definitely. Did I vote for her? No. Do I want to see a woman as president? Yes, but if anyone assumes that I will vote for someone just because she’s a woman, well I find that a little sexist. I actually vote with my brain and conscience instead of with my vagina. My personal complaint with Hillary was that she only seemed issues that were “safe.” That will never bring change. She also still supports issues that I am personally against. She just strikes me as pandering… and one of those groups she pandered to is women which irks me. While I care very much about woman’s rights (and minority rights, and LGBTQ rights) they are not the only issues out there and should not be focused on to the exclusion of everything else.
I’m also pissed with the media. We’ve been steadily building a culture of non-news news. It’s why I watch the Daily Show–because I know it’s actually supposed to be comedy. If I want to read a news site, I go to the BBC. That’s right, for me to read reasonably un-biased news I have to go to a different country.
But here’s the deal people. We actually having no effing clue what Trump’s going to do. This is actually a potentially good thing (I know, I know, bear with me). With politicians they have a clear voting record behind them. Would Hillary have kept on bombing countries we don’t really have any business in? Probably. Would Trump? No idea! Plus, remember that this guy was a registered Democrat at one point in his life. It’s entirely possibly that he talked big as essentially a marketing ploy (because day-um did it get him air time). I’m not saying that doesn’t still make him a giant asshole, but in terms of actual policy, that word is not law and would not be able to be made law at the snap of ones fingers. It’s sort of like parenting a teenager: you may not trust them and want to strangle them, but they’re probably not actually going to burn your house down.
It’s still hard for me to accept. I still have fear (lots and lots of fear). But if I don’t cling to some sort of optimism it’s going to be worse. I can’t believe the US is going to implode until I actually see policies that would lead to that legitimately trying to get put into play.
So this is what I propose. Let’s all try to calm the hell down about things that are now out of our control. Let’s try not to continue encouraging hate. Let’s also try to not go overboard with the bitching and moaning over the next 4 years. I’m not saying you can’t complain. Complaining is the true American past time (screw baseball). I’m just saying, remember the last 4 years of the opposing view point howling that Obama wasn’t a citizen and that the country was imploding when there was no actual evidence of it? It seemed insane! And obnoxious! Let’s not do that. Support change where you can like reaching out to your local or state governments regarding their future decisions. Remember to vote in your local elections (I admit, I kind of suck at that). You have a voice, use it well. Screaming insults at someone rarely makes people care about your views.
I’m not saying he’s going to be a good president and I’m not saying you ever have to like him (in all honesty I doubt I ever will). All I’m asking is to not be a dick about it. Also, don’t let jerks run you out of your own damn country.*** Canada’s cold and Mexico has Zika mosquitoes.
And remember, when they go low, we go high…. or at least make an effort. I mean, c’mon people.
11/11/16 ETA: Made a few edits because I realized I missed things. I fit them in where they should logically go (and marked them as edits). There’s also a new footnote. I have lots of Thoughts.
* Also, I’m reasonably sure that I wouldn’t have seen any of these statuses if Hillary had won. But guess what? The people these statuses are so pissed off at, their attitudes would still be exactly the same and the friendships would continue. Are people’s opposing views only ok when you can feel superior too them? Also, if you’re that for an issue, like say LGBTQ rights, than there’s a good chance most of your friends already either agree with you or are actually good people regardless. And family members… well we can’t change them, but you’ve accepted them for this long. So who exactly are these statuses speaking to?
**I pondered long and hard about whether I was being hypocritical by posting my complaints instead taking someone aside and talking with them…. but here’s the thing, I’m not personally offended by these posts. I get that people are pissed and want to vent… I just think this is a silly way to do it but it speaks more to the general temperature of attitudes at the moment than any one individual.
***Not gonna lie, a few drinks (maybe a bottle) in on election night and Matt and I were discussing his options for transferring to his company’s Canadian office.
