Back Away from the Paint Brush…

Yesterday, one of my friends sent me this:

…at which I of course laughed out loud and immediately planned to post here for the world to laugh along with me.  I look at this thing and I’m all, that’s right you don’t know what you’re doing.  Have you seen the NICKELODEON SLIME GREEN on your roller brush home slice?  Please, tell me more about where you’re going to paint that color.  Because really, I’d like to know which room to avoid in your house.  Seizures are not a joke.

And until my sister arrived home, this blog post would have stopped there.  But the stars aligned for you my friends. Because within the first hour of her arrival Beckie started telling me about this “hilarious commercial that you are going to love.”  And love it I did…

All I can picture at this point is her parents on the other end of the phone saying:

I told you that green would make you cry.

The Return of Sistafriend

After six months of studying (Read: skydiving, scuba diving, sunbathing and celebrity-trolling), my beloved sister is returning to the midwest.  Beckie and I are incredibly close…like so close Ross can’t tell us apart on the phone.  Seriously.  She pretended to be me once.  And it worked. On my husband.

Anyway, as you might expect, I’m excited to have her home where she belongs.  And tonight is the night, my friends!  Tonight the Lovells will be back in balance, all on one continent.

As thrilled as I am to have my Sistafriend back, I know Ross is pretty pumped to see her too. Does that have anything to do with the disappearance of international calls on our cell phone bill?  Perhaps.  But in all seriousness, I count myself pretty lucky to have a husband who is tight with my sister.  Those two had the whole big bro/little sis thing figured out well before I started ring shopping.  And believe me, folks.  It wasn’t long after we met that I called up our jeweler.

So to celebrate my sister’s return, I’ve actually chosen to post a little slideshow of my favorite Beckie and Ross moments…

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We miss you, Sistafriend!  Can’t wait to be reunited!

Stedman!

When I speak to my husband (or previously yelled down at him from floor three to floor one of our old condo) I almost always call him by our last name.

There are no negative connotations. Its not a middle-naming kind of thing (You know what I’m talking about – KATHERINE JEAN, get DOWN HERE!).    It’s just one of those things that kind of…stuck.

When we first met, his friends all referred to him as either Gene or Stedman! (Yes, exclamation point included. Stedman! is always, always exclaimed.  If you’re not using the exclamation point, you’re not doing it right).  Anyway, at the time, I was so not cool enough to be in on story/inside joke thing that they had going on with Gene, so I just went with Stedman!.  (And of course, if you know me but at all, you’ll understand why calling my significant other Stedman! was of particular interest to me.)

Often when I call him Stedman! in front of our friends, I get laughs or questions.  For some silly reason some people think its weird that I call my husband by his last name.  So one night I decided to check in with Stedman himself to get his two cents…

Katie: Do you think its weird that I call you Stedman! ?

Ross:  No, not particularly.  I think pretty much everything you do is all on one level playing field of…

Katie: …crazy?

If you could have seen his face, it was pretty clear he knew he was lucky I said it first.

Making Move-In Memories

And here it is!  Proof that we’re still alive!  The move hasn’t killed us!  (Yet!) 

So many stories to tell you, you guys.  Ohhh, so many stories.  There have been melt downs.  There have been jumping pics.  There have been garden massacres and and paint color revelations. 

But first things first.  Let’s talk about the important stuff.  Lets talk about food. 

Immediately upon closing on our house, our refrigerator broke.  There are worse things, I know.  I know because we’ve heard the stories.  In fact, nearly every homeowner we’ve mentioned this little “inconvenience” to has told us their Oh! That’s nothing! tale of move-in woe: My water heater burst open and flooded the basement. My dryer burst in to flames and the fire department came. A tornado hit our house. 

Alright, fine. Natural disaster? Cows and bicycles and wicked witches flying to the air? We can’t beat that. 

Nonetheless, moving in without a method of keeping food cold was an issue.  We contemplated having someone repair it, talked about buying a new one, and at one point there may have been a suggestion for a 100% room temperature diet.  But here’s the deal, you guys.  I may not need things like milk or eggs or meat products. But hell if I’m drinking my new house champagne any way but chilled.  Lukewarm bubbles are nasty. 

So with our priorities clearly defined we knew we needed to either get our current fridge fixed or kick the old hag to the curb and bring in a younger, sexier, fully functioning model. 

It wasn’t long before we decided that we hated the current fridge – functional or not.  It was old and much too big for our kitchen.  And rather than spending God knows how much money fixing something we didn’t like, we chose to put our cash into a new appliance that should, in theory, last us longer anyway. 

So guess what?  These two twenty-four-year-olds are getting a new refrigerator installed on Thursday!  Hot Damn! 

But that’s not the point of this story.  The point of this story is to show you guys what we’ve been using in the meantime.  Because apparently, one cannot survive on red wine and macaroni and cheese alone – or so Ross says. 

Let me introduce you to my brother-in-law’s 1.8 cubic feet mini-fridge where we’re currently storing the essentials: 

 

And the best part?  The best part isn’t that it keeps my Jello pudding packs cold… 

 

…or the fact that we inexplicably chose to store a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke in this little guy. 

