because I really can't get enough of myself

I need to take pictures of all the little details in my house. I know there our people out there that appreciate the "character" of old houses.  There are definitely a few things around here with "character".  (Like our crystal doorknobs.) But  mostly I need to take pictures so I can show you how creepy our air vents are. They're really big.  Once Husband told me that one time when his uncle was young he saw a scary movie about creepy creatures that came out of the air vents and it totally damaged him for YEARS.  And when I look at our air vents all I can think about are creatures coming out of them. (I tried to figure out what the movie was so I could refer to it by title.  But google didn't give me any good information when I typed "the movie with creatures in the air vents" in the search box.) A couple of nights ago I stayed up late working, and everyone else was asleep.  Which was fine.  Until my brain was no longer occupied by rat...

I don't pay much attention to pop-culture-y type things.  I'm usually too busy worrying about ghosts or m&m's or how long it takes for an avocado to go bad.  But sometimes I pay a teensy bit of attention to, you know, the rest of the world. Especially the important things. Like, why is Shiloh Jolie-Pitt always dressed like a boy? Or, have the aliens come for Tom Cruise yet? But what's really been troubling me lately is Prince William's bald spot. I didn't watch the royal wedding, or really paid much attention to anything with the royal family.  But there are pictures ALL OVER the place about it, so finally I relented and looked at a bunch. Remember when Prince William was a teenager and the entire population of teenage girls across the world thought he was divinely attractive? Remember that? Well, I just want to know one thing - WHAT HAPPENED?! Now he's just a half-bald, big toothed, goob. And, I ask you, if one of the most well-k...

I have a domestic problem. I get really embarrassed talking about it. I feel very alone in this, but in the hopes that there is a fabulous online support group that will take me under their wing and guide me into a happy existence where my problem doesn't seem like such a big deal, I will now share, WITH THE WORLD, my sad domestic failings: I don't know how to......um.....properly....eeeeeee.... use a can opener. THERE, I said it. I have gone through about 9 can openers in the last decade.  Because I murder them.  By using them WRONG.  I don't even know what I'm doing wrong.  But wrong it is.  And broken they become.  (The last one we had even fell apart.  Into about 5 pieces.  While my children watched.) We'll have family visit sometimes, and they'll pull out a can and be like, "Woah, what's up with your can opener?"  And I have to hide my problem by lying and saying, "Stupid cheap can opener!  It's been doing that lately ...

We have a smelly hall cupboard.  The day we moved in we had a cleaning lady come and de-gross-ify the house, and that was one place I told her to take care of.  She was here for hours, working up a sweat, and I swear she didn't leave the house any cleaner. So today, I decided it was time to stop ignoring the stench and deal with the smelly cupboard.  Because it's actually quite huge and we still have boxes of stuff that need to find a home.  Except that it's so huge that you don't realize what's in the back of it until you literally stick your head (and upper body) all the way in and look. Which I did. And then I had to stick my head back in with cleaners and a metal spatula so I could scrape a pile of nasty gooey sludge out of the back corner. And I almost vomited. It was touch and go for awhile. But it's clean now, and covered in some lovely cream colored sticky-shelf-paper.  And it smells better.  It's not completely un-smelly, but less smell...

Yesterday we opened the box that contained everything we hang on our walls.  In the past that would have been one of the first things I unpack; you know, making our new place feel like home, and all that, blah blah blah.  But with this move it just didn't seem important. There are two reasons to my decorating apathy:  a) I'm still not really liking this house and b) we're tired of looking at the same decorations we've had for the past decade. Honestly, our wall decor really isn't that bad.  Some of it isn't even that old.  And a few things are actually pretty cool.  But I'm just SO BORED with it.  You know what I mean?  But it's not like I can throw it all away and start over. (Did I ever mention that our rent here is like 150% higher than our last house?  Because it is.  So paying for actual walls is taking up any budget to get new wall decor.) Thus brings me to rental complaint #72691.3 - we are not allowed to paint our walls. ...

It's about time, but here I am in Utah. In a house built in 1938. Remember that rule I had about not living in an old house? Yeah, I never get what I want. Besides possibly being haunted, old houses smell weird, and can be dirty/grungy. At least, our house seems to possess all three of those qualities. And my kids love that they can communicate by yelling through the enormous vents. But they're not loving the bug-infested basement, in which they all sleep, in a big room that isn't technically a bedroom, because the bedrooms are tiny. And also, I am without a computer because old house + massively energy sucking electronics = pfffffft. Yay for moving. Really. woo. hoo.