Cheap Decorating With Walmart and Yikes! It's Been a Long Time Since I Posted on Here!

Keith went to Walmart on his way home from work the other night. Or morning depending on how you look at it. He had made some steaks for us a few weeks ago and they were very good and very tender but very hard to cut with our old cheap steak knives, so it struck him in the middle of the night that he should go buy some new knives. He also found this placemat that was 89c. They only had one of them and it's one of those incredibly thin, incredibly cheaply made placemats but hey, it looks kind of cute hanging up on door that goes into the garage! I used that putty stuff to hang it with, totally removable if you get bored with what's hanging there and no damage to the paint on the wall or door or wherever.

Buddy went to the vet last week, I had noticed that he was walking around with one eye shut and the eye was all red around the edges of it, so Keith called the vet and took him over there. It took us three tries to get Buddy in the cat carrier and he cried all the way there but he got there. I told Keith it was his turn to wrangle an animal, vet visits and cleaning up after animals always seems to fall on me. It was a good thing that his eye was all red because it turned out that he had an ear infection too, which we would have never known if not for the eye thing. He got a lot of meds which I can't give him by myself, it is a two person job to deal with Buddy, so he's missed some of his doses but does seem to be feeling better, back to his usual a little bit cranky self. He's been a little extra cranky this past week because food is now limited, no grazing whenever he (or any of the other cats) wants a little snack or is bored. He weighs an astonishing 25 pounds! He is a big big boy.

I was trying to get a picture of him out in the yard and of course Miss Nosy Mimi had to come see what was going on.

Yesterday morning Millie and I went out front for our usual early morning sit in the yard and watch what's going on in the neighborhood (and bark at anyone walking by) thing and the air felt like the summer might be ending soon. That cool crisp breeze thing was happening and boy, did it feel good! Today I've actually got the front window and door open to let some of those breezes in the house. Of course our air is not all that clean but still, cooler albeit dirty air feels pretty refreshing.

I finally did a chore that has been on my list for months, washing down the bathroom walls and ceiling. Walls are something that gets dirty but you don't really think about cleaning all that often and also it's a lot of work but the bathroom does look a bit better. All of the walls in the house need fresh coats of paint but I don't think that will happen anytime soon. To get me in the mood to clean I turned on IHeartRadio and set it to the Texas Tornadoes channel. If you need some extra energy listening to songs such as 'Are You Going to San Antone' certainly does help.

Now on to cleaning the sinks and mirrors along with vacuuming up cat hair, a chore I do every single day.

Ooh Bonus Post! And A Swiffer Sweep and Trap Review

Or...Don't Waste Your Money.

So, today was payday and I went to do some shopping and get the payday old people stuff that I needed like cat litter, metamucil, and Centrum Women's Over 50 vitamins. Oh, and some Cottonelle fresh wipes. Love those fresh wipes!

And, being in a cleaning mood today, and what the heck is up with that, I succumbed to the cute Swiffer ads on TV and got one of the Swiffer Sweep and Traps. It is supposed to sweep up stuff into a bin like a carpet sweeper and then the pad thing cleans up cat hair and such. Well, the pad thing does trap a lot of stuff but the sweeper part only gets really big stuff, like popcorn, it does not pick up the tiny pieces of cat litter that the cats track around the house and it does not get into corners. So, you have to get the broom out anyway and sweep out all the corners and then hope the stuff gets trapped in the Swiffer Sweep and Trap. Now, if I have to get the broom out anyway what is the point of using the Swiffer Sweep and Trap?

I should have just not spent that $20.00 on it.

It would probably work okay if you've just spilled a bunch of big stuff (like popcorn) on your hardwood floor, or for just a quick sweep of the same hardwood floors, but for really cleaning it just does not work very well.

Sorry, Swiffer, I do like your dusters a lot, though!

Dirty Dirty People And Cat In The Trap

I woke up early this morning, before the sun even came up, and actually got in the mood to get this house cleaned up. Not that we are slobbier than the rest, but we do have 5 cats who constantly shed and constantly drag litter out of the box onto the floor, so the floors need cleaning every day, and things need dusting, toilet needs cleaning, etc.

So, feeling extra energetic, and knowing that if I don't get things done before 10 am they probably won't ever get done today since something else will distract me, I've been cleaning for the past hour.

I cannot wait until we have enough money saved for new flooring, carpeting or vinyl that looks like wood, or whatever. Our carpet is done. No matter how much vacuuming I do or how much shampooing, our carpet is done. Especially the carpet in the master bedroom, it is the original carpet from when the house was built 15 or 20 years ago. It's icky.

Now, I think I've mentioned the bad bad black and white cat that runs the neighborhood tearing up other cats, eating other cats food, coming right up to our door and looking in the house, catching birds at our bird feeder and leaving their feathers and heads (the inedible parts) laying in the backyard, and in general being a very bad bad bad stray cat and he needs to go!

So, the other early early morning Keith got woken up by bad cat being in the back yard and got up and set up the trap in the hopes of catching him and taking him to the pound where he would be swiftly dispatched to the big litter box in the sky. He went back to bed and a few hours later I got up to feed everyone. I took Genie's food outside where she is usually turning in circles in anticipation of breakfast, and no Genie. You guessed it, Miss Not So Smart was in the trap. Meow! Meow!

