April 22

Today is the birthday of Vladimir Lenin.  And Vladimir Nabokov.  And probably thousands other people, but those two always stick in my mind for April 22.  It was a holiday of sorts at school when I was growing up, Communism and all.  I always think of April 22 as when spring REALLY starts.

I needed some normalcy after this past week.  So I shopped for a patio set.  Now, I'm on a serious budget, and I have some seriously limited space to work with.  Have you ever bought patio furniture?  If not, I refer you to this Apartment Therapy post I just saw - Small Space Outdoors.  While it shows some absolutely pretty bistro sets, they range in price from $200 to $2,400.

I was hoping for something modern, and closer to $100.  I succeeded, but it involved trips to 3 stores and some spray paint.  Behold, my new deck:

I am looking forward to at least 5 months of breakfasts and dinners as this table.

March 18

A friend's post on Facebook made me feel I don't post enough pics of my fluffies, and I need to remedy that, stat.

Feb 27

Thoroughly Modern Millie is sucking my will to live. So here's a giant cat box enclosure in development.

Feb 24

Domesticity. I has it.

Feb 18

My day was so long and stressful, let's pretend I decorated my walls instead...

Feb 6

Preparing to decorate, Anna style...

Feb 4

Rue is skeptical about the Ravens...

...and I was too, until I put together my new knife block?

Jan 18

Still life with exercise ball, new apartment, Jan 2013.

A pic a day

I am going to try to do 365 days of photos.  I think it's a fantastic way to chronicle your year, and it appeals to my OCD self.  I don't want to start a tumblr or flickr or a Facebook album or anything else for this - I like the look of this blog, and I feel loyal to it, even if I abandon it for two years at a time.

The rules: a picture that I take that day OR a picture that I have/scan from the past which holds some significance.

Since it's Jan 3, here're the last 3 days:

Jan 3 - this was two weeks ago, but I can't forgo the sweater.  Not only did I embellish this sucker, I won an Ugly Sweater prize with it!

Jan 2 - my new bathtub in my new place - can't wait to take a bath after a long cold day!

Jan 1 - got to love the Beebz!

Been a bit busy...

Sorry for no Sunday Saffron or Wed jokes, been busy on this project:

Apartment Therapy Small Cool

Please vote for us!!!

More experiments in furnishings

Before: slightly outdated, sometime eaten by a small canine who pulled the stuffing out, and very very very dirty.



After:


Unfortunately, red is a very hard colour to photograph, so you can't see the fine woven detail on the fabric. It's also more crimson and less tomato in real life. BUT it also attracts lint like crazy - I must have lint-brushed it 20 times while I was working.


As a bonus, when I took the previous upholstery off, I discovered the fabric was a sheet. Just a regular ol' flat sheet. Needless to say, not the best material for upholstery.

While the chair hung out in my apartment, the cats have adopted it, and often used it as a two-tier cat seat - one on the seat, the other under. They also got very sad when the chair went away. So I've been scouring Craigslist for a cheap chair to bring back for the felines, but to no avail - all the cheap ones have really bad lines.

Feline Angst

LK and I are owned by two bossy felines, one of which is a terror to both humans and cats, and the other usually is a very peaceful individual. I've been privy to some weird canine behaviors lately, and while the stories are amusing, I don't generally think of our cats as especially destructive. I mean, look at him, isn't he a perfect portrait of calm?


His name is Miles, by the way, and this is how he looks when he is very tired:



And this is what he does when he does not like being left alone for 18 hours (or so):


If you look closely, the napkins are not just strewn all over the floor, but they are also eaten in the corners - almost every single one is chewed up. While Miles is an expert at eating paper - just in the last two days, he took bites out of a bill for car repair, a Postal Office receipt, and an Inaugural edition of the Boston Globe - we try to keep as much paper out of his reach as possible.

Therefore it did not occur to me to hide a *closed* plastic container of napkins on a kitchen counter. Every day I thank heavens he is not a larger feline...