Christmas time is here...

...and so are the Christmas commercials! As a Holiday Season fanatic, I get as excited about Christmas commercials as football fans get about Superbowl commercials.

I don't watch all that much tv during the rest of the year, but during the holidays I stay pretty tuned in to the channels with the most holiday spirit. My hope is that I will witness at least a few showings of my all-time-favorite Christmas commercial, the "Hershey Kiss Orchestra" (as I call it). It's such a classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtSLF4vlrk

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

"Thank my lucky..."

At a cultural awareness meeting at work last month, we had 30 seconds to draw both sides of a penny from memory. Several people had a relatively accurate depiction, and many others were creatively, hilariously, off-the-wall wrong. (Mine was surprisingly close to accurate, I was quite proud of myself!).

Because my brain tends to process info in strange little loops, my thought process quickly changed from the American penny as a cultural icon to the American penny as a good luck charm. And from there, of course. the topic broadened into a full-on contemplation of identified tokens of impending good fortune. 

Think about it. We have: 



Find a penny, pick it up
and all day you'll have good luck!

 

My beautiful grandma
at her 90th birthday

 

My personal favorite, however, is the green m&m...

I don't know how well-known the Lucky Green m&m actually is, but when I first heard about it at age 11, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was in the musical production Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and during the song 'Pure Imagination' the cast members danced around as various pieces of candy. Ross was a Tootsie Roll; I was a green m&m. One of the older cast members, a narrator, told me about the "lucky" value of a green m&m. I took her word for gold and didn't even ask her where she heard such a thing. To this day, I still catch myself countng how many greens are in a pack of m&ms. Christmas is a particularly exciting time, with bowls full of reds and lucky greens!!

The Dog's Gone

Today was Mr. Shadow's last day with me. It's hard to believe, but I had him for a total of 11 weeks, just shy of 3 months! (Not counting those 4 days where he was running wild on the streets of downtown Phoenix). Considering that the dog-to-human age ratio is 1 human year to 7 dog years, that means that from Shadow's perspective he was with me for nearly two years of his life! (Does that mean that in Shadow's mind I'm already pushing 30? Eek!).

Sayonara, Shadow! You're a good old boy, for a dog.

(Postscript from the cats: Old, yes. Good, no. So long, you smelly beast of burden)

Crowds and Turkey Crazies

Today my mom asked me to pick up a few things at Trader Joe's for our Family Thanksgiving Sunday Supper (after the big Turkey Day with aunts, uncles, and cousins, we do another one with just the 4 of us. Plus, Sunday Suppers are kind of a tradition in our family). I agreed obligingly, even though grocery shopping is one of my least favorite activities.

When I got to the grocery store around 3pm it was teeming with a bajillion harried and hurried-looking shoppers (apparently mine's not the only family who continues the big dinners the weekend following a major holiday). Shopping carts were whipping around corners and flying through aisles, the people steering them avoiding eye contact with fellow shoppers but scruitinizing food labels with almost comic intensity.

I get so claustrophobic in huge crowd situations, it seriously borders on agoraphobia. When that happens it can take me an hour to do 20 minutes-worth of shopping because I get all overwhelmed and distracted. Not to mention I have to wait my turn to bulldoze down a crowded aisle, so I spend several minutes wandering through the store just trying to stay out of the way.

Do you see why I hate grocery shopping so much????  It doesn't help that Trader Joe's is small compared to, say, Safeway or Fry's, so the hectic atmosphere is intensified by the more compact space.

What's funny about all this is, I have no problem with small spaces in general, and I have a rather flimsy "personal space bubble" most of the time...but busy crowds make me crazy.

After finally asking for help to track down something called mirepoix, I swiped my debit card and fled out the automatic sliding doors to the fresh air. As I was crossing the parking lot back to my car, my mom texted me asking for chicken broth (I had texted her earlier to inform her that, according to the store clerk who helped me find the mirepoix, turkey broth is officially out of stock for the season. Um, hello, the season ain't over for another month!).

