Down with the Sickness

D-d-d-d-down with the Sicknesssss...

If I seem completely kooky you probably don't know who Disturbed is- and if you don't, don't worry about it. The song those words are from isn't exactly a melody for conservative ears... in defense of myself I've only ever heard the clean version but it's creepy.

So, I'm sick. Like laying on the couch half my face dripping liquid the other half stuffed up, coughing when I'm not sneezing, sneezing when I'm not coughing, and body aches from The Bad Place; not to mention my very suave, manly voice.

It's my firm belief my students are trying to take me down. They are so sick of learning about ecology they must have engaged in some bacteria warfare against me. Students-1, Mrs. Atkins- 0. That's okay. My sub plans included a worksheet, 2 chapters of reading from the textbook (we NEVER use the textbook, I'm very hands on and technology oriented) including answering the questions at the end of each section in both chapters, and turning it ALL IN FOR A GRADE! Students-1, Mrs. Atkins- SHABAM!

That's right. So, I figured I'd take this time to fill you all in on some newness- we got another cat!

I know, I know- you're thinking 'What about your post just a few weeks ago??' Well, this decision was made with our brains as well as our hearts.

You see, Maverick our cat has this love of paper products. Cardboard, especially. He also adores electrical cords. Chewing on paper and electrical cords:

Despicable Me... gets me every time!!

Seriously, though. What cat does that?! When I first started noticing his chewing on things, I thought it was like dogs/puppies- they lose their baby teeth and chew to help things move along. But now that he's an adult cat it's gotten out of control. Thankfully the cords he's chewed weren't plugged in at the time. When Kina and Penny left and found new homes it got even worse. One morning I googled it- turns out cats chew when bored/lonely. It could also be a vitamin deficiency, but he's extremely healthy.

So, we sat down and talked out our options. We could've found him another home, but Scooby our dog gets really bad separation anxiety when completely by himself. So that's a no. Or we could've taken everything chewable out of reach. Of a cat. Not really happening- they are clever and sneaky little boogers! So we landed on the option we chose- get another cat. 

This seemed very logical. If you don't know much about cats, know this- they are very independent and easy to care for. Our felines LOVE attention and snuggling, but only on their terms. They always use the litter box and never make messes. They just hang around, occasionally going cray-zay over dangling toys. Maverick only meows when he's hungry or lonely. Off to PetSmart we went!

We got there and were still kind of on the fence. We toyed with the idea of buying him something that would move that he could chase and maybe he wouldn't be so bored. (Get it? toyed... baha!) But then we saw some very nice older ladies packing up some sweet kitties that did not get adopted during their adoption extravaganza- insert dagger into heart. Poor cats that didn't get chosen. :( So I dragged Josh over and spotted her... I didn't know she was a 'her' at first. She's an orange tabby. I think that's right. The lady we spoke with was very sweet even though it was time for the store to close and for her to pack up and go home. She let us into a little room to interact with the little mandarin colored kitty. She told us that even though most orange cats are males, this one happened to be female. I was already smitten! In that little room she warmed up to us and played with us and climbed around and even laid down and took a little nap!! We filled out the papers and she went home with us that night. :)

It's been a week and introductions have gone great! We made a mistake the first night and let Maverick and Milly (her new name!) see each other face to face. Josh was holding Maverick as he freaked out and got scratched up pretty good. Mav apologized with lots of rubbing and purring later. Now, though, they coexist very well! They are well on their way to making friends. And the chewing has stopped- completely!!! Yay!!! There's just one hang up- Mav's gotta get neutered. Milly's spayed so there's no chance of kittens, but Mav's little accessories could cause some territory/macho issues we don't want to come up. We're just not telling him yet. Shhh. 

Without further ado:

Resting between fishy chasing

So quick

She loves chasing toys

If any of this makes no sense, I blame the Tylenol Severe Cold. And the cough drops. And my achy, smushy brain feeling self. I'll be back soon when PASS testing is over and I'm not under a biochemical attack. :)

Until next time,

Let Me Tell Something to Jute

Haha. I kill myself... If you don't get the title check the awesome sauce that is "Happy Feet". Ramon the penguin and his saucy Latin self frequently says "Let me tell something to ju" and "Let me tell ju some ting". I love it!