Me: rattling off a grocery list… and we still have tonic so we’re set for election night
Matt: You should probably pick up more
Me: We have 4 cans, that’s 8 [gin+tonics]… how tanked do you plan on getting?
Matt: You better pick up more
As you can probably tell, we’re not too excited about the election here. I think a lot of other people feel the same way. This is the first election for me where I’m seriously considering voting for a 3rd party candidate. Not because I think they have any chance of winning the presidency (heck, I’m 99% certain Hillary will win MN), but because I think that if the alternate parties get unusually high support this year (especially if they succeed in taking even a single state) that there will be significant changes coming in the future (because honestly I feel that both parties really need to have a Come-to-Jesus moment).
That’s my logic at least. I can’t tell you how to vote, but I do encourage all Americans to vote. Do your research (if you don’t know where to start you can check out I Side With*), don’t buy into every media shit-storm, and as long as you have a rational reason for your choice you can’t really go wrong.
Oh, and if you’re going to comment with political opinions, just play nice, k? Respectful discussion is great, but referring the candidates as “Killary” and “America’s Angriest Clementine” is probably best left to rants among like-minded friends.
Dang…. I’m going to have to pick up more limes too….
*I think I failed their quiz. I got Jill Stein as #1 and Gary Johnson as #2… I’m either an anarchist hippie or I need to make my own party…. or I have no idea what’s going on in the world. Who knows?
I haven’t given up on our house, far from it in fact! October’s been a rough month for the women in the FPV household. Schmutz (aka Moody Girl Cat) started loosing fur on her back paws and belly and then my energy level completely tanked, and I mean completely. Like I could barely make it up the stairs and my legs were super shaky every time I stood up. It was bad enough that I went in to get tested for Mono, but that was negative.
The one good thing about my inability to get off the couch was that I got to spend a few days cuddling with the fur balls… although they spent more time cuddling with each other.
“Fatigue” is like the worst symptom ever to bring to a doctor, it’s just so vague and symptomatic of about a billion different things. After testing negative for strep and mono my doctor did a more extensive blood panel and tested me for possibly everything under the sun. Then called me back in for MORE blood work. Have I ever mentioned I hate needles? Like I get an honest-to-god panic attack when faced with needles. Last week was not fun.
In turns out my thyroid is an epic over-achiever. First I though it had gone on strike (hypothyroidism) which seems to be slightly more common, but then I double checked my test results (and went in for doctor visit #2) and it turns out it’s running in overdrive (hyperthyroidism). I think Thyroid Storm may be my new band name… if I had any musical abilities whatsoever.
My doctor gave me drugs to slow my heart (seriously) to make me more comfortable because I was practically bedridden over the weekend.* It also turns out that one of the treatments for Hyperthyroidism is radioactive iodine, but I’ll probably have to meet an Endocrinologist first to see if I get put on the path to developing super powers.** Medicine is weird ya’ll.
And for anyone completely unfamiliar with thyroid issues, they’re not terribly uncommon and quite treatable… everything just seems to suck until you get properly medicated. I’m already doing quite a bit better, but still easily tired which makes house projects difficult (we have 3 out of 6 hallway doors done now though! It sounds good, but I thought I would have been done with all of them at least a week ago).
As far as Schmutz (now aka Miss Baldy Paws) is concerned, Matt brought her into the vet yesterday and the vet ruled it over-grooming. Whether it’s due to an allergy or stress we’re not sure, we’re just supposed to monitor her to see if she ultimately needs meds too. And anyone who’s ever owned a cat knows just how fun it is to try and get them to take pills….
Meanwhile Matt and Spencer are doing just peachy so apparently the Y chromosome makes you immune to October cruddy-ness in this family.
*Really. My achievement for the weekend was re-potting a houseplant and Matt supervised me the entire time to make sure I didn’t fall over.
**Lacking in any musical ability, maybe I can use Thyroid Storm as my super hero name. It sounds like a rejected X-Man, but I’m ok with that.
