cheese.rox

Cat stand-off
Originally uploaded by Koog Family.

Emma helped me run several errands this weekend. I took some photos during our outings, and will post a couple in the next few days.

The first thing we did was to take cat Minnie to the vet. After we returned home, because Minnie had the bad fortune of smelling like the vet’s office, the cats launched into their usual post-vet routine of exchanging growls, hisses, and other feline unpleasantries for several hours. I’ve read that this happens because the cat who stayed home doesn’t “recognize” the cat with the foreign smell. This, even though these two kitties have been together every day for the past eight years. Whenever they do this, I find myself wondering about what the world would be like if humans’ primary recognition system were based upon olfaction.

(Click on the picture and move your mouse [no pun intended] over it to view my photo “notes” about how I tried, unsucessfully, to get the cats to make nice).

Hero Neighbors and Emma, originally uploaded by Koog Family.

**********It’s not really a newspaper headline, but it is a true story.**********

On Thursday night, I did something that busy people (or at least absent-minded busy people) should never do:

I varied my routine.

The stomach-turning result was that I found myself, adrenaline and blood pressure suddenly rising, on the wrong side of a locked door from my baby!

Yep, just after arriving home after the daycare pick-up, I managed to lock myself out of the house, while my keys, cell phone, and EMMA, strapped into her car seat, were inside on the dining room table.

I ran right to the neighbors’ house and asked to use the phone. I tried calling Paul right away, but he was in class. Luckily, I knew that he was due to have a break about 15 minutes from the time I tried to call him. Still, the fact that I had to leave a message for him instead of speaking to him directly didn’t do much to calm me down.

Sensing my maternal panic, the neighbors kindly helped me in every way possible. They let me look up phone numbers on the internet at their house. And when I came outside after doing that, I found them busy at work on Operation Baby Rescue. Janet was at the foot of a ladder looking up, and Pete was on top of our garage, about to enter in through a window.

Luckily, I finally reached Paul on his cell phone, and he was quickly on the way.

Pete and Janet stayed talking with me in the yard while I waited so that I didn’t “have to freak out all alone.”

Emma did some crying that was audible through the windows, but Paul finally arrived with keys, and the K. family was happily reunited.

Afterwards, I took Emma over to Pete and Janet’s to say thanks and to get a picture. You can just see the glowing eyes of their cool Great Dane, Vegas, in the picture above. Or, click the small picture, below, for a better view of handsome Vegas.

.flickr-photo { }.flickr-frame { float: left; text-align: center; margin-right: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Great Dane,
originally uploaded by Koog Family.

Thanks, again, guys, for your enormous help, and for being such terrific neighbors!!!

Although the sock on the right is being worn normally, the other one has been
forcefully pulled and stretched and chewed on the end.

Emma likes her socks.

I am Mozzerella Cheese!!!!

 

(But if I change my answers to other reasonable picks
for me, I might also be Blue Cheese, Brie, or Chedder Cheese…)

See what kind of Cheese YOU are! Take the quiz:

http://cupped-expressions.net/cheese/quiz/

Ready to see something amazing….?

I’ve mentioned before that we live in a fixer-upper, right?

Well, most of the ‘fixing’ that need to be done has been to erase the horrible things that the previous owners did to the place. No one was brave enough to take on this challenge. But WE decided that a few ’surface’ problems wouldn’t scare us away from a good deal on a structurally sound place.

The previous owners painted EVERY room in this place some terrible (and I really do mean terrible) combination of colors. They had even painted most of the ceilings, but the realtor made them paint those white before showing the house. He made them cover up some other things, too, we discovered later.

But there was no covering up the upstairs bathroom - easily the ugliest room in the entire place, which was no mean feat in this technicolor house. (I’ll post more before and after shots, later, to show what I mean).

When we moved in, it looked like an alien had been murdered in that bathroom. The walls were electric sky blue and there were HEAVY, thick splatters of deep green paint over that - yes, even on the ceilings and on the light switches (most of the pictures below can be clicked for a larger view):

I’m happy to report that that’s all behind us now!

We had hired a painter before to try to cover this stuff up. He said that he went through ten sheets of sandpaper on his electric sander, just thinning down the three dimensional green splatters. We painted the walls a light grey then. It was better, but we still weren’t happy.

Then our friend, Todd, came to visit and helped us to find our way out of the darkness. First, he had helped Paul pick a better color for the walls (a darker grey). Paul painted the walls. Then last weekend, Todd came back to help Paul paint, cut, and install wainscoting all around. What a difference. See for yourselves:

 

 

There are a couple of decorative strokes of genius in this remodeling job. Note the decorative cornice Todd installed on the upper left of the shower. And on the right side of the shower, he installed a white strip of trim to cover a previously awkward drywall ledge.

Todd is truly gifted in the remodeling, grouping, renovating, and decorating arena. He has a special eye and a deft touch. You can hire him to help decorate your walls though his business, Wallflower, accessible online at wallflowerweb.com. Thanks, Todd!!

 

See the report here. The Wisconsin Green Party got the referendum on the ballot in 32 counties. There will be a similar referendum on the Milwaukee ballot in the fall.