Cats, Backs, and Blinds

The biggest news from yesterday is that our kitties are now residing safely at home. The one thing Andrew and I learned from our very expensive boarding mistake is that our home requires cats. It's been way too quiet (even with sanding and echoing rooms) without cats racing through at 10pm and whining in the morning. And sleeping without obstacles at my ankles was nearly unbearable. 

Morty snapped back pretty quickly - he was curling up with me within minutes of being out of his carrier, after, of course, a walk-through of the house to make sure all the scents were in the right place. I think Elmo might have one of those low-grade fevers after his rabies shot, because he's been very chill and sleepy. He didn't even raise his head when Andrew walked in the door. But man, was he vocal when I picked them up. I could hear my kitties' yowls all the way down the hall.

Andrew and I are both getting very sick of sleeping in the dining room, but unfortunately progress is moving slow. Andrew's back is having issues, and when I woke up this morning, I was feeling stiff from sleeping funny, too. Therefore, the chemical removal hasn't been going as quickly as we'd hoped. I got my closet done last night, and that was about it. My plan for today is to get some more done in the guest room and then go window-shopping.

Practically since we moved here, I started looking for window treatments. Our house has a lot of windows, and there are only 4 of them that I'm happy with. I ordered roman shades for the living room, but they're on backorder until September. I need a new rod for the dining room, and although Grandma and I put up new valances in the kitchen, those are temporary until I pick out some new fabric for custom-by-Grandma window treatments. And, over the weekend, my Grandma suggested I just have her make the new curtains in the guest room, too, since I'd just been having a sheer over mini-blinds.

I think it's a sign of insanity, but I am so incredibly enthused by the idea of being completely mini-blind free. Every time I see mini-blinds, I have flashbacks of college. At the end of the year, my apartment places always charged something like $20 for "blind cleaning" (no shit, those things were gross and a PITA to clean). When the cats started to chew through our blinds in the front room, Andrew and I checked the price on them at Lowes, expecting them to be somewhat expensive. Nope. One window = $3. Dirty rental bastards.

Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time scouring the internet looking at Craftsman bungalow interiors. Andrew and I weren't really sure our house "counts" as a Craftsman in the first place, but we found out through some 'net research that we actually have an excellent example of Craftsman architecture. A lot of the houses that are showcased on the internet/magazines are actually a lot bigger than the norm, since one of the Craftsman principles is simplicity. The columns in our living room and porch are "signature" for the style, as is our decorative fireplace (I nearly spit out my diet coke when I saw a photo of a Craftsman from 1910 with a potted plant in the fireplace). Anyway, I was very proud of us when I started reading about how to decorate to the period and read that we were actually doing a pretty bang-up job. Turns out, our taste is very Crafstman-esque to begin with. I didn't get a whole lot of new ideas about window treatments, but I can tell that getting rid of the mini-blinds is a step in the right direction.