Sunday, January 29, 2012

Mrower Friendly Rooms

Another couple of exciting weeks for the mrowers in our lives!

In the interest of saving everyone money, one of our friends moved into the basement yesterday, so we had to do a number of things to prepare for the move.

The first included cleaning out what we previously dubbed "The Junk Room," which now is the craft room/guest room. We had been in the (slow) process of doing this over the past couple of months, anyway, but since we had to move our guest room this became our top priority since we now needed to fit a queen bed in there. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how its turning out :) Especially since it's going to be mainly my space, which will be nice since I don't really have a space of my own here.

So, after everything was out of the basement, it made sense to paint the main room. With unpainted wall repairs and holes in the walls that desperately needed repairs, the walls looked HORRIBLE! Furthermore, since Brian wants to get the house appraised soon so that he can possibly get rid of mortgage insurance and refinance, we definitely need to work on making this place look as well-kept as possible... and it took me a while (and reading a couple articles on home appraisals) to convince Brian that this wasn't "putting lipstick on a pig."

There are grand plans of renovating this house in the future, but a lot of that is contingent upon getting rid of mortgage insurance/decreasing mortgage payments, so while whatever we paint may end up getting "blown up" sometime in the near future, I think that putting the time to do small, relatively inexpensive projects that result in the highest appraisal possible (and increasing Brian's equity) is probably in his best interest...  so I foresee lots of home improvement projects over the next few months!

As for the craft room and basement, I have pictures on the camera, but they haven't made their way to my computer yet, but soon... so, we chose a nice green for the basement. It scared us a little bit due to the sheer brightness, but since furniture has gone down there it looks A TON better.

For the most part, the room remained a "cat free zone" until we finished, but that didn't mean they weren't allowed to come and visit on occasion. Hanklin was super interested in the process, getting up and sniffing the paint after the cutting in had dried. I caught a few pictures on my phone, but since the basement is pretty dark they didn't turn out the best...



Meanwhile, Steven decided that doing the investigation wasn't so much his thing, but rather he is more the "supervisor" type. Sit back, watch his people to make sure they aren't doing anything too crazy, and enjoy the show. That's typically how it works.




But, we love our mrowers and their weird little antics. It will be interesting to see how they fare with the new addition to the household, and whether they decide to claw up her furniture... in which case there will further restrictions placed upon them. Oh kittens, how we love you... 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Merry Christmas... almost a month late

Merry Christmas!

Yes, almost a month late, but better late than never.

Brian and I spent most of the Christmas season pretty sick... in fact, we didn't even end up getting to go to Christmas dinner because we were afraid of getting his family sick :( But, we stayed the night at my mom's on Christmas Eve and opened presents there, which was fun! Mom got me a sewing machine, which I am excited to get to use (once we have the junk room cleaned up and converted to my craft room, of course), and I got Brian lots of movies, an awesome belt buckle, and a couple other things that I can't remember right now.

After Christmas morning, though, we crashed on the couch and watched a little "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" before heading home to spend our Christmas night sick, but at least in the company of our mrowers... not that Brian had been lacking in feline company. I am going to call him the "Cat Whisperer" from now on... Christmas Eve we were watching TV before bed and I get off the couch for three minutes and come back to find: 

Apparently Lynx and Sosci find him as magnetic as his kittens do. But, then again, he was also running a pretty high fever at this point, so probably the ideal spot for a cold kitten to sleep. :) 

Too tired to do much, we went home and decided to wait to give the kittens their Christmas present until a few days later... and, as per usual, they (and Brian) were more interested in the packaging than the actual gift... 




Hank immediately emerged at the sound of cardboard and crinkly paper, hoping to get a brand new toy... 


Brian, ever the child stuck in an adult's body, wanted in on the fun playing with packing material.


Unfortunately, Brian failed to convince Hanklin that it would be fun to jump through the styrofoam tube. 

Only once we actually took their new toy downstairs and filled it with food, did they realize that maybe it was something they would be interested in... now they'll have food whether we're here or not! Yay!

With Brian's parents getting older, it was getting imperative that we buy them an automatic feeder. Before, we couldn't leave for a few days without finding someone, usually his parents, to come and feed them morning and night. Now, we know that they'll have food if we leave for the weekend and will be fine without anyone checking on them. And, if we're gone for an extended period of time then we only need someone to check on them every couple of days. 

So, really, the gift of freedom for us! And, best of all, we got to utilize this new found freedom over New Years weekend, where we went up to some friend's place near Priest River and played games, had fun with sparklers, and other general merriment. :) 

And, with that I'll leave you with a few gems.






Night!