Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
household stuff

i came. i sewed. i conquered.

I finally took the plunge today and hemmed my shower curtain on my sewing machine. Brian’s mom came over yesterday and gave me some sewing pointers which enabled me to do the job. It turned out pretty good. Granted, it’s not the straightest hem ever to be hemmed, but it works. I mean, I won’t be hemming Brian’s pants anytime soon, but it’s a shower curtain for goodness sake.

Jake wants me to make him a shop apron. So, I guess I’ll have to go to JoAnn Fabrics at some point and see if I can find some plans for one. Also on my list–a runner for my sideboard (and maybe the mantel), napkins, placemats, and curtains (gasp). The curtains are a long way off because Brian needs to re-trim the windows first. And seeing that there’s already trim on the windows (albeit crappy trim) and not trim pretty much everywhere, he’s going to tackle the places that don’t have trim first. But, I found these cool curtains that I like and they look like they’d be pretty easy to make. So, someday I’ll make them. For now, they’re sitting in the project file.

household stuff

house of 1000 freezers

We got the new freezer installed this evening. You wouldn’t think this would be worth blogging about, but that just means that you’re not as well-acquainted with Murphy as we are.

Before moving it into our utility room, we eyed it up. Things didn’t look good so Brian broke out the measuring tape and confirmed our suspicions–it was going to be a tight fit.

We took off the utility room door and then tried to squeeze the freezer through a number of times–each time removing something else. First went the hinges. Next the door stop. It would’ve fit at this point if not for the tube running down the back. I told Brian to tilt it up and this was enough to squeeze it through. Phew! Of course, it didn’t fit nicely in the spot where I wanted, so we had to swap places with the refrigerator. That seemed to do the trick. I fired it up so it’ll be ready for my frozen food tomorrow.

If anyone’s looking for a good, used chest freezer (around 5-7 cubic feet in size), let me know. Otherwise, it’ll be going in the Trader’s Guide next week.

movies

the others

I’m going to have to stop reading movie reviews before I watch movies. I was all pumped up for this one, but it didn’t quite deliver. The movie was ok. It had a cool twist at the end, that’s for sure, but I wasn’t quite as impressed as everyone else, I guess. And, it got a little slow in the middle. So slow, in fact, that I started to read the owner’s manual for the new freezer I bought yesterday (finally, I got a large freezer. now, all I have to do is fill it up with food. that shouldn’t be hard since all three of my current freezers are overflowing.) Not only was I doing that, but I was also surfing the internet and drinking a margarita in addition to watching the movie (I tend to multi-task) and I still didn’t miss anything.

Alas, the plethora of pseudo movie reviews will be coming to an end. I am cancelling my Blockbuster video subscription next weekend. Not that I didn’t enjoy every minute of it, but spring is sort of here and I’m not going to have time to be watching movies a couple of nights a week anymore. Not only that, but The Sopranos is starting up again this Sunday and a promising new series called Big Love is debuting on HBO. Plus, HBO’s re-running Six Feet Under. I’ve been wanting to catch that series again (at least the first two seasons, anyway) But, I digress…I enjoyed Blockbuster Online so much that I plan on signing up again next winter. I always say, if only I could get my groceries delivered to the house, I’d never have to leave home.

pets

he loves me

He loves me not.

I seem to be the marginal “favorite human” of Marley, the demon cat. He kind of likes me most of the time (well, as much as he’s capable of liking anyone), but it’s not something you can count on. I was the first one to get him to purr, though. He still hisses at Lizzy a few times a day, so I don’t know that the two of them will ever get along. Considering the fact that Lizzy and Ariel have been living together for a number of years and still aren’t on friendly terms, it’s probably a safe bet. Marley hasn’t attacked Brian in weeks so Brian must now be on his good list as well. Jake is slightly above Lizzy on the Marley-scale. So much for him having his own cat. I guess he can get one when he moves out in 16 years or so.

We haven’t formally introduced the two cats yet, but anytime they’ve seen each other they haven’t been impressed. I’m thinking about doing the formal introduction this weekend (during regular vet hours, of course). I’m sick of having pets living on three levels of our house. Two levels would be more than sufficient, I think.

do-it-yourself

bathroom

Brian took some pictures of the house recently so I thought this might be a good opportunity to show you all our recently remodeled bathroom.

vanity 1
vanity 2
tub

As you can see, the vanity still needs drawers. And, the ceiling still needs trim, but other than that, it is done. I don’t know why he didn’t take a picture of the toilet area. I can only surmise that since our bathroom is so small, he couldn’t get a good angle on it. Nothing exciting there anyway–just a toilet, magazine rack, toilet paper holder and our cool Gashlycrumb Tinies poster hanging above the toilet tank.