Anyways, a few weeks ago I had a great idea. All over Pinterest I saw pins of glass vases and styrofoam balls being wrapped in jute (twine, hemp, etc) to give a space texture and a rustic feel. I wanted to incorporate this technique in my home, but I wasn't sure how. Then, one day at Hobby Lobby I was perusing the beautiful monogram letters they have. There are large ones and small ones, white ones, black ones, and a gorgeous metal one that I adore. However, an extra 25 buckaroos for something like that just isn't in the budget. So I kept wandering, and what to my 'wandering' eyes should appear?! A large, CARDBOARD (read- cheapo!) letter 'A' and roll of jute!

So I danced merrily (not really, I was clumsy and broke something and swore I would tell someone then freaked out because I couldn't find anyone so I just ducked away slowly...) to the check out counter and took my happy tail home.

Later on at my kitchen table I took my handy dandy glue gun and got to work.

I put a dot of glue on the backside to anchor the jute and began wrapping, like so:

Now when I got to the middle I just kept wrapping like normal, only I wrapped across the whole thing to get across the middle and then went back to just the one side, like so:

 Now when I got toward the top of the cutout in the letter the angle got kind of weird, so I had to loop it back and forth on that side a few times to keep it going without getting wonky-

To finish it up I just kept going on the right side, following same steps as the left. I added glue when necessary to stabilize the jute and make sure everything was nice and tight. When I finally got done it looked something like this:

Totally cute, right?! I can't explain it, but when projects go right I just get all Valley girl. Kraazay. Anyways, I LOVE it! It adds the perfect amount of texture and interest to the top of our cabinets:

Forgive the last picture... It was dark and it's a tad blurry. Our walls look very chartreuse in the picture, but they are definitely darker and more deeply toned. It's great though. I hope you all like it as much as I do!

I hope your week is finishing up better than mine. IEP Conference after parent conference after IEP conference after zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Sorry I'm a bit tired. Looking forward to getting some pics together this weekend for a quick house tour! Have a great weekend and enjoy some relaxation for me!

Until next time,

More Tunes

For a Monday, and for being extremely tired with tons of school work to do, I'm extremely relaxed. A lot of it has to do with the fact that our dog is now an only child, and he LOVES it. Well, the cat is his brother but he probably wouldn't take a bullet for him. They're not exactly close. Anyways, it's hard to believe that it's already been a week since the sweet ladies we took care of have been put into better hands. The puppy has already been adopted! And I'm sure Kina will be finding her forever home very soon. :)

On to the point of the post- I have been so into music lately. Not music you hear on the radio, but good. stinkin'. music. The kind of music that turns the projector on in your head and makes you stop and smile as sweet memories play back in your mind. Thanks to a blog I adore, E Tells Tales, I discovered a great app full of awesome mixes that I can pore over and enjoy for just about any mood! It's called 8tracks. I haven't done anything extensive with the app, but I've liked a couple favorite mixes that I like to come back to- click here to check them out!

I hope everyone's Monday has been as great as Mondays can go!

Until next time,

Outnumbered.

Have you ever had before you a plate still beckoning with delicious treats, and you want to keep eating but your stomach screams "If you put one more bite of food in me, it's ALL coming up!!"? You know what they say when that happens and you leave food on your plate- "Your eyes were bigger than your stomach."

Josh and I had one of those moments this weekend; except our realization was that our hearts were bigger than our pockets. You see, I have a bleeding heart for animals. I can't stand to see an animal without a home, without love, without care- I. can't. stand. it. I adopted Scooby against the wishes of every family member I have when I was a senior in college. He has been my baby boy. He was the runt at the Humane Society nobody wanted. Seriously. He was so scared when they brought him to the little 'meet and greet' room he pooped!! But I wanted him anyway. I loved him anyway. When Josh and I got engaged, we wanted to adopt a dog together. My hubby's heart for animals is as big as my own. So, we adopted a little fuzzy husky mix and named her Kina. For a year we have tried to fit her into an 'indoor dog' mold; she's so not that. A few months after we got married, a kitten bound for isolation at a barn found a home with us; we dubbed him "Maverick". Knowing full and well the full house we had, a few weeks ago we opened our hearts yet again because I wanted to scoop up a sweet little pup that needed a home; Penny is what she was called.

You can see our dilemma. Our hearts are so much bigger than our pockets!! Food, vet bills, flea and tick meds, exercise, attention, grooming, and on and on and on and on and on is so much more than we could afford (financially, mentally, and emotionally) and we had to have a grown up moment and sit down and decide what to do.

