Kitty Nook

I am so so so so proud of my latest creation! Here's the backstory: our house is small and only has two tiny bathrooms. Our house also has two dogs and a cat. Said cat, and the humans who love him, likes to have a bathroom to himself if at all possible. And since we'll be completely redoing the extra bathroom eventually, we've let Ceti have it for now. Which meant having a litter box in the shower and his food and water on the back of the toilet....not anymore!



booyah!



It's taken a little getting used to for Ceti.

And my favorite part is the hinged brackets! This way, on the rare occasions we need in that closet we just pop the shelf down.

Err...pay no attention to those fail holes on the wall...

 Even better, the only things I had to buy for this project were the brackets and the dish towels I used as curtains. (And if I still had my mound of fabric I had to give away in the move, I would've been able to spend even less money!) Oh dear, looking at these pictures makes me think I'll have to buy Ceti a real water dish. And different flooring. And different paint.

Whaddya think?

Oh my gosh, update!

Okay, let's see...since last we talked it's been really nice outside (and really tornado-y!) and I've done a ton outside. Ben's dad came to visit and help with some little fixes that we couldn't figure out, couldn't find help with and were too cheap to hire someone. The biggie being fixing our saggy floor. The shower in the extra bathroom has had a leak for years and became a slight mold issue and caused one of the beams underneath the floor nearby to give way a little. And once they fixed that, our back door no longer closes correctly and the deadbolt won't work. Still haven't figure out that one yet, but soon! Ben and his dad also cleared out most of the junk the previous owners left behind: three doors, an outdoor table (kept), empty boxes, and a keyboard w/ stand (broken, unfortunately). They also: replaced the rotting crawlspace door, cleared out the culvert, rigged the gate to stay open when we need it open and hauled a lot of dirt and mulch to the house. Hooray!

Ben and I then bought our first lawn mower, about which I learned yes, you want a self-propelled mower. I also had to learn how to turn a push mower on; my parents had a riding mower for their yard and cows for the pasture when I was growing up. Learned that you can't easily tell your backyard is overrun with weeds if you mow everything low enough...haha.

I finished cleaning up one flowerbed and mulched it, and the weather has kept me from finishing the other :(

My daffodils finally bloomed like crazy!

Planted my very own first real gardenia! Hope it can actually survive here. And Zoey helped.

Also got some other interesting plants, a fuchsia:

And some strawberries in hanging pots.


So excited about these!

Finally finished our picture wall, for now...



And I did a lot of cleaning. You can finally walk into the extra bathroom now that I've taken all the tools out and put them away in the shed. Straightened the bathroom closet quite a bit.

But in the last month there's also been a lot of life getting in the way. We've had three severe weather days, two of those were bad enough to get into the bathtub. Between the two of us, we were sick for three weeks, which cancelled our trip to Austin and SXSW. Found out we have a huge carpenter bee problem (which also meant finding out what a carpenter bee was) and I'm trying to fix it right now. And this guy escaped into the neighbors yard briefly...

Which doesn't sound bad, except Ceti turns into a feral lion when he gets a little taste of freedom. That pitiful look is only after he tried twice to bite a hunk out of me and was screaming like a bobcat for ten minutes! Ben had to come home from work to get him. And of course when he gets there, Ceti just walks right to him and lets him pick him up. 

In better news, Ben got two job opportunities recently. One with a company in Nashville that would mean less pay, but it wouldn't be retail and it would be a set schedule. The other would be with his current employer. The store in Huntsville recently lost their general manager and Ben has already applied. I'm kinda hoping for Huntsville to happen because it would mean a lot more money than he makes now, he would have some control over his schedule, and we both have friends there. Franklin's great, but I don't really know anyone here except Ben's family and friends. Even my boss is Ben's old college roommate!

So that's what we've been up to lately. Hopefully, I can start balancing completing projects and blogging about them!

Happy New Year!

Those would be the black eyed peas we're eating for the first of the year. This is the first year I attempted to make them from scratch and they were...better with Tabasco. Next year I'll get brave and try to make the peas and the turnip greens from scratch. This is one of the days that I am uber-superstitious about. You have to eat black-eyed peas for good luck, turnip greens for wealth, and whatever you do the first of the year is what you'll do all year. So far things are looking good! Rang in the new year with friends and family in Huntsville, drove back home (in the worst rain and lightning I've ever seen - it was so bright it hurt!), slept in, ate a huge delicious breakfast, watched Bama (Ben's team) and Mississippi State (my team - there was much cowbell ringing) dominate their bowl games, Roger picked up the huge pile of paneling and moulding that had been an eyesore in our backyard, ate our black eyed peas and turnip greens, and now I'm cleaning and waiting for Ben to get off work so we can eat paella at his parents.

Normally, I'd try to avoid cleaning on New Years Day, but I'm sick of looking at the mess left over from the move, Christmas, and me being sick during all of it. December ended up roughly for me and I am so glad to start out the new year in our new house! And with a new puppy!

Meet Little Miss Zoey!

This little cutie was my sister's, Shanna, Christmas present to me. And she is a-freakin'-dorable! My family have a small herd of Boston Terriers completely by accident, sort of. They bred two a couple of years ago with the intent of selling them, and I knew better. Three years later, they have: Jackie, Spot, Rufus, Zeke, Lily, and Malia. Accidentally Rufus and Lily had a litter, and Zoey was one of four. And of course, the Culpeppers won't be able to part with all of them. Or really, none of them since the two they're giving away are staying in the family, haha!

I had forgotten how tough having a puppy was, but thankfully I am a much more patient person now. And even better, I know about crates! Foster and Ceti weren't thrilled to begin with, but she's won Foster over. Ceti, however, gets so stressed out about Zoey that he will start coughing up hairballs when she gets near him. Poor guy!

As far as house happenings go: we moved in!, had our first houseguests, Ben's brother Ray and his girlfriend BaoNhi, got all our furniture and appliances in and assembled, got our new king-size mattress!!, put up some of the baseboards, put down a couple of new thresholds and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Once I get rid of all our boxes, I'll post some pictures, but the rooms are all still in the very working-on-it stages.