"I just left the store!" I texted back, panicking slightly because I did not want to go back in there.
I foisted the responsibility onto my dad to get the broth, which was really for the best since at that point I wasn't sure if the turkey was even in the oven yet, and I figured I better get back to help my mom get the dinner started.

In the end, the amazingly delicious dinner (incuding my famous mashed potatoes) was well worth the supermarket mania. I'm gonna sleep good tonight, and going back to work in the morning is going to be an adjustment after my food-filled four-day weekend.

This picture pretty much sums up the chaos I experienced today:

Photo courtesy of a Google search for "crazy busy supermarket." I didn't take this photo. 

Happy weekend-after-Thanksgiving, y'all!

Cowgirl Dreaming

I have loved horses since I was a little girl. My favorite toy was a horse figurine that all my other toys spent hours riding through the hills and valleys of my bedroom. I would always end that game fantasizing about my own future as a rancher's wife, when I would get to spend my days riding horses and lazing in beautiful green meadows while my beloved horse grazed on wildflowers nearby. Interestingly, the chores and hard labor of being a horsewoman never made it into my fantasy. As I got older, though, a crew of handsome cowboys started showing up, leaning on perfectly clean rakes and admiring me as my horse and I appeared through the haze of twilight with wildflowers braided into our mane and hair.

Wild imagination? You know it.
Did I wish with all my being it would come true? You know it.

When I was 13 I asked my parents for a horse. I even tried bargaining with them about the future of all birthdays and Christmases: "if you buy me a horse, you never ever have to buy me another present ever in my life. Ever."

I continued getting lovely gifts for all major holidays, but never that beloved horse.

Considering how much I love horses, it's pretty sad that I've only gone riding 3 times in my life:

The first time was at girl scout camp when I was 7, which I "remember" only because there are pictures.

The second time was in Wickenburg during some lawyer convention my parents attended when I was 11, and I remember that trail ride primarily because the guide let us canter through a wide open field, which was the BEST THING EVER to me at the time.

The third time was yesterday, a whole 16 years since my last joy ride. My mom gave me two trail ride coupons for my birthday, and it only took us nearly 2 months to redeem them. But we wanted to wait till the weather was perfect, which in the desert can take a while.

The MTM Ranch is way out in Cave Creek, so the drive took us about an hour. By the time we got there I was pretty nervous; the pessimist in me kept picturing the nasty spill I was terrified of taking. But the giddy cowgirl wannabe inside me won out, and after signing my life away (my mom and I signed waivers stating our choice not to wear riding caps. We're wild women!), I hoisted myself onto the back of an ancient-looking dapple gray named Badger. After Badger sated his thirst and had himself a little playtime in the water trough (most hilarious thing ever), we set off into the desert with our friendly and talkative trail guide, Joe.  


When Joe wasn't regaling us with stories from his own childhood, he provided us with bits of western trivia:
               John Wayne hated horses.
               The Roy Rogers restaurant chain is named for a cowboy tv actor.
               Gene Autry wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

The trail ride was 2 hours long, but I could have stayed out there with Badger all day. I find horseback riding so peaceful...even the bumpy clip-clopping of my horse's steady gait couldn't detract from the joy of riding under an azure sky full of fluffy white clouds, while a cool breeze blew across the landscape.


Mom, Chloe, Joe



Me, Badger, Joe

The whole drive home, my mom sang "The rain is Tess, the fire's Joe, and they call the wind Mariah," which is a song from an old cowboy musical movie. I've decided that Mariah is my official cowgirl name, which would make my mom Tess.

The most amazing thing? I'm not that sore today! I guess there is something to the whole "keeping your heels down" and "moving with the horse" and all the other horse riding etiquette they teach you. That, and lots of Advil and muscle relaxers to stave off the worst of the muscle pain!

My mom and I are both already talking about our next trail ride.

Happy trails to you!!

Cozy kitties

I love it when I catch my kitties being lovey together. It doesn't happen very often...and in fact seems to occur most often during the colder weather months. What looks like affection could very well be a survival instinct...body heat preservation!

But they sure look sweet, whatever the reason for this snuggle-fest. I wish they'd included me in it!

Read me like a book...

