unclean...

I was watching tv this morning when the phone rang... naturally I hit pause (YAY DVR!!)
I went about my business for a while and when I came back and sat down I grabbed the remote, looked up and noticed it had stopped in a kinda interesting spot

what was on was a commercial for some olay face washing junk with a girl washing her face - on the screen all I could see was her mouth, cheek and chin dripping with water... but it don't look like water!! haaaa

see...





it's a pretty bad pic - but you get the idea hehehe

I can't help but wonder if they make things this way to sort of subliminally make us think dirty thoughts even where there is nothing even remotely dirty going on...

or maybe it's just me

first things first....

it bugs me that I haven't been posting here as much as I would like... it's not that I don't have anything to say - actually lots has been happening here the last few months it's just that... I guess I've just gotten out of the groove

well part of it is that I've gotten out of the groove... but it's also that I've been waiting for some things to be completed so that I could post before and after pictures... but I've come to realize that some things may just never be complete to my satisfaction haaaa

sooooooooooo

I've mentioned one or two (dozen) times how small our house is and what a serious lack of storage there is - fortunately we have very high ceilings or it would probably feel like we live in a storage shed!!

it's also fortunate because we can make use of the vertical space... we have shelves everywhere in here - even if some are so high up I can't reach them to dust (I have one LONG shelf in my kitchen full of cookbooks and tchatchkes (aka useless crapola) that is so covered with dust and cob webs that it looks like a horror movie prop!!

anyway... for most of the time we have lived here the far end of our 'living room' has been kind of an office/music room/catch all place for misc. crap that we don't know what to do with - and the walls were lined with shelves that held all the crap there wasn't room for either on the floor or the 'spare' couch we kept down there to make the area look more like a room

the shelves were cluttered - AWFUL - full of stuff that nobody needs to have out or wants to have to look at and it's been driving me CRAZY!! - for YEARS!!



I don't function well in such disfunctional, cluttered, messy surroundings

then one day I was watching some design show on HGTV and saw this guy build a closet out of basically just a couple of 2x4's and a door and I thought WHY can't WE do that??!!

and guess what... it turns out we CAN!! welllllllll SAM can hehehe I can just supervise

after we decided a while back to grin & bear the mother issues and not uproot our lives in these uncertain times by relocating to a less secure situation - we thought we should do what we can to make this place easier to live in...

anyway - a few years ago Sam had salvaged 4 doors that were about to be demolished along with the house they were in - which he hinged together and we were using as a makeshift room divider to HIDE that end of the living room

I had plans to put them on casters and paint them and make them all pretty - I have LOTS of neat crafty plans that pretty much never come to fruition because like I said I can't function in disorganized messy conditions and most of my supplies have been crammed into any place I could find to stick them - so most of the time the doors/room divider sat folded up, leaning against the armoire (the only enclosed storage in the whole house!!)

until now...

for under $200 (INCLUDING the circular saw he had to buy to cut the wood!!) he was able to use 2 of the doors to build this GREAT (if still somewhat unfinished) closet... it's divided into 2 halves... the left half is mine for all my crafty/art supplies and the right half is his... which will probably end up being an office/workshop type area... he was thinking of putting the old computer in there - but for now it's a place to keep his guitars and stuff he needs for his electronics projects and music stuff

here he is working hard building the frame...



as you can see - the closet also works well to disguise the fact that there's no freakin' baseboard in that corner of the room!!

and here is the closet now...



look how much of my stuff it holds!!



and I don't even have it full... of course I still need to organize everything but for now at least ALL of my stuff is in one place instead of scattered all over the house - now even though it's not fully organized yet at least I know if I need something it's in that closet!! now if I get a bug up my butt to do a project I have a chance of finding what I need and gathering my supplies BEFORE I run out of time and/or oomph!! haaaa

anyway - this is just one of the new and exciting things going on here lately... stay tuned for more in the series of adventures in kittyville

so mad I could spit...

I guess that's one of those old timey sayings... I guess that because it's something my grandma used to say - I was never really sure what it meant but I never gave it much thought until last night when I found myself thinking it my... err.. self

in my case I'm so mad I could spit FIRE!!

that's right - I'm so mad I could turn into a dragon and spit fire... at who you ask? (alright so you didn't ask... but I'm telling you anyway)

MY MOTHER

I suppose I should begin at the beginning... and I guess I'll even preface it by telling a little story:

you all know I was molested as a child and by now I'm sure you've noticed I'm a bit of a basket case

in case you're new or would like a refresher on my childhood and why I have issues... particularly with my mother you can read parts ONE - TWO and THREE of my life story

anyway... my mother is one of these people who likes to be seen as a victim and she has often used things that have happened to her children as ways to get attention for herself - at least that is how I see it - there is also a matter of who calls the other crazy first... they both (my mother and the pedophile) seem to try to gain 'allies' by telling anyone who will listen that the other is crazy

she tries to pass it off as warning people because the pedophile still lives and owns a store in the same town we're in... I don't know what her REAL motive is but I'm sure she's NOT just looking out for people - she just really seems to like telling the story... with her own spin of course because the truth of the story doesn't make her look very good!!

she's delusional enough to leave those bits out and actually believe they didn't exist

