Tales from Winter Street

I'm sure most people who have followed my bitching via Facebook know that Jim and I live on an interesting street. Most of the people we've met have been mildly odd with the highlights of the street being the crappy neighbors immediately to our right and the "good" neighbors immediately to our left.

Turns out, "good" neighbor has gone a bit stranger than we ever realized.

I started to notice things last year when he first took up sweeping the road because all the dust on the street made things look bad. But that seemed harmless enough and hey, it got all the dirt and stuff away from my porch, so who am I to say anything.

Then over the winter he started snowblowing the road at the first 2 inches of snow, regardless of whether or not the plows were just around the corner. Yet again, harmless enough, if a little strange.

This summer he's getting weirder.

We noticed ground bees had infested our side yard when it started to look like this:

So understandably, when we heard him outside with his lawn mower we ran out to tell him about the bees thinking that, like most people, he wouldn't want to mow over bees. Boy were were wrong.

Instead of waiting until nighttime and spraying the bees with bug killer stuff, he equipped himself with a broken rake and started jumping up and down on the area that was most heavily infested while wacking the ground with his rake remnant over and over again. Imagine this:

Only replace the suitcase with bees and give him a broken rake.

I was slightly afraid.

It got worse after vandals hit the street last week, see here for more info about that (Jim and I were lucky enough to be spared but both neighbors got hit.) Now crazy neighbor has upped the ante and is acting as the new neighborhood vigilante.

Jim walked Penelope around 3am last night and while he was out he was approached by a black garbed man with a headlamp and a crowbar. I wish I was making this up.

El crazy neighbor is part of the neighborhood watch and is patrolling the streets from 2-5am every night. With a crowbar. And a headlamp. All in black.

Let me say that again. Crowbar. Headlamp. Black.

Yeahhhh.



Doesn't this make you feel all safe and fuzzy?? I know I'm going to sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I'm protected by the valiant neighborhood looney.

Waaahahoooo

I'm excited, but you can probably tell that from my title.

Why, you might ask?

This girl got a 98 on her psych test!!!
*dances*

Which is the best grade I've gotten since going into nursing school. I'd been stoked about my 96 from the first psych test but now that I have TWO good test grades it makes me want to bounce around the house.

Maybe it helps being a nutter in a psych class.

I love interior design and decorating.

But since I didn't feel like picking up the house I'm going to share a few of the select items/areas in the house that I absolutely love or that mean a great deal to me.

I love my earring hanger. It's ridiculously simple, but for some reason I absolutely adore how it looks aesthetically on the wall with just my jewelery as the pops of color. Someday I'll modify it if I can find a funky frame I like at the thrift store. My mom made one with a very thick frame and fabric along the back with cordage just across the front instead of crisscrossed like mine.

I'd debated doing it with this frame from Ikea that I have hanging in my office:

But it's kind of massive and just looks so darned pretty in the office that I haven't wanted to move it. The office has more of that slightly feminine fleur-de-lie floral type feeling in pinks and purples with pops of teal, whereas the bedroom has mostly metal scroll work accents and a mostly neutral tan/brown with pops of dark red color scheme with a global feel to it (think aged world maps.)

The master bedroom also houses my collection of linen trunks and some of my owls.

These are some hand made stuffed owls that Beth donated to my decorating madness. They live on the top of a wooden chest that is decorated with wooden spirals that I got around the time of the wedding from Home Goods. (I love Home Goods!)


This is probably the worlds most deceitful 'fancy' clock. It's plastic (which I didn't know until a couple months ago) and lived on top of my parent's kitchen cabinets for as long as I can remember. It was Dad's clock and I've always loved it, even though the 'metal' handle had long since broken off the top. It was one of those iconic pieces of property that I just always remember being a part of home.


This is the cigar box on my nightstand that I keep most of my Dad memento's. It makes me feel closer to him to be able to reach out and touch something of his.


Now let's move into the dining room.

This is one of my simpler paintings. Basically I had empty wall space and knew what colors I wanted up but couldn't find anything right in the store. An hour or so later and I had this.


It's next to this hutch that is the closest thing I have to a china cabinet. It's home to all of our wedding china, and the silver chest Jim's Gram gave us. The chest on top of the hutch has all the cards and memento's left over from the wedding.


This is one of my favorite art pieces in the house. It's a drawing my Mom did of a scene in The Little Prince, complete with a short passage from the book.


And who can pass up a $25 Pier One papasan chair that we got as part of a set on Craigslist. Two chairs for $50 bucks. Since normally one chair is $80 and a cushion ranges from $90 to $40 (on clearance) that makes it around $160 per chair. Two chairs for $320 vs. two for $50. For that price I don't even care then if I have to put one down in the basement if I want more space in the office someday.

Christmas Tree Shoppe pillow on our couch. We have two and they are purdy :)


These are one inch high elephant figurines that I have on the tv stand. Dad collected these figurines out of his iced tea boxes for decades. I have about 100 of them now, some of which are strategically placed around the house in small collections.


Jim and I got this little amethyst wire tree at the Big E on our one year anniversary. We thought it was appropriate since we'd had a gemstone wire tree as a cake topper on our wedding cake. Plus it's frigging cute.


Blue green kitchen art hanging out behind Fishy. That tin next to the fish tank has tea bags in it.

Following the kitchens blue green theme (in decor only since I haven't had the gumption to paint the kitchen yet and we have to live with those hideous pine cabinets, we are renters after all) we have a peacock feather inspired glass plate and some blue mosaic candle holders with the handmade wooden dragon Jim got me for Christmas one year.




My office got moved around a few months ago. But it still has it's cute areas, like my favorite photo collage in the whole house.

If it wasn't absolutely psychotic

I'd almost think about fighting with Jim more often since I got home from work last night to find this waiting for me:



Yes, it's a steam mop. Basically because I'm a nut and had gone on a psychotic rant about our floors being dirty and how I needed a steam mop because I couldn't bleach the floors with all the pets in the house (plus, how the hell do you clean hardwoods?!) And I had gotten all pissy with Jim and stormed out of the house for my shift at work.

Not my finest moment, I assure you.

I can honestly say that I spent the whole first half of my shift agonizing having left the house mid-fight. As a rule, we try never to leave things unsettled like that. Mostly because I'm morose and am constantly thinking that any moment could be the last so you don't want to leave without saying I love you. What can I say, I'm weird.

Oh, but in addition to the steam mop there were more goodies waiting for me!



And....



Pretty right?? He's a good guy :D

I was also bombarded with random cuteness.


Penelope is too frigging cute to come home to.


Rari's greeting "meeh!"



Tobey, of course, was invisible. The ripped curtain had just grown legs and a tail. Curious.

Heh.