Curtin Call

Let there be dust

curtincall — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:32:31 +0000

Okay, so… the television and table lamp have arrived for the living room so, with the exception of a few decorations that I’ll eventually get, the living room is done! Am I excited??? Oh, yeah, just a bit! That was a project beyond projects and finally, the dust has settled.

Oh, wait… did I say the dust has settled??? Who am I kidding??? The dust can only settle if no one is stripping wallpaper, mudding and sanding walls. Which means they would have to be doing something like… sitting still. And my husband is not capable of sitting still. So…. onto the next project. The kitchen! Our goal is to get a new kitchen (cabinets, floor, appliances, etc) next winter but hubby has already started stripping the wallpaper and will apply a coat of primer in preparation for the big work that will be done next year.

It will look great and I really am happy that I have a husband that is able and willing to do such wonderful things around the house but really, I just wanted a dust-free house for a little while. Was that too much to ask???

Happy Halloween!

curtincall — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:40:24 +0000

Happy Halloween, all! You may recall – this is my absolutely, positively, most favoritist holiday!!!!

Well, I can’t stay here long, I have to go find me one of these for the boys:

I won! I won!

curtincall — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:56:17 +0000

Thanks to those of you that went over and visited Angie at Home Grown and commented on her “Gone Country” post. I’m happy to inform you that I won! I won!

I have not yet received my prize package but Angie has confirmed that its on its way! I’m so excited and yes, much as I hate myself in photos, I’ll try to get the hubby to snap a picture of me in my new John Deere garb!

Busy. Very, very busy.

curtincall — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:44:14 +0000

That is where I’ve been. It is now Fall in New England which means we have two houses (ours and the MILs) to get ready for winter. Life has been very, very hectic to say the least!

Few quick updates:

The living room is now 95% complete (have you ever known anyone that can drag a project out as long as we can?!?!?!) I finally found curtains and a rod to fit our 119″ wide window. Yes, it meant bringing them to a tailor to get them “right” but, hey, we have them! Now, just to find the time to hang them….

The couch/chair/ottoman arrived and the ottoman was HUGE! It was NOT going to fit when the tables arrived and I was completely beside myself on how that could happen (we were a bit anal retentive about measuring the room for the furniture – anyone surprised by that?!?!?!) Well, turns out that the measurements that were in the catalog were put there by someone that was on drugs (I’m quoting the delivery guy on that!) and it was much larger than it was advertised so they did take it back. Now, I’m just waiting for the credit to my account….

The final pieces of wood molding have been cut, stained, urethaned and installed. Can you say “woohoo”!?!?!?!?

The tables arrived and I love, love, love them! THE best furniture I’ve bought in a long time.

The television is on order and is scheduled for delivery on Saturday. Excited??? Uh, yeah, just a tad!

I ordered a table lamp which I also suspect I am going to love, love, love but that was back ordered. Hopefully its shipping this week.

On the outside front:

Tree guys come today to do some pruning and will return Thursday/Friday to remove a HUGE tree from along the border of the woods which is leaning just a bit to scarily toward the house.

We have the railings on the deck sanded and have applied the first coat of stain. The decking is also sanded but waiting for the first coat. We’ve pretty much run out of time (with everything else that still needs doing!) to get to the stairs and second coat done so those will just have to wait ’til Spring.

A little off topic…Last week, as I was getting ready to leave the house, I heard the most obnoxious, scary noise from our backyard. It was 5:22 (my neighbor who asked if I’d heard it confirmed that time for me! LOL!) and pitch dark. Hubby had already left and I could not find the words to describe what I heard. I actually ran downstairs because I thought something had gotten in the house and attacked my cats. It was that loud (please don’t ask what I thought I was going to do if, in fact, something had gotten in cause I have no idea!) The neighbor suggested maybe fisher cats so I had to google. Turns out fisher cat sounds are easily confused with those of red fox, which I know we have in the woods so I’ve chosen to convince myself that its just red fox. Something about fisher cats just scares me.