No, don’t worry, this isn’t another customer service rant. Our stove is still here and functioning well, and for the record, the local Home Depot employees are awesome when it comes to in-store help (it just broke down for us once there was a special order involved…. sigh).
No, today I’m going to talk about stain.
I’ve been working on refinishing our upstairs doors and, well, let’s just say there’s a reason I haven’t shared more pictures yet. Last time I mentioned that I got a color I liked, but the finish was kinda splotchy.
Annoyingly splotching in fact.
Matt was fine with it, but it was steadily driving me crazy. Ultimately I decided I couldn’t live with it and decided I needed to try a different technique to get the same dark color minus the streaky-blotchiness.
Easier said than done.
I currently have 6–count them 6–cans of different stains that I have experimented with. Gel stain + polyshades was my first attempt, but it completely hid the wood grain really just looked like a crappy paint job. The problem was trying to duplicate that same rich color, but with a better finish because you know what? All those little samples they have in the stain aisle showing the stain colors on little bits of oak and pine? LIES! I’d see a beautiful, rich, dark espresso stain in the store, try and on my door and whomp whomp, it would only be a shade or two darker than the honey oak I started with. I went through 4 rounds of stripping, 3 brands of stain and 6 colors before I finally found something that worked (more to come on that–I promise). This is also why you only do one door at a time…
I even had a mini-meltdown in Menards bemoaning my inability to find a properly DARK (but not black!) stain. Let that be a lesson to all you helpful employees who come up to customers and ask if they need any help–you may find a lunatic (although mystery lady–you were the single most helpful Menards employee I’ve met–thank you for putting up with me!)
Do you have any DIY disasters you need to vent about? Knock yourselves out. I feel your pain, really.
This weekend Matt and I slacked off and journeyed into the wilds of Central Wisconsin. Last month we discovered a rather large miscommunication regarding a trip to Spring Green to see the American Players Theater with my mom and step-dad (and his mother and kids). We thought they had been referring to this past weekend when we put it in our calendars, but no, this weekend was a completely different (and day-trip only) excursion to Spring Green. Oops. We had to miss the earlier trip, but were able to make it out this time at least.
This was my first time to see American Players Theater and it was quite lovely. We saw An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde which was delightful.
Also in Spring Green is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin… but we didn’t go there. Oh no. That was way too high brow for me and Matt.
We went to the House on the Rock.
If you’ve never heard of The House on the Rock (which basically means you’re either not from central-ish Wisconsin or have never read American Gods), this is the best description I’ve found for it:
The most concise way I can describe The House on the Rock is this: Imagine you took all the buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, deconstructed them, and randomly attached the parts to a generic office park. Then imagine you took the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, mixed that with the contents of every thrift store in America, and spread it all throughout the Frank Lloyd Wright/office-park structure, with no curation or explanatory text. Then throw a 200-foot-tall model of a sea monster in there, too. –Vice.com
Neil Gaiman’s comment in regards to American Gods was something to the effect of that he had to tone it down a bit to make it seem believable.
I personally describe it as “Imagine a permanently stoned Frank Llyod Wright who was a compulsive hoarder with a particular fascination for self-playing instruments.”
Yeah… it’s…. weird.
There’s not a great way to describe beyond what was said above, so here are some pictures.
It starts off reasonably enough in the Original House. You can definitely tell that the architect was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, but he also seems to be embracing the 70’s bachelor pad well before it’s time. And yes, those are trees just sticking up through the house.
Then there’s the Infinity Room which was a much later addition. It’s actually pretty cool unless you’re like me and aren’t so hot with heights (the room just cantilevers off the side of a cliff).
Eventually you hit The Music of Yesterday which is the most insane collection of self-playing instruments possibly ever. You can get tokens to make them play too.
Along with the Infinity Room, the Carousel is one of the best known features of The House on the Rock. It’s listed as the world’s largest indoor carousel, and out of the 200+ animals featured on it, not a single one is horse. It’s also impossible to get a good picture of unless you’re magic.
