Where I Used To Live

.. I was cleaning out a box that has been sitting in the back of my station wagon since July.

I know.. please don’t get on me about it. I am well aware that as OCD I am about keeping my house clean, my car looks like a homeless person lives there.

Anyway, I happen to come across a flash drive that I forgot I had and when I investigated the content, I found pictures of my old house after I had remodeled it.

So I’m going to post them just to give you some idea on the conditions that I’m USED to living in and why the house I live in know.. and the people I live with now just completely torque my ass.

A few things before I put the pictures up:

The Spawn From Satan’s Ass was no better at not being a slob. He firmly believed that cleaning was a woman’s responsibility even though THIS particular woman worked 16 hours a day, 5 days a week while HE was home doing absolutely nothing but messing the place up. With that said, it was much easier cleaning up after 1 then 3. A point I made to Chief during one of our very first arguments about the condition of the house and how his kids just don’t give a fuck about anything.

The decor will probably make you shiver.. unless you are Italian and raised in an old-school Italian environment :: which both me and the Spawn From Satan’s Ass were :: Everything is grapes and Tuscan. Mind you.. this was about 4 or 5 years ago so cut me some slack!! LOL!! Beside, I had no velvet paintings of Frank Sinatra.. no plastic seat covers and no wall statues of the Boy from Brussels with oil dripping down the sides simulating rain.

The Dining Room.. Still have the chairs that the kids ruined. How the fuck they can ruin iron chairs is beyond me but the suede covers is an easy guess

This glass top table was bought at BJ’s for something ridiculous like 280.00. Mind you, it took me MONTHS to save the money but I adored this table. Sadly, the table was left at the house when I was finally able to move my shit out because Chief never found the time to help me retrieve it.

Everyone laughed when I told them I was painting the walls yellow but what can I say .. it rocked.

I also laid the ceramic tile floor myself after waiting 3 years and getting tired of having 15 boxes of tiles stacked in the middle of the room. The Spawn From Satan’s Ass liked to believe he was “handy” but .. yea.. not in the least!

The Kitchen .. Don't think you'll be able to see all the GRAPE motiff!!

Ok.. so I’m a little embarrassed that this looks so messy but it was taken at the end of the day when the WHOLE DAY was devoted to remodeling so just excuse the mess.

The kitchen was called an Air Light kitchen or something like that. Basically because it was off to the side and doesn’t have a window. My house was a raised ranch meaning that the two story dwelling had two bedrooms, bath, living room, dining room and kitchen on the second floor. The first floor had the family room, garage, laundry room, powder room and office. The dining room was directly across from the kitchen. The cabinets were trashed when I moved in so I had gotten a few cans of that stone speckle paint and new knobs. I have to say it looked WAY better in person then in this picture.

Kitchen Floor

The kitchen floor was also ceramic tile .. it was a really light grey-ish blue and looked like clouds. The kitchen wasn’t suppose to be an “eat in” one, but I had had this table that had benches instead of chairs and it fit perfect. The table had a mock butcher block that was great when I wa rolling out pasta or cookie dough. I used the second bench that came with the set on the outside of the wall.. as you can see on the right side of the picture.

Small Bedroom

The only thing I did to this room was paper it .. which you can’t see.. and tile the floor.. which you really can’t see. It was all in shades of grey, blue and brown.. hence the color of the valance.

The tile I used here was actually tile that’s usually used in gift shops or doctor’s offices. It’s triple something or other .. don’t remember.. but it went down beautifully. I had ripped out the radiator cover thing and hadn’t replaced it when I took this picture. This became the Spawn From Satan’s Ass’ domain after it was so damn obvious that our marriage was over.

Steps coming up from the front door into the living room / dining room area

This is a great idea if you have some steps that need to have something done to it but aren’t used alot.

Since we generally entered the house through the garage, these steps were only used when company came over. Originally carpeted, they looked like shit when the carpet was removed. So basically all I did was put a few coats of paint on the steps and found a border that matched the decor and glued it to the raisers. It looked pretty awesome and was really cheap to do.

God, I loved this room!

This was my living room. And OMG.. I get sooooo sad when I look at this picture because I loved this room sooo much.

Definitely Italian, don’t you think?

The mural was eight big sections of wall paper that was really too big for the wall but me and my mom made it fit without losing any of the feel. My mom rocks. She did a great job! The desk that you really can’t see in the lower right hand corner was from Ikea and sat right against the railing of the steps .. if you’re standing where this picture is taken and turn left, you’d see the dining room so that’s basically how the house was laid out. What wasn’t over the fire place when I took the picture was a huge branch wreath that my mom was busy hot-gluing with flowers and stuff that matched all my colors.

NOTE: I used to have pictures of the master bedroom and bathroom and rest of the house but yknow.. I didn’t leave on the best of terms and a lot of stuff got destroyed or trashed by him so .. it is what it is.

So that’s about it .. after the trip down memory lane, I’m kinda depressed so I’m going to go eat the roll of SweetTarts I found in my handbag!!!

Can We Get MORE Ghetto??