So, that was a quick update. Lots of other happenings, too, but I’ll save those for another day.

Cats

curtincall — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:47:49 +0000

So, I recently figured out how to get my videos from my recorder to here. That prompted me to tinker through the videos that have been on my camera for, oh, four or five years now?!?!?!

The first one I stumbled across was of Frosty and Shadow, clearly when Shadow was just a kitten, judging by the size of him:

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This is a more recent picture of the two of them:

And that one is being “nice” to Shadow as he’s really a wee bit bigger than that would have you believing:

He’s still our baby, though! Soooo cute!

(Just wait until I get the video of my brother’s dog singing a Christmas carol uploaded!)

Gone country!

curtincall — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:13:08 +0000

Okay, I need your help. I also need your friend’s help, your father/mother’s help, your brother/sister’s help, your spouse/significant other’s help, as well as any stranger’s you might pass in the street’s help.

Angie, over here at Home Grown (aka: Big Red Couch) is running a contest and I have to have that t-shirt!!!!

My house may not be as country as Angie’s but before we moved there, we didn’t need that John Deere. I didn’t have deer running around my backyard. I would have never thought to “decorate” my yard with bird houses. I would not have a squirrel living in a bird house in my yard. I would have never built my “gardening bench”. I would have been perfectly content with my annual plants but am now educating myself on perennials.

So, yeah, I guess we do live in the country! Please, please, please help me!!!!! Its easy:

Just click here: Home Grown and copy and paste (or type) this: “Mary from Curtin Call sent me!” into Angie’s comment section on her Gone Country entry, and “I just maght git me that there John Deeah t-shirt, y’all!”

Birdhouse

curtincall — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:29:49 +0000

Back in July, I had told you about the birds/birdhouses in our yard. In particular, I told you about the Tomorrow’s Treasures Birdhouse and how happy I was that I actually had hummingbirds using that particular birdhouse.

Well, I’m the easily-excitable-type and I was so excited that I went out and bought another one.

Hubby had the idea of getting one without the stand so we could hang it on a tree and enjoy watching the birds from the level where we sit each night. So we hung it on a tree. Up there:

We sat and watched and waited. We watched a little more and we waited a little more until one night, we saw this:

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Are any of my readers able to identify that species of bird for me????

Stoned

curtincall — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:30:26 +0000

My yard, silly! What were you thinking I meant?!?!?!

I just realized that I’d told you all about the six yards of stone that we had delivered but never did show you what we did with it so here you go!

Underneath our great room, hubby had put a patio and he went ahead and extended the walkway to the deck stairs:

It was a lot of work but, fortunately, the man has patience:

Its so much prettier now:

Along the end of our driveway, we have a row of nice tall hedges which give us some privacy. I don’t have the best picture of it but you can sort of get the idea here:

No, that’s not the nice tall hedges you’re seeing in that picture. That’s the peony that was planted underneath them. How do I know its a peony? Cause my friends Katie and Angie told me it is.

Here’s what it looks like now, though:

Much prettier! Its hard to explain (and comprehend) in this last picture but when you enter the yard from the driveway, where the point and light are, the grass almost forms the bottom of a heart. This was not done intentionally but I positively love the end result! Every time I walk into my yard, I feel like its giving me a great big hug!

Furniture shopping

curtincall — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:54:16 +0000

Update: I went to B0st0n Interi0rs website yesterday to show someone our new tables. They are no longer referring to the series as “Rustic Oak tables” but instead, “Natural Oak tables”. Heehee. Li’l ol’ me got B0st0n Interi0rs to change their website! So, do I get some sort of a discount for having saved some future manager from having to deal with the likes of me?!?!?!

We were on vacation last week. We took the week and agreed that we were going to “take it easy and relax”. Yeah. Right. With my husband??? Relax is not in his vocabulary.

Really, though… we spent the better part of our vacation furniture shopping. We had set our goal to have our living room furniture ordered before our vacation was over. I would be perfectly happy if I didn’t have to step foot in another furniture store for many, many years!