Today at my workplace's monthly staff meeting, all the newbies had to stand up and introduce themselves, then be subjected to a round of questioning by the other employees. Since I have only been working there for a couple weeks, I was one of the newbies. I had been warned that some people liked to ask awkward or embarrassing questions, so when it was my turn in the spotlight I was a little apprehensive. Turns out I needn't have worried, since all my questions were fun.

"Were you named after Meryl Streep or Merrill Lynch?"
(Neither)

"What is your favorite movie?"
(This changes seasonally; right now I'm partial to The Family Stone)

"If you were a novel and I were to walk into Barnes and Noble and find you on a shelf, which section would you be in?"

I loved  that last question. Loved. It. I loved it for two reasons:
1) I'm an avid reader and consider bookstores my second home
2) It's an out-of-the-box self-examination question, not of the typical "getting to know you" variety

I took a few moments to mull it over, then answered: "In the fictional literature section, because I'm a bit of a storyteller myself."

My answer was met with an enormous "oooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!" from the rest of the staff, which made me laugh. Apparently my answer sounded very profound, when I was just revealing a quirky truth about myself!

Top 10 Notes to Self from Halloween 2012

1) If you want cool-looking jack-o-lanterns on Halloween night, don't carve pumpkins more than 48 hours in advance. I carved mine last Friday; one has already caved in and the other looks like a wrinkly old man. Not very impressive.

2) I think it's safe to say that Halloween is Spitter's least favorite holiday. Every time there was a knock on the door I could hear her growl from her hiding spot behind the couch. Poor kitty baby.

3) Never assume that the older kids will be mature and exercise restraint. One group of teens snatched handfuls until I said, "please take just one or two, I need to save some for the little kids." Emphasis included.

4) In my neighborhood, a few bags of candy ain't gonna cut it. Next year I'll need to remember to get several of the jumbo-sized bags if I expect to stay in business past 7pm. I had to turn away the sweetest little hopeful-eyed boy in a spider man costume.

5) Yes, I really did run out of candy before 7pm. I believe it was 6:48pm, to be exact. It was a total fail, even considering Halloween was on a weekday this year and most kids probably had to go home early to get ready for school the next day.

6) The sad thing is, I thought I had over-purchased. I was convinced I would have tons of candy left over. HA, boy did I turn out to be mistaken!

7) When in need of more loot, put on your creativity cap and ransack the kitchen. I weighed my options for appropriate potential handouts, and came up with sugar packets and/or Emergen-C.

8) Emergen-C packets look enough like Fun Dip that I figured I could at least trick the littler kids into thinking they were getting a real treat.

9) Older kids, however, can sniff out when you're trying to dupe them. Literally. When I was down to my last few pieces of the good candy and had to supplement my candy bowl with only only other pre-packaged items I could find, one boy (he was at least 12) picked up the packet of Emergen-C I dropped in his bag and SNIFFED IT.

10) If you run out of treat options and have to go into premature hiding, it helps with the feelings of lameness if yours is not the only dark house on the block. Several of my neighbors turned off their porch lights around the same time I did...I wonder if we're all newbies to the neighborhood who underestimated the surrounding population of candy seekers, or if there was a recent population surge that even the veteran residents weren't expecting??

Pre-Halloween festivities!

A recent Halloween tradition for my family is gathering at someone's house for dinner, a movie, and pumpkin carving. This year, the event happened my my little house!

Mom and I rented Coraline, but Ross vetoed that movie choice (he's very picky about the Tim Burton movies he likes). We ended up watching Hocus Pocus, a classic childhood favorite for me and Ross (the parents- mom, in particular- were less than enthusiastic, since we tend to end up watching it every year and Ross and I can recite the entire movie start to finish, haha).

For dinner, mom made an amazing homemade-from-scratch "traditional" chili (no beans and no tomatos, just the way I like it!). My dad contributed delicious cornbread, but after receiving several compliments he declared that it was jut "a box from Marie Calendar and some water." I made brownies, because they have been my family's dessert of choice for as long as I can remember and I am the family's brownie baker extraordinaire (though I admit, my brownies also come from a box).

