A few days ago Fred painted one of the rooms upstairs. He wisely chose the smallest room in the house (well, except for the downstairs bathroom it’s the smallest room in the house), the kitten room. He’s never painted a room before in his life, and neither have I. He was looking for a project to do around the house, and this worked out pretty well.
Before.
After.
I really, really like the color – it’s called “Poppy”. He chose the color himself, did all the work himself, and I love the way it turned out. He didn’t much enjoy the actual act of painting, but he likes the result so much that he went out and got paint for the guest bedroom (it’s called “Burgundy” but looks like more of a dark rose to me). He’s even going to paint Danielle’s bedroom while we’re in Maine, and we’ve chosen colors for the master bedroom (two guesses what it is, and the first guess doesn’t count) and his bedroom.
After I saw how nicely the kitten room turned out, I told him it’s almost too bad it’s the kitten room, because I’d almost like to put a day bed on one side of the room and a couple of recliners on the other side, and use it as a place to hang out and have quiet time with no TVs or computers around.
Last night we were sitting in the living room talking about what color to paint the living room/ kitchen area (we’re thinking the same color as the kitten room, or a similar color), and he started talking about replacing the carpet in the living room, and EVEN maybe replacing the tiles in the kitchen and I had to change the subject very quickly, because if I’d shown him how excited I was at the thought, he would have gotten all spooked and relied on the ol’ “I was just TALKING about it, Bessie, stop harassing me!”
But for the record, the things I hate about this house are:
1. The stairs. I’d love to have them hardwooded, or even the carpet replaced, because there are stains on the carpet that were there when we moved in, and I canNOT get them up.
2. The Berber carpet in the living room. I loathe it. I will never ever have Berber carpet again. One of the cats knocked over a big cup of iced tea onto the carpet the other day (this is the second time this has happened), and now there’s a nasty brown stain there, and the steam cleaner won’t get it all up, and it drives me NUTS.
3. The tile in the kitchen. At least two of the tiles are cracked, and it’s impossible to get the floor clean because of the… what’s it called? Grout? Anyway, I hate that floor.
I swear, if all three of those were taken care of AND all the rooms were painted, I could happily live in this house forEVAH.
You know how skunks have that defense mechanism where if they feel threatened they spray out a big cloud of stink? Well if Sugarbutt feels any kind of emotion – joy, fear, curiosity, “put me DOWN!” – he releases a big cloud of stink. I think he might be half skunk. I woke up last night and he was laying on my arm with his butt pointed at me, and I felt great fear. I said “I do not enjoy having your buttocks pointed at me, young man” and thought about moving him, but I fell back asleep before I could move him – which in itself would have been a precarious proposition, since no doubt as soon as he woke up and realized he was being moved, he’d have released The Stink.
This morning, Fred asked me “What was going on a 4:15 this morning?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You flailed around and yelled ‘OW!’, and then a cat came flying off the bed.”
Oh, that. It’s just that when Sugarbutt gets overcome with love, he feels the need to knead on my bare skin, and even though I keep his claws clipped, it still HURTS, and a girl can only take so much of that before she rebels.
Doesn’t matter, though. He runs off, releasing The Stink behind him, and two minutes later he’s back on the bed looking for more love.
I should make a joke about how he’s just like his Daddy, but I won’t.
There’s nothin’ happier than a sleeping monkey.
The Paintin’ Kitties. They only charge a pound of catnip an hour. It’s a STEAL!
Also, they’ll help pick out room colors.
“Little man, if you don’t stop moving, then I can’t groom you. And if I can’t groom you, I’ll bite you and make you cry. UNDERSTAND?”