Thursday, June 25, 2009

Domesticated Animals....are they really?

I've never understood people who have wild animals as pets. I mean seriously people, a Tiger (snake, spider, elephant, monkey, whatever) is NOT a pet. I once saw this TV show about people who have monkey's instead of babies and we're not talking about just one family, but a lot of people. I tried to stop watching, but couldn't. They have highchairs and strollers and clothes and refer to the Monkey as their child. One man even got mad when someone laughed at the monkey and said something along the line of "that's my daughter" (dude, no its not. It's a MONKEY). This one lady had to send her monkey to an animal sanctuary after it tried to kill her and she still visited it and called it her son, also her mom talked about how she missed her grandson since he was now at the monkey sanctuary. Anyway, I had a point.....

Oh yeah, wild animals are not meant to be kept as pets. I'm not even convinced that domesticated animals are truly domesticated. Sure, my dog is personally afraid of her own farts and wouldn't ever turn on me but my cat? Oh she'd eat me in a second. She started life as this tiny adorable furball.


But even when she was tiny and (seemingly) innocent, I could see the wheels turning in that evil little brain of hers. See right now she's thinking "I could totally take that".

(Clearly my point about the dog being completely domesticated is proven). Okay, besides being a crazy lady who post pictures of her cat on her blog, I did have a point....



Yes, here's the thing. Sometimes when Cordelia looks at me I know she's thinking "If I weighed 200 lbs more, I'd eat you. And I'd like it". So if my cute, adorable (sometimes evil) "domesticated" cat is secretly hatching plans to kill me in my sleep, what's to stop a tiger from doing it? The answer is nothing, but still people are surprised when their wild animals turn on them. They go on the news and cry about how they never imagined that their beloved pet (ha) could turn on them. Hello? It's a wild animal, you don't see me bringing a gorilla into my house to dress up and feed with a bottle. So here's the thing, lets keep the wild animals in the wild where they belong. Also, if you have a cat like mine, watch your back!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Confession Part 1

I stole this idea from Bridget, hope she doesn't mind!

Confession: I'm afraid to exercise

Yes, it's true, my treadmill frightens me. I bought my treadmill several years ago when the one I inherited from my parents needed to go to exercise equipment heaven. When I bought it, I loved it. I would get up early 3-4 times a week to walk before work (if you know me personally then this will have extra significance since you probably know how I feel about sleep)! I felt great, I loved how I felt after walking, I had more energy, I was actually alert on my drive to work. It was all in all, a good thing.

Then I got RA and the treadmill became my enemy. I couldn't even walk to the bathroom without being in pain so the idea of doing extra walking, on purpose, was laughable. I spent a lot of time (I'm talking more than a year) altering the way I did everything to try and keep pain to a minimum. I started walking with my hands in my pockets (less chance of hitting something on accident), I got all new (flat and boring) shoes, I started avoiding touching people (if a kid accidentally bumping into you in the hallway made you cry and vomit you'd avoid it too). All in all I did everything, everyday, to minimize or avoid pain, and I am not being dramatic when I say that it's all I thought about.

Then I started to get better (by the grace of God), but despite that I still continued living in my "avoid all possible pain" way which included ignoring the treadmill in my bedroom. But now I'm 20 months into this battle, 18 months post-diagnosis, and 6 months into feeling pretty much normal (well as normal as I ever was). It's time for things to change, to get over the fear that any physical activity will lead directly to intense pain, to take my doctors advice and get moving. While I'm still likely to walk with my hands in my pockets (I'm a klutz), and avoid handshakes (can I wear a sign that says "this isn't a pissing contest just a handshake, go easy"), it's time to conquer the treadmill.

p.s. sorry for the gratuitous use of parentheses (but I really like them).

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Movie Mania

Have you ever come across a movie on TV and sat down to watch the entire thing even though you already own it? You sit through commercials, bad dubbing over inappropriate words, and editing to fit the time frame allowed. And (this is the best part) there are some movies that you do this with every, single time there on TV.

Come on, admit it. You know you've done it too.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Spare Room = Bare Room

I bought my house over 2 and a half years ago, and in that time my Spare bedroom became a catch all room for well, everything. It had craft stuff, my nieces toys, a pile of stuff for good will, lots of puzzles and games, but no actual bed. It was blah, and boring, and I had no idea what to do with it. I've had some paint samples hanging on the walls in there for about the last 5 months but couldn't ever get the motivation to actually do anything with it. Well once summer started I began my annual "holy-crap-it's-summer-so-I-must-compulsively-clean-every-inch-of-my-house-from-floor-to-ceiling". Once I had cleared every bit of junk from the spare room so I could shampoo the carpets I decided that since the room was empty I might as well take advantage of it and paint. The problem was that I still had no idea what to do with it so I turned to Behr.com to help me. After a few afternoons of playing with colors I settled on Hallowed Hush and Solitude (which ironically had been hanging on my walls for months although I didn't discover that until after I'd bought the paint). Now the room has lots of color, although it is lacking things like furniture. That's okay because my next project is going to be refinishing a few pieces I already have for the room! I just love summer, there's so much time for projects!!!


Blah and boring!


Still blah, still boring

Hallowed Hush on top, those ceilings are high!
Top color done, now comes the tape...

And tape, and tape, and tape.....

1st coat of Solitude hits the walls!!

So fun!


Removing the tape was my favorite part


Now for furniture, and a bed.......

Friday, June 5, 2009

Toilet Trials

To start off my summer vacation I decided to tackle the toilet in my guest bathroom. This toilet has been a pain in the rear since I moved into the house several years ago. My poor dad has been over many times to replace flappers, and fiddle around inside the tank trying to stop it from running constantly. After the last flapper install Dad declared that the whole system would have to be replaced. Well that was about 6 months ago and we've both been to busy to do anything about it. I was talking (i.e. complaining) about this to my BFF Bridget and she told me that she had replaced the innards of the toilet at her old house.
Well if SHE could do it, then darn it so could I. I promptly headed to Home Depot and bought a complete toilet repair kit that promised to be "easy to install". The box even declared "easy to install", the guy at Home Depot who I asked about it said "easy to install". HA, it was definitely NOT easy to install. Factor in my RA which means my hands have very little strength, and screws that are so corroded that they literally disintegrate when you touch them, this Easy to Install system ended up taking me 1 week, 1 visit from my mom, 1 call to our pastor, 1 visit from said pastor, and 1 new tool courtesy of said pastor. (Dad is currently in Israel, hence my calling our other pastor for help). But, after Mom and Pastor Alex helped me unscrew the tank from the bowl I was able to do the rest of the install myself, and I'm pretty darn pleased!!


Finally the tank comes off! All it took was 2
extra days, and 2 extra helpers.

As though the toilet wasn't enough of a project I
decided that this was the perfect time to remove
the wall paper from that area to make painting easier.

A tub full of old (gross) parts.


A floor covered with tools and wall paper debris



Now just look at that! A beautiful new system.
Sweet Success