After dinner and the movie, we headed out to the backyard for some pumpkin carving! Last year (or the year before that? I can't remember now) we carved 4 pumpkins, but this year we decided to share. All the fun, half the mess! My favorite part is that mom and Ross went out to get tea-light candles, and returned with vanilla scented Glade candles! It cracked me up!

My jack-o-lantern is supposed to be a cat, but upon closer inspection it looks like The Count from Sesame Street!

Happy (almost) Halloween, everybody! Have fun and be safe!

I scream for sherbet!

Today I treated myself to a free single scoop at Baskin Robbins, courtesy of the coupon I recently received in my email inbox (I signed up for the BR Birthday Club for the sole purpose of this once-a-year freebie).

As I sat outside in the it's-early-autumn-and-finally-cooling-off-in-the-desert late afternoon sunshine nice shady area, I sent this picture text message to my mom:

Me: "Happy birthday free scoop to me! Can you tell what flavor I got?"

Her response just a few moments later: "Rainbow sherbet, what else???"

My favorite ice cream has been Rainbow Sherbet since I was a little girl. It's so yummy, and any time I get a hankering for a tasty frozen treat, the deliciously fruity combination of raspberry, orange, and pineapple is my first choice.

And to say Thank You to Baskin Robbins for my free birthday scoop (or because I neglected to exercise self-restraint, being instead in favor of self-indulgence), I bought a quart of Rainbow Sherbet to enjoy at my future leisure! Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Gotta go, Dutch

I had initially intended to let Dutchie stay with me through the weekend and into early next week (to give the owners a decent window in which to re-claim her), but she had two altercations with my cats within 24 hours of her arrival on Friday. Even though Dutchie started it by chasing after them, I decided to be nice to her and let her stay in the house during the day instead of being stuck outside or alone in the guest house (she goes bonkers and gets destructive when left alone too long); this means my kitties have been the ones stuck behind a closed door. After two days of this arrangement and seeing how unhappy my babies are, I just can't take it anymore. It's not fair to my kitties to keep a dog here who chases them and barks at them, especially when the dog is only here as a favor to her own little self! No one claiming to be Dutchie's owner has come forward since Brad and I put up the posters on Thursday, so this morning I contacted the Valley Dog Rescue group and spoke to the director, who told me to bring Dutchie to PetsMart this afternoon because they would be there as part of an adoption event. I like this organization (and organizations similar to them) because they house adoptable dogs in foster homes instead of cages, and there's no risk of them being euthanized. Plus, they hold newly surrendered pets for 7-10 days and continue searching for the owners before officially putting them up for adoption, which gives Dutchie's owner more time to find her and get her back (if they want to, that is. It has been brought to my attention that she may have been set loose on purpose, given that no one appears to be looking for her. It's also possible she was stolen, which means we have no idea where she came from).
So now I'm back to just Shadow, who barely blinks at the cats when they venture out of hiding to come glare at him reproachfully. My hope is that, with yippie Dutchie gone, they'll rediscover some of their bravado. I miss my kitty babies, and I admit it'll be nice when it's just the 3 of us again. I like dogs just fine, but my heart belongs to those little feline furballs.

Communication is key!

Texted conversation from yesterday:

5:35pm Me (to brother): Burgers and beers* over here tonight?
5:36pm Ross (brother): Yeah! Dad never called you? We will be there around 7 or so.

5:36 Me (to dad): Burgers and beers over here tonight?
5:37 Dad: Yes. I thought Ross contacted you. He's coming over and we'll be to your place 7-730 with food and drink.

Naturally I ratted them out to each other with plenty of "HAHAHAs" and exclamation points. I'm glad I said (I mean texted) something, otherwise I would have been in for a surprise!

*Burgers and Beers has become a longstanding dinnertime tradition on Friday nights. Sometimes we go out to restaurants, but lately the preference has been to meet at someone's house with takeout (Carl's Jr. is a fave) and watch a movie (or trashy reality tv). I love being part of a family of homebodies!

Animal House

I was going to just do an "Update" to the previous post, but the story of getting Dutchie settled in is too funny not to be given it's own post.

