the 1970's called. they want their linoleum back.

48 hours in bed.  Sick with the abridged version of the flu.  That is how my husband and I spent the weekend.  There was no time for yoga nor the required teacher training.  No time to do laundry, wash dishes or run errands. There was only time to roll over in bed, grunt and roll back the other way. 

Naturally we started feeling better only as the weekend was coming to a close.  We did not waste another moment though. We took advantage of what little daylight hours we had and made one more pitstop in the home that has been littering our minds with fleeting thoughts of unadulterated renovations....you dirty, dirty house, you! 

We can all clearly see that along with buying a fixer upper I will also need to buy a 4 Wheel Drive as it's not clear that a plow has seen these streets.  While there, we actually saw a truck get stuck in the side of the road.  At least I'll have plenty of reasons why I can't go to work when it snows.  Who can argue with you if your roads aren't plowed in the dirty south?



a snowy day in the neighborhood



So let's chat about the house shall we.  It is odd that it has no driveway yet has a garage with an automatic door opener.  I suppose we could lay down a driveway.  Before we tackle that though, we'll have to insulate the attic and fix the buckled roof shingles.  The we can move onto inspecting the siding which looks like this....

hello? is that you mesothelioma??

sneaky little asbestos creeping on the side of the dormer....i found you!!

While we pray that it isn't asbestos siding and doesn't need to be removed at this very moment before we all have mesothelioma.  If it doesn't well than we can patch, powerwash and paint with the best of them.

Once we've finished powerwashing and painting we can get busy replacing the windows. I think I may have counted 17 that need replacing....

We can move inside now to continue the party if you wish.  I think the best room in the house and the easiest to fix up is the dining area.  Alot of wallpaper perhaps but we've noticed that it's already peeling.  It must have gotten advanced notice that it was coming down.

Beyond the dining room you will find the well appointed kitchen with wood paneling, wall paper, linoleum flooring and a linoleum counter too! 

please note the complimentary plaid wallpapers in the kitchen and superfab counters.

guest bathroom.  complete with linoleum and wallpaper!!

Moving into the living room we have a wall of knotty pine built-ins and paneling that run through half the room.  Oh and more wall paper!!

Upstairs we have one well appointed master bath and three bedroom suites....



more linoleum



tiled in toothbrush and soap holders!

creepy closets and tiny windows



lots of floral



just a few minor leaks

my favorite wallpaper in the house!

looking out over the yard from the bath standing on linoleum



a yard for this little guy



So there is an abridged version of the house tour via the abridged version of the flu.  Despite it's broken windows, poor insulation, grass driveway, linoleum floors and floral wallpaper everywhere....we actually love it.  We are now in hot discussions about whether to put an offer in. The house is way overpriced for the condition it is in and the amount of work that needs to be done.  The mortgage approval is in so now we must decide if we want to gamble.....

cape cod

I am referring to the cape cod home I toured recently....not the actual Cape Cod in Massachusetts.  Although if I could transplant the cape cod I looked at to the Cape that would be another story for a different day. 

My husband and I took a drive and toured an open house recently for fun.  Little did we know that we would actually fall in love with this little miniature house.  It's not much.  Just a tiny little 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath home with a huge backyard! They claim there is a 4th bedroom or office but it really looked like a closet to me.  Since it is an old home it had those teeny tiny closets that fit Barbie clothes.  Seriously.  There was not even enough room for my collection of t-shirts in those closets.  I digress though.  The house is a handy man's special with windows that need to retire, a grass driveway, beaten and mismatched wood floorboards, wallpaper in every room circa 1973, kitchen appliances via 1986 and some other gems odd gems. 

So in between catching up on all of my reading and braving the weather, I will be contemplating a move into an old home with an old soul.....

Swooning over the dormers.  Crying over the grass driveway.

snow day!!!

It snowed.  It happened.  The weathermen were actually accurate in their prediction.  We received over a foot of snow here in the dirty south.  I woke up at 5am to walk the dog and found that the dog was not able to navigate through the snow banks....at all.  Three steps out the door and we turned around and came back inside.  I contemplated going in to work all the way up until about 15 minutes till 7 when they announced that the offices would be closed today.  Under normal circumstances, I would have been pulling into my office parking lot at this time.  I know my employer though....they wait until the office is opening to announce that they will be closing.  Regardless, it's a snow day!!!