I tell myself that this is all why she drinks so much... because of all the guilt she must feel... it's really the only way I can put up with her... or her drinking

anywaaaaaaaaaay

so several years ago while I was still working in her store I walked in one day and there she was telling some customer the story of how she knows for a fact that this guy is a pedophile - yadda yadda yadda

don't get me wrong I'm all for informing the masses - hell if I could I would make him wear a tee shirt that says 'beware of pedophile' and keep a sign on his front lawn to warn the children who often walk past his house going between the park and either his store or the ice cream shop in town!!

but it is NOT her story to tell - it is NOT ok for her to spew details like that about MY life with people like that... people I see on a daily basis

if the opportunity comes up I am more than willing to say - 'hey keep your kids away from that guy!!' and tell them why... I'm not ashamed and I'm not trying to keep some deep dark secret... I will share it if need be - but it is NOT HERS TO SHARE!!
and it pisses me off when she does!!

I mean for fuck sake... I was abused for most of my childhood... MAYBE I don't want to have to be reminded of it whenever she gets a bug up her butt to 'inform' people

ok so that was years ago... I have not been fooling myself into believe that she has stopped spewing my life story to strangers - but since I don't work with her and I don't have to walk in in the middle and then have to rehash it at HER whim when people turn to me for confirmation I guess it doesn't bother me as much... or rather I guess 'what I don't know don't hurt me'

so what has me so mad today?

last night all the stars and planets aligned for the first time in like a week (in other words Sam and I were attempting to have sex) and the phone rang... I did my best to ignore it of course... then a minute later it rings again... a few minutes later - AGAIN!!

then I hear my cell phone telling me I have a text

30 seconds later the phone is ringing again...
at least now I know who's calling - it must be my sister... she is the only one who would text me to tell me to answer the phone
it rang again at least one more round

I have a hard enough time getting in the zone without such distractions... but they don't call me kitty for nothin' - curiosity will probably be the death of me some day - I couldn't help but wonder what the urgent urgency was!!

but I let it go - thankfully the phone stopped ringing - yadda yadda

afterward I texted my sister back asking her what the hell was up...

she calls back a few minutes later and this is what she tells me:

this past weekend mommy dearest was out to dinner with her boyfriend (who just happens to be one of our old high school teachers) they were at a restaurant in the town where we went to school... actually within walking distance of our high school - which is in a VERY small town... everyone knows everyone and since we grew up/went to school there everyone knows us... even though we tend to avoid going there - or I do anyway (my sister moved 2000 miles away to get away from all this) most of the people I knew back then are people I would rather not see now

apparently she was drunk (big surprise) and started going off on the school system and how they failed us - for some reason she blames the school for the fact that her children were molested... and for why we're both so fucked up now

so she proceeded to (while stumbling and knocking things over) shout in that no volume control way that drunk people speak, about how my sister and I were molested and went into detail about how we're both so fucked up now... how we both have eating disorders etc.

shit that is NOBODY'S business but OURS - ya know?

but what she didn't know is that my sister's ex husband and a bunch of his friends were at the bar and heard/saw the whole delightful display

now this is the sort of thing I would just rather not even know about... it can't bother me if I don't know it happened, ya know? but obviously we can't unhear what we've heard

my sister is torn between ripping her a new ass hole and just writing her off altogether - which would mean not letting her have contact with her kid either

the fun part is that I am supposed to go out with my mother today... due to some poor planning, Sam and I weren't able to go grocery shopping this weekend and before I heard all this I asked my mother if I could tag along when she goes today

but I REALLY have no desire to try to put on a happy face AT ALL - especially while I'm seething and trying to figure out what exactly I want to do about this

I would be inclined to avoid her until I came up with a good plan as far as what I want to say - because this kind of crap can't go unaddressed!! SOMETHING needs to be said/done - something!!

right now what I want to tell her is that she's this close to losing EVERYONE in her life - that she needs to get into some kind of rehab/AA/therapy/combo/I don't know what

my sister is NOT fucking around - she hasn't spoken to our father in 2 years for a much smaller offense (IMO) - if my mother thinks she won't go so far as to spare her child the trauma of growing up with this kind of crap (even if that means bye bye grandma) she is NUTS!!

anyway - that is what's going on in kittyville today - YIPPIE!!

crazy bastard! or why I love that man of mine...

normally on work days, after dinner Sam and I veg in the living room catching up on shows we have recorded on the DVR until we pass out from boredom... but due to some stuff going on here (which I'll get into more detail about another day... I promise!) we've had less time to sit on our asses - especially Sam... his after work 'to-do' list is seemingly endless lately =(

it's probably because of this that Sam has been kinda scatterbrained and cranky lately - nobody does well without enough down time... especially him!!

so anyway... last night was more of the same... we ate dinner while making a very small dent in our pile of tv shows and then got to work...

I was making scones for Sam's breakfast and cleaning up the dinner dishes, while he went out back to burn our paper/cardboard 'garbage' - because of all the stuff we've been doing around here, we had A LOT of burnables - so he was out there for a while... I got busy doing my thing and after a while I heard a knock at the back door

I thought that was kind of odd because you can't accidentally lock yourself OUT of our back door and there was no way his hands were full - but I went and answered it anyway... and THIS is what I found...

I think the stress is getting to him!!

ever just have one of those days?

I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning when within 2 minutes of being vertical I had sliced my finger tip open...