I couldn't remember how to open the trap and I'm outside in my nightshirt so knocked on the bedroom window to wake Keith up to come out and free her. I told him not to set up the trap in the backyard but rather the front next time because Genie is just not that intelligent and would probably get caught in the trap again and again.

Needless to say we did not catch bad bad black and white cat and he is still running the neighborhood.

Pooped

I'm tired. It's been a busy couple of days with actual cleaning and dusting and stuff going on around here. Very unusual.

It started with me looking at the yard on Wednesday and realizing that it needed mowing and since I really had nothing better to do, I got out the lawn mower and weed whacker and mowed the yard, something I usually let Keith do, but I thought I'd surprise him. He didn't even notice. But I definitely noticed the one little spot of grass in the middle of the yard that I missed that was sticking up like Alfalfa's cowlick.

Then yesterday it was vacuuming the house and then getting out the carpet cleaner steam machine and cleaning all the carpets, especially the spots where Bear vomited the day before. She didn't just vomit in one spot but in four separate ones. Worse than a toddler, because it's hard to catch a vomiting cat and hold them over a vomit bucket like you would a child. The cats just run away from you in a panic and go vomit someplace where you don't see them doing it and find their little surprise later.

And today, and I really don't know what got into me this week, total boredom maybe, but today I deep cleaned the entire kitchen, walls, fridge, pantry, floor, cabinets, everything. Which Keith won't notice either.

Oh, and I also went on 3 separate bike riding errands today. First over to walmart for some more cleaning rags because mine were all waiting to be washed and I figured I'd better not delay cleaning the kitchen because who knows when I'd be in the mood to do that much cleaning again. Then a little later over to Foods Co to get ingredients for a salad for dinner, and of course they were out of boneless chicken breasts (and what's up with that, anyway?) boneless chicken breasts being the main ingredient needed for the salad. Then since they didn't have the chicken breasts, up to Save Mart for those. So, cleaning and exercise and a healthy dinner all in one day? Yikes!

Whew!

I don't know what got into me yesterday. My day started out like usual, drinking my coffee while perusing blogs and such, cleaning the cat box, riding up to the post office, and then back home for some more coffee. I did stop at Carl's Jr. to try one of their new breakfast biscuit sandwiches. It was tasty but I got the combo with the little potato nugget doohickey things and I had major upset stomachness for the rest of the day. I don't think I'll be eating that combo again any time soon.

Anyway, even with the upset stomach I got motivated and actually cleaned the ENTIRE kitchen. Something I've been meaning to do for a long long time, but you know how that goes. The ENTIRE kitchen, the walls, cupboard doors (but not inside the cupboards just yet, can't get too carried away here) the stove, and even the top (and front) of the fridge, but again, not the inside.

On top of that I even did the laundry.

And folded it and put it away.

Dang.

I was watching a little of Kathy Lee and Hoda yesterday while taking some pictures for the shop. The best light comes in the side window at about 10 am, so sometimes I'll switch on the TV to make the picture taking a little less boring and catch up on the latest gossip. They were showing this absolutely ridiculous product called a Snazzy Napper, a product intended for travelers to be able to nap in the middle of train stations, on a plane, in the car, on a park bench, wherever, and not be disturbed by light shining in your eyes. Instead you'll just be disturbed by everyone who sees you laughing at you, talking about the idiot with the hood over their face, and pointing fingers at you, but at least you won't see the fingers being pointed because you'll have your Snazzy Napper on and won't be able to see anything.


You're supposed to tie this ridiculous looking thing over your head and breathe through the strategically placed nose hole. Kathy Lee pulled the strategically placed hole down and was able to drink her wine through the hole, so you could use this if you want to drink incognito I suppose.

You could even nap while driving with this thing on.

And nobody will see you drooling.

I just noticed that the sheep on the Snazzy Napper looks like it is peeing.

At $14.99 a pop, I am wondering how many people will buy this thing, but hey, consumers made the Snuggie people millionares, so go figure.

So Much to Do

So little ambition to do it.

I need to clean the house today. You'd think with all my free time this wouldn't be an issue and I'd have a sparkling clean house. Not.

I've been working on some new stuff for my shop this week, taking new pictures, and taking old stuff out of my shop. I'm not happy with the new pictures, though, so I'll probably re-do them all again. Anything is better than cleaning the house, right?

Ha Ha.

So, I am going to force myself to GO CLEAN THE HOUSE! NOW!

But first, I'm loving the weather we've been having. It's cooler than normal so far this month, with temps only reaching the low 80's instead of the 90's. Each day I've been able to have the windows wide open with nice breezes blowing through the house. And what's even better is that the air quality is good! Well, except for the pungent manure odor last night from the fields that is. But, manure is better than choking pollution I suppose. At least it has a nice farmy smell to it.

Oh, and what's new for my shop? A couple of metal pendants, and I'm working on some glittery flower pendants. I'm tired of soldered glass and it hasn't been selling lately anyway, so I'm looking for things that are easy to make but with a little more fancy look to them, if that's the word. More sparkle in the shop.

Here are the metal pendants.


No pics yet of the sparkly ones, I'm waiting for the sun to come out a little more before I can get some shots of those.

Okay, NOW I am going to go clean the house! Maybe.