And a snow day for sure!!!  I just went outside and oh my holy guacomole!  At 5am I had no idea, not even an inkling, of what a mess it was!!! Here I thought that I was going to head to yoga at noontime and take advantage of my snow day.  I am thinking that perhaps I am safest inside the confines of my 4 walls though....

there goes the hubs driving to work

It's not all bad though.  There is some saving grace in the beauty of the snow and the quiet peacefulness that surrounds a fresh snowfall....

Enjoy the snow!!!  

when being green is so, so wrong

courtesy of thorny questions

I have spent the better half of the morning looking for the charger for my battery camera.  I have the camera in hand and the lifeless battery too.  The battery charger....no where to be found.  Not in the basket where it was once housed safely in the kitchen.  Not in the camera bag.  Not in my husband's travel bag.  Not in the desk drawer.  Not around the desk drawer.  Not under the couch in the den.  Not on top of the filing cabinet.  Not on the kitchen table.  Not in the kitchen "junk" drawer.  All usual suspects have been cleared of possible charges. 

So where may this battery charger be?  Perhaps it is with the netflix movie that I once threw out with the recycling?  It is entirely possible that it made it's way into the trash.  Sometimes in my haste to clean up and reduce the craptasticness of what is around me I accidentally throw out valuable items. Sometimes I feel like I am the third member of Sanford and Son.  Except our junkyard isn't out front in the yard.  No.  Our junkyard is right here inside the house.  While I am whittling away all the uneccessary clutter, my husband stays quite busy storing items for future use....just in case.  For instance, the blackberry that I dropped in a cup of tea that no longer works.....well he saved it in case he needs to pull any of the components from it for his.  Even though he clearly knows the blackberry doesn't operate....it sits right here on the floor in the den.  In plain sight!! Along with the Elvis bobblehead doll that he brought home from Memphis that he can't part with.  Along with many, many more useless and broken and hobbled bits and pieces of items that we no longer need.  Many we never needed.
So the story goes....sometimes being green is so, so wrong.  Today is one of those days....

i love winter




It's true.  Really.  Really, it's true!!  I love winter!  Just when others begin to experience the peak of the winter doldrums....when the ground is a frozen solid mass, the trees are bare, the air chills to the bone and the wind snaps like rubberbands on your face....I am at my most determined.

The holidays dazzle me with the glitz, glam and sparkle.  The lights twinkle. The shiny giftwrap crinkles.  The house smells like fresh baked bread and cookies and a cup of tea is always steeping somewhere.  It goes on like this for about a month between the day after thanksgiving and the day after christmas.  Poof!  The day after christmas....the tree comes down, the ornaments get packed away, little white lights are forbidden from engaging in anymore bantering twinkle as they are tucked neatly into mr. rubbermaid.  And just like that,  I have an epiphany every year!  For some reason, it coincides with the new year resolution nonsense but I swear it is an epiphany all my own and unrelated to any resolve in the new year!  I promise.  It's clockwork.

This year I experienced the same gutwrenching eyes wide open epiphany I have experienced in past years.  I looked around my house and said to myself, "self!!  good lord where did all of this crap that you have no use for come from?  why have you spent so much time and money foolishly engaged in engorging yourself with junk?!!"  Then it begins.  I slowly begin to calculate the mathematics behind the thoughtless consumption of said items.  Lo and behold, the mathematical calculation I speculate is one I don't like!  Instead of ignoring it though, I whip out my checkbook and start balancing it....ha!  I didn't know anyone other than my dad did this anymore but here I steadily sit with pen in hand and registry open calculating numbers and decimals galore!!  So it begins....the long journey where I am mindful about my purchases and ignore the impulse driven madness that sometimes consumes me when I read signs that shout SALE or open up a groupon for an item that I can't possible conceive living without!!! 

This year I do resolve to remember this epiphinay in April when the weather starts to break and the fingers itch to return to the soft supple leather of my wallet that houses the cash and credit that has often been used to purchase all the mindless that items that end up finding a forever home at the goodwill. So in some ways, my annual epiphany has trumped itself into a resolution that I never planned on even making.....cheers to unplanned resolutions and meeting the day with resolve and determination!