We had picked our tables out at B0st0n Interi0rs and our sofa/chair/ottoman at J0rdan’s. We went to order at Jordan’s first. The price on the couch was $799. Until I specified which fabric I wanted. Then the couch was $1149. WTF?!?!?! $350 more TO CHANGE THE FABRIC???? I was very impressed with Brian’s calm “Thank you for your time. Let’s go!” I, personally, wanted to say “WTF?!?!?!?!” I figure if we’d stayed around to hear what more she had to say, the ~$1800 I thought we were spending on those three pieces would have been closer to $2800. BEFORE the tables and television we need to buy! Fortunately, we found another set that we like just as much, if not more, at the little local guy, whom I prefer to deal with anyway. Total cost? $1200 – including Scotchguard, two extra pillows AND delivery. Thank you very much.

Yesterday, we went to order the tables and I was successful in confusing the saleswoman AND the manager to no end. The tables (cocktail, end and television stand) come in natural oak and rustic oak finish. Their website refers to this particular series as “Rustic” and says that the finish is natural. Okay, so one place says rustic, the other natural. Are you SURE the finish I’m asking for is what’s on the floor??? YES. And if its not? IT IS. BUT if its not and it comes in wrong? I’VE WORKED HERE FOR 13 YEARS – ITS THE NATURAL FINISH. Okay, I didn’t ask how long you’ve worked here, I’m asking what happens if you special order it and its WRONG????? Grrrr… she finally put it in writing that we’re not responsible if it comes in wrong cause, you know, she’s worked there for 13 years so SHE KNOWS!!!!!!!!

I do not want this to sound like a bashing to B0st0n Interi0rs as everyone that I dealt with was extremely cooperative (and I WAS a pest trying to confirm that what I’m going to get is what I’m expecting) it was just that the manager we talked to was rather easily offended (I used the word “confusing” which I think set her off for some bizarre reason.) In fact, I would highly recommend them!

As for J0rdan’s???? That’s an entirely different story. I do not plan on visiting that store again anytime soon. I have a real issue with that “bait and switch” sales approach.

Bees

curtincall — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:26:08 +0000

Okay, its been 1-1/2 weeks and I think I finally have the strength in me to write about what happened to us a week ago this past Sunday.

When we moved into our new house, we were aware that there were bees above the front door and we were aware that we needed to deal with it but it was just one of those things on that list that we hadn’t gotten to.

Last Sunday, Brian was working on the woodwork above the front door inside the house. I walked by him to go downstairs to swap the laundry. He asked me to pass him something from the garage and when I went to hand it to him, I noticed a couple bees on the wall near where he was working.

He grabbed a newspaper and started swatting at them when he realized that there was a HOLE where the wall and ceiling meet and those f*ckers (apologies if that offends anyone but there’s nothing else to call them) got real aggressive, real fast. By the time he could get down off the ladder, he’d been bitten three times on his face and once on his arm.

All we could do was lock the cats in a room and run out the front door. I don’t recall being so petrified in my life (I didn’t actually cry, but damn I was close!)

Everyone’s question at this point? “Is he allergic?” Well, yeah, I asked that, too, but since he doesn’t remember being bitten by a bee since he was a kid, we weren’t sure. I was horrified at the thought of him having a reaction, my having to get him to a hospital and then figure out what the heck we were going to do. Remember, I said this happened on a Sunday?!?!?! A Sunday morning, to boot!

When things calmed down, he covered up and went back in the house to get some local phone books and we started calling one exterminator after another. Leaving one message after another. We finally got to one that actually had a live answering service, they relayed our message, and within one hour, the exterminator came and gassed those f*ckers.

Let me share a couple lessons with you from this one:

1. If you see ANY signs of a bees nest in the eaves of your home, call an exterminator. Immediately.

2. Just in case… find yourself a 24/7 exterminator and keep that number handy.