This is "Dutchie," the sweetest Boston Terrier I've ever met (okay, she's the only BT I've ever met, but she's setting a good example).

Crappy cell phone pic of cuddly L'il Dutchie

Brad brought her over just a little bit ago, and for a few minutes it was dog mania hilarity: picture two dogs on leashes, the bigger one standing stoically while the little one ran circles around him and the legs of the two humans. At one point I was caught in the middle of the tangle of leash lines and tried to step over them so we wouldn't have to play London Bridge again, but Brad did a little sidestep at the same time, which nearly resulted in very painful experience for him. I apologized for nearly kneeing him in the family jewels, then tried not to burst out laughing as he leaned around me trying to keep himself from getting caught in the crazy tangle.
"I'm sorry!" I gasped, to which he replied, "we're a mess!"

We finally got everybody untangled, and Brad took off to get to the airport. As for the rest of us, Dutchie is sleeping next to me on the couch, Shadow is resting nearby, and Bootsie and Spitter are hiding in the "office room" and may not resurface till bedtime (I use quotes because it's really just a storage space right now).

Brad has been in contact with a woman who offered to take Dutchie if her owners don't show up in several days. I don't want to give Dutchie up to hastily in case her owners are out of town or something, but at the same time 4 animals and 1 me is not the best ratio! Maybe the woman who offered to take Dutchie would agree to be a second doggie fostermama, with the option to adopt if the owners still aren't found after a while.

My family is supposed to come over for dinner this weekend...I'm tempted to put a sign on the door that says "Welcome to the Animal House: Enter at your own risk!"

The dog days of summer

At one point in time I operated what basically amounted to a home-based kitty hospice.

Now I have apparently switched businesses to some sort of canine halfway house for foster dogs and runaways.

One the same night I got Shadow back (Wednesday), I was asked by a shar pei rescue group if I knew anyone who could house a shelter dog for a day (Thursday), until transportation arrangements could be made to send the dog to its new owner in CO. I wanted to take the dog myself as a pay-it-forward sort of thing, but I wasn't sure how Shadow would react to having another dog around after the stress of his ordeal. Since it was such short notice I wasn't able to ask around as much as I wanted to, and there was no news on him today so I don't know the ultimate fate of that pup.

But the universe seems to be determined to take me up on that pay-it-forward business: yesterday afternoon I discovered that my mom's friend, Brad, had found a stray dog the night before; he had been out walking his own dog when "Dutchie" (the name my mom randomly gave the runaway) came flying up the sidewalk, friendly as can be, but with no collar and no owners chasing after her.
Given that I just went through the Lost/Found Pet ordeal with Shadow, and am a frequent pet-sitter for Brad's dogs, Brad enlisted my help to find this pup's owners. He took her to the vet to check for a microchip first thing, no such luck. Then he printed out some Found Dog flyers and we drove around posting them in his neighhorhood. The pup is a small breed (boston terrier) who is clearly well-fed, so hopefully she didn't get very far from home.
Brad has to fly to Australia on a business trip today, so if "Dutchie's" owners aren't found by the time he has to leave for the airport I agreed to take "Dutchie" for a little while, in the hopes that her owners will come looking for her. If they don't, Brad wants to take her to a Boston Terrier rescue group. Neither of us can stomach taking her to a shelter...she's such a sweetheart, and AZ shelters are heartbreakingly awful.

I can't believe that in less than a week I, the quintessential cat lady, have become the temporary foster petmama of 2 wayward dogs. What am I getting myself into?

My kitty babies have been largely avoiding Shadow since his return...let's see what they do with a dog who is their own size! Shadow and "Dutchie" met yesterday afternoon (Brad brought her over and we kept both dogs on short leashes) and they seemed to get along fine, but I will probably keep them separated if I can't be around to supervise.

I really must say, it  sure seems like my life has gone to the dogs these days (literally!).

There's a Shadow in the house!