So… if the wood railings that the landlord had put on the house on the cheap weren’t enough to make us ghetto…

If the fact that we found paint and spackle (sp?) splattered all over the wooden floors when we ripped out the rugs weren’t enough to make us ghetto..

If the fact that the grill outside had the wheel and handle broken off when Bubba tried to use it to bet into the bedroom window when he was locked out wasn’t enough to make us ghetto…

NOTE: There’s more but I don’t want to embarrass myself TOO much!!

Then I present the following:

The other day I noticed that one of the kitchen cabinets was cracked from top to bottom about a half inch away from the edge of the door.. or the side where the hinges are.

This happened because the idiots I live with would swing the door open too hard and it would bang again the knob on the adjacent cabinet. Which is a corner one so it’s know was in JUST THE RIGHT SPOT for it to weaken the door when the idiots.. who not only open the door too hard..  but would then PRESS the damn door open.

In order to fix it, I knew that I needed a a clamp. A size which I didn’t have. I was going to take the door off for Bird’s husband to fix but Chief was all No.. NO.. I can fix it. You don’t need a clamp, you can just use a dresser drawer to hold it into place.

Like I said. Ghetto.

But ok.. if you can do it then do it.

Of course, it took him THREE days to even look at the door and it only happened because we were in the kitchen at the same time and I blocked the way out and frantically pointed at the door. LOOK! LOOK! FIX THE DOOR!

So he looked at it and was all “.. yea.. the only way that’s going to get fixed is to use a piece of luan to glue it to the back for strength.

Uh huh.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he asked me if I knew what luan was. I may not be able to spell it dammit, but I just gave him my “fuck you” eye roll.

I walked out of the kitchen and grabbed a screw driver and handed it to him.

I’ll have you know that I refrained from saying STICK IT UP YOUR ASS when he asked me what I wanted him to do with it and just said to take the door off before the morons break it more.

So this is what I’m left with:

The knob on the right was the aggressor!

So.. like.. how long do you think THAT’S going to take to get fixed? I was going to say NEVER but that’s just being too optimistic for me!!

So after all that.. we were sitting down to dinner.

Awhile ago, someone had given us a wood table with ceramic tile inlets. At the time, I didn’t realize just how destructive these kids were and figured it was sturdy enough to hold us over until we could get the dining room set I wanted.

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

Putting anything even REMOTELY breakable near these kids just means that it will be broken and over the course of two years, the tiles got cracked and the underneath part had to be reinforced.

I will eternally bow to the plastic table cloth gods.

So last night.. as we’re sitting to dinner.. Spaz who doesn’t know or understand or contemplate the word PATIENCE.. sits at his seat on the side of the table but apparently, the table had been moved closer to the window so he couldn’t squeeze his 11 year old size 34 waist in his seat.

So he pushed.

Hard.

Which.. yknow.. wouldn’t really be any drama but we’re GHETTO .. remember? Meaning that when the rugs were pulled up and the kids were given the responsibility of pulling out all the staples through out the floor they didn’t get them all.

We usually find the ones they missed when we step on them with bare feet and rid 5 of the 7 layers of skin off.

But anyway.. I guess there was one that was still stuck in there. Wait. No guessing about it.. there WAS still one left.. the one that decided to stand up for himself and all the other staples that had been mercilessly pulled out and thrown away..

And that one little staple that was probably manufactured by an ancestor of the dude who stood up to the tanks in Tiananmen Square   in China.. stood up to that table and held it’s ground.

Resulting in this:

We heard this cracking.. crunching sound. Chief’s face turned white and when I moved the table cloth and saw that I just quietly grabbed my plate of home made stromboli and without a work, went into my bedroom.

Chief followed me in and before he even got a word out, I said “.. if you’re not going to fix it then throw it out and they can eat on the floor for all I care”

Nothing was said about it the rest of the night.

But then.. that’s how things usually roll.

Mouse-Less… Or So I Thought

Last night.. when I was still giving Chief the cold shoulder.. I was in the bedroom watching :: what the hell was I watching? :: something when I heard Chief and Spaz in the kitchen and something BIG move.

He comes into the bedroom and tells me that while he was on the desktop computer, he saw a mouse stick it’s head out from under the fridge so he pulled it out and it dived through the 1″ hole he had drilled for the ice cube maker’s water line.

Actually.. he said.. there were two. So he put a sticky trap under the fridge and moved it back.

I HATE STICKY TRAPS.

I may not want mice in my house but I have heard horror stories of what happens to mice on sticky traps and really, I don’t want the things to suffer. I just want them to live a nice, quiet, happy life somewhere else.

Preferably the annoying neighbors next door.

He tells me at the VERY FIRST SIGN that the sticky trap was inhabited, to come get him where ever he was at and he’d take care of the situation. Shop.. Bathroom.. Shower.. anywhere.

He’s trying to get back on my good side.

Ok.

So this afternoon, I get home from working my shift at the shop.. stop at WalMart for another hamper and then to the super market to pick up pork chops and egg noodles for dinner.

NOTE: The chicken was fantastic, btw.

When I come into the house, Spaz is right up on me telling me that we don’t have a mouse issue anymore.