I’m skipping over TONS but throughout the tour there are collections of guns, Japanese art, organs, cash registers, coin banks, dolls, doll houses, suits of armor, planes, newspapers, and cars, along with self-playing instruments, fortune-telling machines, and other token-driven gadgets.
It’s crazy, it’s trippy, it’s probably worth doing once… unless you have a crazy fear of dolls and/or clowns, then you probably want to skip section 3. And if you’re claustrophobic the entire place might not be for you.
Oh, and unlike Frank Lloyd Wright houses, The House on the Rock doesn’t leak* and isn’t sliding off the cliff.
*As far as I know, every single damn building that man designed ended up with a leaking roof and lots of have needed significant repairs to keep them standing over the years. Was he an aesthetic genius? Definitely! Was he an engineer? Definitely not.
And probably not a human body… but other animals still have bodies and if you only find a part of it it’s still very clearly dead.
Matt pointed out that title is rather misleading, but that’s just how headlines work. Sure, I could have said “And then we found part of a dead body under our garage.” or “And then we found a bone fragment that was probably some dog’s chew toy under our garage.” But neither of those is very click-baity and my SEO app is already yelling at me about the length of my current tile (that thing is horribly judgemental).
Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
Our garage is… sad. When we bought the house the inspector couldn’t even get the garage door open so for the past year we’ve basically had a giant storage shed that will fit anything that would fit through the smallish side door. Awesome, right?
Also, the whole structure was leaning and wonky, and we weren’t even 100% sure that we would even be able to get a new garage door installed or if the entire thing would need to be torn down. Yeah, it was just that good.
Recently we had a garage door company take a look at it, and thankfully they said they’d be able to add a functioning door. Not only that, they even said they’ve worked with worse. They came, they installed, and left us with a functioning garage that was still incredibly wonky.
For the past couple weeks Matt’s been working on adding extra supports, sistering split or rotting studs, and digging out around the base to replace decaying boards. I told you it was is pretty sad shape.
On Saturday we dug a trench along the final side of the garage to expose all the rotting boards. This wasn’t quite as bad as I anticipated, except for the tree roots that are clearly trying to eat our house. And our garage. And possibly us. Hell, I think from now on I’ll just refer to the big tree in our backyard as Audrey II.
About 10′ away from the tree there were still roots as big around as my wrist. There were also TONS of the little spidery roots that had invaded everything. As I pulled them out I also pulled up chunks of rotted wood that they had clearly eaten. They were also starting to work their way up the side of the garage. Awesome.
Also while digging out our trench we came across other assorted randomness. A straw, tons of broken glass, plastic bags, rusted wire, and a coffee can lid. Once I found the coffee can lid I was really hoping to find the rest of the can (filled with someone’s buried fortune of course), but it never turned up. A short time later I exposed a strange, lumpy thing and was mildly taken aback.
I thought it was a small vertebra but it ended up being the deformed top of a metal spike. Bummer.
Me: No coffee cans filled with money, no dead bodies…. it’s like all those books I read when I was little lied to me.
Matt: Um, sure.
Me: I bet the Bobbsey twins were really the murderers/robbers/whatever just so they could set up crimes to “solve” and then cunningly frame other people.
Matt may have stopped talking to me at this point.
Later that afternoon I was standing by one of the dirt mounds, waiting to be useful, and I see something buried in the dirt.
If you’re wondering if I can tell the difference between a stick and a bone in a random pile of crap the answer is apparently yes. I have no clue what kind of bone because I’m not a boneologist…. er, wait, Latin… osteologist? Maybe I should Google this…
…omg I was right! I even spelled it right! (although spell check disagrees and suggests Meteorologist). It’s like taking all those advanced Bio classes paid off… but only a little since I still can’t identify the stupid bone (but at least I’m still better at science than spell check).
Anyway, I found part of a bone buried under our garage which means I at least found part of a dead body. Or the remains of a dog’s chew toy…. but dead body sounds much better.** And just think, anytime you give your dogs pigs ears or beef bones to gnaw on you can refer to them as dead bodies.