Well. So, Shadow went on quite an adventure barely an hour after arriving at my house on Saturday evening. He slipped his collar during a walk around my neighborhood, and though two young boys, a friendly father and his 8 year old daughter, my own dad and brother, and I chased him around the neighborhood for hours, we were unable to catch him. When the sun went down and we lost sight of him, I admitted defeat for the night and went home completely crushed.

 

I don't feel like rehashing Shadow's ensuing "adventure" (or in my case, gut-punching ordeal) in detail here on the blog, but I do intend to write the whole thing out, especially the end when things got good. The important thing to know is, Shadow is back safe and sound, thanks to the above-and-beyond efforts of lots of people. From Sunday through Tuesday my days were spent communicating with an incredible network of dog lovers, all of them strangers who heard about my lost dog situation from the various alerts and notifications I posted on the internet (I never even got the chance to put up my paper posters, of which I had printed over 50...but I ain't complaining!).

On Wednesday afternoon I got Shadow back and found a new hero. A good samaritan named Steve chased Shadow ON FOOT after he, two young women, and my dad helped me track him by car nearly 5 miles away from where he had first disappeared...I will never know how Steve managed to get the choke chain around his neck, because I was still in my car, idling helplessly in the parking lot Shadow had disappeared into, while Steve pounded the asphalt with a speed that (in my opinion) is worthy of the Olympics. I can only guess how he managed to wrangle Shadow, but whatever he did, I say he should join a rodeo if the Olympics don't work out.

 

The important thing is, Shadow is back, he's unhurt, and he's safe. He walked back into the house (on a leash!) yesterday just two hours shy of exactly 4 days (96 hours) from the time he left it (on a leash). It was probably the longest walk he's ever been on in his 5-ish years of life...and he's not going on any more while he's here with me! He'll have to settle for exploring my nice and secure backyard. Last night when we went out for our nighttime potty break, he lifted his face in the air and sniffed and sniffed...I wonder if he could still smell traces of his adventure in the neighborhood, or if he was just glad that he wasn't smelling hot asphalt and car exhaust anymore!

After taking a nice big drink of fresh water

Several people who know the full story have put in their two cents: "Meryl, you have to write the whole story." "Meryl, you know you could get that published, right?" "Meryl, make sure you record every detail of your experience, it's gonna be a novel someday."

This story is definitely one for the books, so look for it on the shelves in the probably-still-pretty-distant future! In the meantime, I know a boy who's gonna need a lot of rest. As for me, I'm  just happy that my days will no longer consist of continually refreshing my browser on every Found Dog listing on Craigslist and beyond, and hopefully now my phone will stop ringing every 5 minutes! Speaking of which, I guess I better change my voicemail so it no longer talks about a lost dog.

And of course a HUGE "Thank You" goes out to Steve, Lindsay, Lisa, Jere, G.G., Dennis, and everyone else whose names I either never got or just couldn't hold on to in the rush of events that made it possible to bring Shadow home. Every single one of them made it possible for Shadow to be found, and I am eternally grateful. And I am so deeply humbled by the fact that they all acted out of the kindness and goodness of their own hearts; if anything good can come out of a lost pet, it's being able to witness a community of strangers coming together purely out of love for the animal. If every action taken, word spoken, and deed accomplished had that much love infused within it, we'd live in a completely different world. Don't you agree?



Sleeping off his wild adventure

My (totally random) inheritance

Today I learned that on Saturday I'm inheriting a bed, a table, and a dog.

The dog is a temporary foster placement and will likely be here for several weeks. I come by my propensity for doggie and kitty foster parenting very honestly. My family has a history of taking in wayward animals...on my count we inherited no fewer than 9 cats and 5 dogs throughout my childhood and adolescence (not all at once!). I'm pretty sure that only one cat and one dog were actually purchased, and all the others came to us from off the streets or were brought to us by people who knew we would care for them. Spitter was supposed to be a temporary foster, but I ended up keeping her because we bonded so strongly; Bootsie actually kind of adopted me (as in, she showed up one night and never left).