After lots of prayer and consideration, we have returned Kina to the rescue we got her from. Hold on while I wipe my eyes... Watching her look back at me out of the window as they drove away ripped my heart to pieces. Penny the puppy got placed with the Humane Society and I was assured they would find her a great home. More breaking of my heart. :(

However; Kina is going to find a home somewhere I know that is going to wear her out, get her groomed, give her a spacious yard to play in, children to play with, and tons of love and kisses! Penny is so stinkin' cute someone is going to fall in love and, again, give her a yard where she can run and chase kids and bugs and bark at birds and squirrels. I just know it!!

We decided to keep Scooby and Maverick. Maverick is very low maintenance, budget friendly, and very well behaved. He's a cat that acts like a sweet, old dog. Scooby is my baby. I will hold him when he takes his last breath. Period.

So here we are. Me and the boys. I'm outnumbered! Do I miss my girls? Yes. Do I know they are in better places? OH Yes!! They deserved better than we could give, they deserve someone with pockets as big as their hearts!

So. It's bittersweet. Maybe in a few days I won't feel like I let them down, I probably won't feel like a bad pet owner anymore; I know as we prepare to discuss extending our little family of two we want to keep our dreams and desires in line with God's Will and His priorities for our life. For tonight, though, I'm going to be sad and miss my girls and pray God understands the desire of my heart that those sweet puppy souls find perfect forever homes!

Back to school tomorrow. Oh boy.

Until next time,

Tunes

Man. Is it really already Thursday?! Where in the world has my Spring Break gone? :( Oh well. It feels amazing to look around my house and see so many things that for months I kept saying "I really need to get on that" and "Boy I need to do that" got on and done!!

I really couldn't have gotten it all done without some awesome tunage! Is that a word? I just made it up? Works for me!

The majority of my painting involved the iHeartRadio app and my "Train" station. Haha... train station. I kill myself. But for real- Train is amazing and jamming to their new hits as well as those of a similar flavor was pretty awesome. Songs are like time machines to me; they take me back to the places and times during which I most enjoyed them. I can't help but smile when I hear this little ditty; it was kinda 'our' song when we were dating-

I also have rediscovered a love for a 90's song I couldn't truly appreciate as a tween- "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman. It's slow enough to be relaxing, but upbeat and happy enough to tap your foot to; not to mention the lyrics make you wanna be more carefree and take life a little less seriously. At least it does so for me! Give it a listen if you have no idea what I'm talking about, or if you just wanna escape for a few minutes-

Happy Friday Eve!!

From Trash to Treasure

I love scouring thrift stores!! Even in the midst of all the sketchy people (trust me, I've been around some scary ones while hunting good finds) and the sometimes odd old people smell, I can't help but channel my mom's amazing bargain finding instinct! Ask anyone in our family- my mom is INCREDIBLE at finding the diamonds in the rough at thrift stores. It makes me very jealous- until today.

Enter ugly frame:

Gotta love the $2 price tag!

I saw tons of potential in this beauty and her twin. I bought both for 4 bucks! You can't even get a decent picture frame for that anymore. Being sentimental yet frugal, I took my glue gun and some twine leftover from our wedding (aww) and began gluing it over the hideous ivory paint.

In process:

One episode of The Voice and a few minor burns later, I had this awesome possum:

It looks totally different, right?! From geek to chic. :) To finish it up I took some of the burlap from our wedding (woot! resourceful! aww!) and glued it to the back of the frame to close the opening in the middle. Finally I printed a cutesy Instagram photo of my sweetums and I and popped 'er in there with a few dots of glue and ta da:

I cannot WAIT to put this up on the wall with a few other awesome finds lately, but sadly you'll have to stay tuned for that post!

I painted the hallway this week (oh yeah! Goodbye cadaver green!!!!) and want to give the paint plenty of drying time before I go crazy hanging awesome stuff!

I hope you all are having a great week! It's Spring Break, Charlotte Sometimes got booted off the Voice,  Penny our puppy had no accidents today, and my car finally got cleaned out and is now gorgeous and smelling purty, so I'd say my week has been pretty darn amazing!!! I'm looking forward to sharing with you all my house progress and a yummy recipe for skinny chili dogs later this week!

For now I'm off to snuggle that sweet hubs of mine and our three furry babies. Yes, I'm that person. :)

Until next time,