“What’s Buster doing? Oh, just burying a dead body in the backyard to save for later.”
“I had to get Fido a dead body so he’d stop eating my shoes.”
“Rufus hates being left home alone, but if you leave him with a dead body as a treat he does much better.”
Sadly, this is still not as exciting as the time I found a skull in Chicago.***
*Whether or not I can tell the difference between a bone and twisted piece of metal is an entirely different story.
** Or maybe it’s just me?
***True story! And no, not a human skull. It was probably a deer skull…. but it was just randomly in a locker in the train station. For realz. It was a little before Halloween and I was having a party so I brought it back home with me. I was maybe 12? And possibly a bit different from other middle school girls….
If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll know we had a breakdown and ordered a new stove… and then just continued to have additional breakdowns because getting a stove delivery is apparently a positively hellish experience.
We got it ordered and the delivery date was scheduled for Friday of the same week (last Friday). Awesome, right?
Awesome until the stove arrived anyway, because it was the wrong frickin stove. Right box, wrong stove. WTF? It wasn’t ever the right color OR model! It seemed like one of the those “you had ONE job to do” situations. So the stove went back, and our old one came back in after they had already hauled it out onto the truck.
And then the oven pilot wouldn’t light. And the delivery company never got back to us about when we would get the RIGHT stove. I called Home Depot after I got home from work and they said they would try and get in touch with the delivery company and also try and get a tech out to fix our existing oven.
Then there was no word until Saturday evening which basically said they still didn’t know anything (and no word about a possible tech). While I respect the fact that they followed up with us, this was not the news I wanted to hear. This conversation then rapidly went downhill (oh yes, it keeps going) when the guy I was talking with offered the following options.
Google what was wrong with our current stove (how about it’s old and something got jarred/broken when it was moved in and out of the house?)
Come into the store and pick up an in-stock stove that is nothing like the one we ordered (other than it was white and gas but was otherwise missing every feature we wanted) and also a significantly cheaper model AND haul it home ourselves with no word on how our old stove would be hauled away.
Basically I got off the phone and was furious. While I like Home Depot, I very much do not like that they contract out their delivery which leaves them pretty incapable to sort out problems for their customer.
Monday evening we still didn’t have an update on delivery so I called the store again! I got some manager this time (probably should have insisted on that the first time around because I think the first guy was just out of his depth) who proceeded to tell me that the earliest delivery date would be this Friday, a week after our originally scheduled delivery.
Ok, fine. Matt was already going to be home that day anyway, but that was because we were leaving that afternoon to go visit family. So I said we would need to have the stove before 3 that day and was told there was no way they could guarantee that.
%^$%^&%(*&(
That’s most of the frickin day! How can you have system that wouldn’t even let you add comments? I was steadily freaking out at this point because with travel and meetings the next day that would work for us would be next Wednesday and we still had no working oven.
At this point I will say the manager I was speaking too kicked it up a notch. She called the delivery company the next day to explain the situation, then called me to assure me they would get us the stove by 3 and if we weren’t given a delivery window in the right time frame (because apparently the route is computer generated *headdesk*) to call her on her cell phone and she’d sort it out with the delivery company.
Ugh.
I was getting ready to post this when Matt’s phone rang. It was GE calling to tell us there was a problem with the delivery, i.e. it would not be happening. Something in their system was wrong somehow so no stove for us tomorrow. We had even gotten a call earlier in the day (finally!) confirming our delivery window. WTF????
Now we are not scheduled to get the stove until next Wednesday–a week and half after we were supposed to get it! Plus, we’ve had no functioning oven for nearly a week now because of this whole debacle. I’ve spent the last few hour periodically giggling to myself in that oh-dear-god-what-else-can-possibly-go-wrong sort of way because this is starting to feel a bit surreal.
Buying a car was way less of a headache. Matt mentioned that we’re still paying off the car but at least the stove is fully paid for. Yeah, but we fully paid for a stove that we don’t even have yet!