This new doggie, Shadow, will be my first foster pup since moving into my little house. He is coming to me by way of my dear friend Karen, whose son (Shadow's owner) travels for weeks at a time for his job and can't always give Shadow the time and attention he needs. Karen is in her sixties-ish, still works full time and can't care for the dog herself, so she asked me today if I would be willing to take him until her son gets back or a new a permanent new home is found. I said yes (obviously).
Spitter and Bootsie are very territorial and are going to flip their freakin' lids over the presence of a dog, so I'm going to make sure that Shadow is 100% cat friendly before I let them socialize. This is going to be an adventure, I'm sure!

As for the bed, I currently have a queen-sized bed, which is slightly too big for my bedroom (I have maybe 2 feet of space left to move around in). As luck would have it, Karen happens to have a twin bed that's currently gathering dust in her garage. She not only offered to include the bed in Saturday's doggie delivery, she asked me what else I needed and tried to get me to take a desk! I love her, haha. I doubt Spitter or Bootsie will miss having the extra space of the queen, since their preferred sleeping arrangement involves taking up as much of my personal space as possible. Now I just have to figure out how to dismantle the metal bedframe of the queen.

Karen is not providing the table, but I'm sure if she had one she'd try to convince me to take it, too! The table is originally from Ikea, but I'm getting it for more than half-off on Craigslist. Woo hoo!

 I'm picking up the table at 1pm, the bed and dog are expected to arrive around 4pm. What a day that's going to be!

Falling out of summer!

Happy September 1st!!!

To me, September heralds the giddy anticipation of good things to come as we begin to approach the end of the year:

*Cooler temperatures as we finally begin the downward slope out of summer!
*The first day of fall (September 22)
*The traditional joint-celebration for my and my mom's birthdays (which are 8 days apart)
*Heaps of Thanksgiving mashed potatoes
*My younger brother's birthday
*The first day of winter (December 21)
*24/7 Christmas music (everything having to do with the Christmas season, really).

I wish I could add the impending beauty of colorful autumn foliage and Winter Wonderlands to my list, but I have to drive 2 hours north if I want those. You can bet I'll be making that trip, hopefully a handful of times!

Happy Start of the Best Part of the Year!!!

Not Just Spring Cleaning

Since moving into my little house in February (I'm renting from some friends who live out of state), I have rearranged my main room several times...I'd say at least once a month. I'm talking entire pieces of furniture moved to different walls, and I did it all myself (well, except when my front door had to come off to get my "new" (used) couch inside...I had some manpower help for that haha).

I don't have any pictures to post, because I keep changing stuff around, but once I achieve the feng shui I'm looking for I'll reveal the final product. I haven't let anyone except family see my little house, because it's become very important to me that my house have the right  feel before I start inviting people over. I don't really know when that started, because when I first moved in I was really excited to have a housewarming party. I suppose it's because I moved in the middle of my last semester of grad school, and I was too busy to focus on putting my house together for the first 3 months I lived in it. Furniture was just kind of placed willy-nilly or in a "temporary location," and then every surface was quickly overtaken by textbooks, notebooks, papers, and writing utensils.

When I graduated in May, I took a good look at my living space and was flabbergasted to see how disorganized everything was, and how un-home-like it felt as a result. Now, I'm not a particularly organized person as it is (I can't keep my car or my room clean to save my life!), but I am a master at maintaining "organized chaos." Things may not always be where they "should be," but I always usually know where things are. In fact, well-meaning people (mom) who try to put things "where they belong" frustrate me to no end, because then I can't find anything because it's not where I put it!

But there's a fine line beteween manageable disorganization and total chaos, and for several months I teetered over the edge of the latter. Over the last several weeks, however, I have reached more of a middle ground, and I'm working my way toward the more liveable side of the line.

Once I've regained control of all the furniture that's already in my house (most of which are hand-me-downs from the house I grew up in), I'm super excited to start adding little touches that reflect my own personality and style. I browse and window shop all the time, and I've got my eye on items I found in Pier 1, Home Goods, Cost Plus World Market, and even Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe (along with the great selection of books, the store has lots of decorative knick-knacky things that I absolutely swooned over when I was there last week).

The style I'll be going for is "country cottage chic"...I've always said that I'm a big city girl with a small town heart, and my impending interior-decorating project is certain to reflect that!