ME: Um.. why’s that?
SPAZ: Because Ernie caught one.
ME: (gulp) WHAT?
SPAZ: Yea. I saw it on the floor in the hallway and thought it was poop but when I picked it up it had a tail. It was wet and it’s head was a little flat.

Ordinarily, I become HIGHLY upset at the thought of Spaz growing up to be a serial killer but right then and there I almost fell on my knees in praise of the good Lord above that this kid isn’t afraid of picking up a dead mouse.

NOTE: Um.. I’m just going to pretend that I DIDN’T give thought that he did anything else to the mouse between picking it up and putting it in the trash can.

So I mention to him that his dad told me he saw TWO mice last night.

SPAZ: No details! No details! I’m not giving you any details! It’s just gone. That’s all I’m saying about it.

I have to tell you that I was relieved. Almost a little giddy. So I call Chief up and tell him about the mouse and that I couldn’t believe that ERNIE caught it. Like, was this little dog SO outdone that there’s another “baby” in the house that he’s going to hunt mice too?

Chief starts laughing and says something about how Ernie likes to chase things and that he was probably just trying to play with it and accidentally killed it… like the guy from Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”.

ME: Oh, btw. Spaz told me about last night and the other mice
CHIEF: See! See! I TOLD him not to say anything! What was I suppose to do, hun? Just put it in the trash aliv
ME: Um.. Uh.. Spaz only told me that there was another one and that he wasn’t going to give me any details.
CHIEF: Crap. I just busted myself.

But I don’t care.. because, you see, I’m giddy because my problem was solved. The two mice that I had in my house are gone. I don’t have to worry about turning on every single light in the house and stomping a few hundred times to scare them before walking anywhere in the house… I don’t have to worry about one running around in the bathroom while I’m using the facilities.. and I certainly don’t have to worry about peeing in a Dunkin’ Donuts cup in the middle of the night because I’m too afraid to risk running into on in my pajamas.

All is right in my world.

Until.

Until.

UNTIL…

I come into my bedroom, sit on my bed and fire up the laptop.

Bella is laying down on the floor on the door side of the bed and Ernie takes refuge under the bed on the window side of the bed near the radiator.

I hear him tearing something apart.. Ernie is ALWAYS tearing something apart.. so I tell him to knock it off. Whenever Ernie is reprimanded, he goes into “grovel” mode.. so he jumps up on my bed with his head down and belly crawls so close next to me that he’s almost under my t-shirt.

And then I hear it.

And so does Ernie.

The distinctive tearing of something somewhere under the radiator.

His ears perk up and he dives from the bed and tries to force his nose between the wall and the radiator.

I don’t want to look. I’m ready to put a ice pick through my inner ears.

There’s another mouse.

IN MY BEDROOM.

A very active mouse from the sound of it.

Ernie’s presence means that the damn thing has quieted down and for all I know, made it’s way around the room and out the bedroom door.

But I will tell you this.

I am NOT getting off my bed until Chief comes home… in about 3 hours..

Oh.. and Ernie can forget about his damn kisses!!

RECIPES: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Okay…

So I may not be a renown 5 star chef like Chief is … but I sure as hell know my way around the kitchen!

If there’s two things this man can’t live without, it’s Chocolate and Peanut Butter … so for his birthday :: September 15th :: I opted out of the traditional birthday cake and made this instead:

PS – He’s still having an orgasm in his mouth from it… it’s that good!

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER PIE

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup light-colored corn syrup
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
• Pastry for single-crust pie
• Frozen whipped dessert topping , thawed (optional)
• Semisweet chocolate pieces (optional)
• Chopped peanuts (optional)

Directions

1. For filling, in a mixing bowl beat eggs lightly with a rotary beater or a fork until combined. Stir in corn syrup, sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla. Mix well.

2. Sprinkle the 1/2 cup chocolate pieces over the bottom of an unbaked pastry-lined 9-inch pie plate. Pour filling into pie shell. Cover edge of pie with foil.

3. Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 20 minutes. Remove foil. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes more or until knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Cover and chill within 2 hours. Garnish with whipped topping, remaining chocolate pieces, and peanuts, if desired. Makes 10 servings.

NOTE: I’m not a big chocolate OR peanut butter fan and I loved it!! Give it a try and let me know how you liked it!

Coming Together

Remember I said yesterday that Chief told me that I had the “day off” and that he would take care of the dishes and kitchen after dinner…

And that we wound up snuggling, watching movies and playing COD and the dishes never got done?

NOTE: “never got done“? Hmmm.. some how I don’t think that that phrase is grammatically correct but it IS indiginous to the area where I grew up. I think!!

Anyway.. this morning, we kind of got up late.. almost 630am.. but I’m a fast get-ready-in-the-morning person so we were still able to leave the house in time for me NOT to be late for work.

At any rate … after Chief took the dogs out and while I was getting ready.. he took care of the kitchen. I was semi-oblivious to it because the only hot coffee I had to consume at that point was the cold cup of Dunkin’ Donuts from the night before but he walked in the bedroom and said, “… I told you I was going to take care of them so I wanted to knock it out before you did.”

That gave me the warm and fuzzies. It really did.