New York Renovator

Most of the time I tolerate Livvy’s antics pretty well. She has this very bad habit of climbing up on my desk and planting her big Siamese butt in front of my monitor. She then presses her wet nose on the screen– or even licks it!– so the monitor is speckled with slimy cat snot. *gag* Before I moved my keyboard into a keyboard desk tray, she’d lounge on the keyboard, too. If I was frittering away my time on the computer, that’d be one thing. But I work from home! I have scads of articles to write, and all she wants is ATTENTION! Who does she think she is, Cleopatra??

Well, I had a little fun with Livvy yesterday. Yeah, I was a bit stir-crazy. Looks like it was contagious.

She can be such a pain sometimes, but isn’t she adorable?!

It’s Monday, I’ve got a lot of work to do and there’s a lot of it so I’m in a hurry, and what happens to me??

SHE DOES.

How can I resist that?

She just wants to lounge around.

She’s been very clinging lately. Follows me everywhere. I’m not sure why she’s doing it. Sure, she followed me everywhere before, but these days she’s on top of me, like in the photo. She’s with me all night, too, hogging my bed and stealing my covers.

She's been a bed hog ever since babyhood.

She’s very happy when the family is sprawled out on the couch and floor, hanging in front of my computer’s make-shift home theatre system speakers and big monitor, watching a film. She’s always out of sorts when one of the family members is not home. I’ve never known such a personable cat, and I’ve had many cats.

I was considering leaving her behind in the care of a babysitter when we go on vacation sometime…. rrrright! She’d never let us.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Livvy thinks I have been at the computer too long, and must get back to cuddling and petting her. See you all tomorrow.

…in the snow.

Here’s the “snowpow” coming through… ha!

The boys like to play King of the Hill, where the opposing forces duke it out on top of the mountain, to see which one is worthy of the honor of securing his address plaque to the mount….

We made some videos, too, but I’m too busy to edit them today. These kids are just hilarious! They must have inherited their wacky sense of humor from their father! I don’t dare publish my address sign on my blog– my neighbors might read this blog, and they think we are weird enough already! LOL

Sorry I haven’t posted here very much this week. I’ve been horrendously busy, doing a billion and one things for work like writing articles about everything under the sun, like honey locust trees, gas dryers, address plaques and etc, doing school with the kids, taking care of the husband who has been under the weather, and etc. But then again, YOU guys seem busy, too, with Christmas preparations and etc. I like the Christmas season, but I don’t like the busyness of it. It messes with the normal routine. I miss everyone’s regular blog posts and comments– it seems that everyone is away during this time.

Well, at least it gives me time to fool around with the kids in the snow, eh? Livvy took a jaunt out there, too. Hang in there, I’ll have photos!

I’m very impressed with the iPhone camera. Livvy, not so much.

Hey. Hey! What’s that?

Lemme see.

*sniff* New case smells like baby clothing?

I don’t like it. Probably has flash.

Turn it off.

Humph.

*ignore*

When I had installed the flooring for both the kitchen and the dining room (but before we moved the rugs and furniture and thoughts of contemporary sofas back in to the room), it created a very long, smooth surface. We had a lot of fun soaring across the back end of the house– 40 feet long!– in our stocking feet! Livvy liked the long space, too. It made the perfect place to play ball. We uncovered two of our missing superballs while moving boxes around. The kids and Livvy had a “ball”!

Because I tried to refrain from the flash of the camera, the shutter speed slowed down. Any motion was blurred. But I love the dramatic colors and slightly blurred edges.

Here’s Livvy, stalking down one of the superballs.

We tried scooting her “baby” (a small stuffed rabbit toy) down the hallway. She didn’t like that.

Waiting for the ball. Waiting… waiting… [...]

… that’s one of my daughters. I don’t know what I’d do without these kids.

She worked all day, painting the trim in the dining room, so that I could work on my writing assignments (and boy, did I have a ton of them). The other daughter cooked and cleaned… and the boys helped with laundry and cleaning.

Gosh, my kids are amazing.

THANKS, GUYS!!!!! I love you!

…came true!

A little background: We are a family of six. For over a year, I babysat several kids, making it TEN people to cook for, and to clean for. Imagine the humungous stacks of dishes we had to wash every single day. We couldn’t renovate the kitchen at that time, and there was no room in the kitchen to shoehorn a dishwasher. We washed and washed and washed by hand.

My kids prayed and prayed for a dishwasher, prayed and prayed for a kitchen renovation…

Ladies and gentlemen— I’d like to introduce to you—-

Our new baby!

We went without a kitchen sink for over a week before getting this in (the kids were washing dishes in the bathtub!). The first night The Hubs rigged it up, the kids and I grabbed the chairs and placed them in a circle around the kitchen. You’d think we were gearing up to buy gold coins or something! We switched it on, and — GLORIOUSLY — the machine started. It WASHED the DISHES! What a monumental moment!!!

Yeah, I’m a little exuberant. If you had to wash mounds of dirty dishes in a bathtub, you’d be a little excited, too, I’ll bet.

I purposely purchased the cheapest dishwasher I could find, online. It’s a HotPoint. No fancy buttons, no fancy doodads, no special heating element. It’s a super-simple barebones machine. I had heard some stories about folks spending several hundred dollars on fancier models, only to have the fancy models croak quickly. Those electronic panels on the fancy models seems to fry very easily. That makes sense– the dishwasher generates a lot of heat with water, creating steam. Water is the enemy of electronics…

Anyway, there’s only one option on this machine: WASH. There is a toggle switch for heated dry or not, too. We tried both, and the heated dry does dry the dishes a little faster. The kids want to use it, so it’s fine with me.

I LOVE MY DISHWASHER. Glory to God, our prayers are answered. o/

By the way, here’s a frugal tip for keeping your dishwasher in tip-top shape: instead of using commercially-made rinse-cycle liquids, use white vinegar. It will keep the dishes spotless and squeaky clean, while at the same time keeping mineral deposits from clogging the inside.

From LOL Cats. TOTALLY TRUE!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Livvy just loves to help out with chores, especially clean, warm laundry. Can you find the kitty?

Hmmm…