No, the best part is that lest we forget what it was like to sleep in the same room as your refrigerator–a refrigerator filled with crappy beer, sugary mixers and just enough Gatorade to get you to your 8am class after doing things you shouldn’t have done last night–this refrigerator comes complete with a University-issued “How to Save a Life” magnet. 

 

Because nothing says, adults! homeowners! sober neighbors! like a tutorial on the signs of alcohol poisoning.

it was five o’clock somewhere…

By 10am today we were homeowners (!)

After closing, we rushed back to the house to open up a bottle of bubbly…

…which we drank from plastic cups…

…on the floor of our furniture-less house.

Even though we haven’t officially moved yet, we’re feeling right at home.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to have a drink on our new deck…

…while sitting on our fancy Target lawn chairs.

For Your Consideration…

I was honestly a little embarrased when I turned the page in my planner and saw this:

 

 

…and then I thought to myself, What’s really more embarrassing here?  The fact that I wrote CLOSING DAY! in kindergarden-esque capital letters in my day planner?  Or the fact that my immediate decision upon seeing it was to take a picture and post it on the Internet?

…I think we both know the answer to that one.

No Mercy

 

Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news.

The Bad news: Cupcake Monday is on hiatus for the summer.  (Right, right, pull out your tiny violins…)

The Good news: We have house guests!  And one of those guests is a baker!  A baker whose menu in the last year has included such delights as:

Coconut Creme Pie

Lemon Tarts

Homemade Pretzels, Bagels and donuts

Mini Apple Pies

Blueberry Buttermilk Scones

Spiced Shortbread

-and-

…wait for it:

 

Triple Layer Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

 

When Laura (the baker) and her husband, Matt (Ross’ Best Man) called to ask if they could stay with us this weekend, we may have screamed YES.

And ever since that phone call the top button of my jeans has been having nightmares and getting stress headaches and come Sunday will no doubt be on its knees begging for mercy. 

There will be no mercy.

Zen Ironing

Dear Mom,

I thought I’d let you (and the rest of the Internet) know that last night I did something totally and completely out of character—something so mind-boggling I felt it was important to publicly document the event.

This post begins with “Dear Mom” because I think my mother will find this either, (a) most relatable or (b) most hilarious.  And this post is a post, instead of an email, because when I try to deny that I ever did this crazy thing, my mother can search for it, pull it up and say, Oh yes you did!  You wrote it, I read it, and our neighbors down the street read it too. Don’t lie to me, young lady!

(the back story)

The household iron and I were not meant to be friends.  Not only do I loathe ironing, I’m not just that good at it.  So it should come as no surprise that the number of gotta-iron-it-to-wear-it clothing items in my closet is fewer than what I can count on one hand.  And ironing any other kind of household item?  Fuggedahboutit.

(the incident)

Yesterday I had my first moving mini-meltdown. Ross and I both knew it would come, it was just a matter of when.  The only thing we both knew for sure was that it would come when we least expected it.  So yes, we went from:

lovely sunny weekend at the lake

to

browsing paint chips at Home Depot

to

Omigod our condo is ripped apart and everything is in disarray and yes of course that means my whole life is in disarray too.

It was all so very dramatic and eventually the tears subsided and Ross brought me back to reality.  I really do understand that there are much more important things going on in the world than the fact that our lives are shoved into dozens of boxes marked FRAGILE, I MEAN IT!.  But somehow I just found myself in the meltdown zone.  We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

(the totally out of character thing)

Later that evening I took a set of clean sheets out of the dryer and prepared to make the bed.  Of course I had left the sheets in the dryer long enough to allow a hefty set of wrinkles the chance to make a home on the flat sheet. I looked at the sheet in my hands and thought, I absolutely cannot, will not, go to sleep under a messy, wrinkly excuse for bedding and dammit, (Mom, are you sitting down?) I’m ironing this sheet.

That’s right, Mom. Have you come-to yet?  Give your cheek a good slap, drink some water, you’ll be fine.

I’ve always considered ironing sheets and pillowcases to be right up there on the crazy scale with ironing jeans. Who has time (or the energy) for that crap?  But you know what?  Last night I ironed the hell out of that sheet.  I finally had the chance to see some “disarray” and do something about it.  And with each wrinkle that surrendered under the hot metal in my hands (muahahaha!), I felt like I was getting a piece of my sanity back.

…For now :-)

Eight days until closing!

Memorial Weekend in Puppy Pics

Ross and I spent the weekend at the lake with my family .  I can’t remember a time when the weather was more perfect for the Memorial Day holiday.  We didn’t take many photos, but these three from my Blackberry (featuring my cousin’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Sophie) are a pretty good summary of the weekend.

Early unbridled enthusiasm

Futile attempts to keep cool.

Inevitable surrender to the sun.

 

I’d show you photos of my awkward sunburn (which I acquired while making fun of Ross for his obsessive sunblock application, of course), but Sophie sure is a lot easier on the eyes.