Matt Damon is trying to make a fool of my dog

I was just watching The Adjustment Bureau while Bogart snoozed in the floor. There’s a scene in the movie where Matt is alone in a cavernous room and he shouts out, “Helloooo!?” I’ll admit, it was pretty loud and Bogart awoke with a snort, swinging his giant head around while trying to determine where the voice had come from. When he didn’t see an immediate threat, he bolted downstairs, barking his fool head off, in what I can only assume was an attempt to protect me from some imaginary prowler. I followed, giggling uncontrollably, because there he was making a fool of himself over Matt Damon. Idiot dog.

Tags: bogart, idiot dog, Matt Damon

Best part of the summer day

I told myself when I moved here that I would make more of an effort to take photos as often as possible and though I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me when I’m out and about, I have been paying more attention to my surroundings and nearly every day I wish I had remembered it. Today, I went outside as the sun was setting, in that perfect time of day when the worst of the heat is over but the mosquitos aren’t out in full force. Bo and I wandered around the yard looking at things and trying to see the beauty. There was plenty to be found….

 

Tags: country, home, summer, sunset

Let’s ramble, shall we?

Twice in as many days I’ve sang at full voice driving down a country road and it was joyful but my voice strained and pulled. I realized it has been too long since I’ve felt like I was able to be full voice, at my full self. Too many weeks spent holding back and walking softly to try to please. And that horrifies me. Makes me hug my dog. And he lets me while his nubbin of a tail wags frantically. Because he loves me. More heart than brains, that one.

I have a nasty sunburn on my back from too many hours spent in full sun working in the yard without sunscreen, like an idiot. But I’m home for more than just a visit since I was 19, sleeping in the bedroom that I left back then. And my 62 year old father has more energy and stubbornness than men half his age and Bogart and I refused to go in before he did, so we both paid the price. Did you know that dogs could get a sunburn? I didn’t either. Bogart is also suffering from bug bites, mosquitos and biting flies have left pink bumps all over him so he’s getting dosed with Benadryl morning and night which seems to be helping, poor pup.

I also have ready access to laundry again, whenever I want, which means all my clothes are clean again within a few days and oh my god, the freaking LUXURY of it all! It turns out I don’t have enough hangers. Huh.

When I moved back in to the L shaped room my sister and I shared as teenagers, we cleaned out the closet that was once hers since our Mom had years ago taken over the one that used to be mine. When I transferred all the clothes Mom had been storing in our old room into my old closet, the bar broke. Broke from the weight of her SECOND closet full of clothing. I come from a family of collectors, people. The only thing stopping them from being hoarders is restricting their collecting to closets and garages. But still. I went right down to my Mom and told her that one (walk in!) closet was surely enough clothes and we were having a rummage sale and the bar trying valiantly to hold up the weight of her clothing had ripped right out of the wall after more than 20 years. Yesterday, I brought down arm loads of clothes for her to look through and brought back up anything she HAD to keep. She got rid of 2/3 of it. Success! My aunt wants me to do the same thing for her. It’s hard to see what’s right in front of you sometimes, especially when you can hide it away in a closet.

Storms ripped through the area last Wednesday night and though tornadoes touched down north of town and a few times the sky made me a little nervous, it’s sort of a family tradition to watch it come over the hill and marvel.

I was shooting every 30 seconds to a minute as the clouds rolled in and built. We didn’t retreat inside until the rain became a downpour. We’re a little nuts.

I’ve been thinking on my new blog name and I thought about all the places I’ve lived in the last few years and the blogs that sprang from those places and I realized that I don’t want my blog’s name to be about where I live anymore. I’ve had 8 addresses since I left home at 19 and I may have 8 more, who knows. Where I live doesn’t define me in life, it shouldn’t define me on the internet. So, now I just need to find the words that define me, or maybe words that mean home to me, whatever that point on the map might be.

Suggestions, of course, are welcome.

Tags: bogart, hoarding, singing, storms, sunburn

Changes and Happenings

Previously on Chronicles of an Accidental City Girl, I was living in Chicago, walking dogs part time for a living and living with my boyfriend, our dog and three cats.

As of this evening, I am boyfriendless, in Southern Illinois, temporarily living with my parents with a dog and one cat.

A lot has changed, huh?

Things hadn’t been going well with the boyfriend for that last few months but being the optimistic person that I am, I was sticking it out, thinking we would work it out. He was not so optimistic. So. Here I am. And I’m ok. And Bogart loves the country.

And ADORES my mother. The surprise for all of us (including her) is that she loves him right back.

Right now, I’m working out my next move, in the meantime I’ll spend some time with family , work on projects, take my nephew to the beach and the pool and enjoy the quiet. I need the quiet. I need to breathe for a while.

Another thing I have to figure out is what to call myself. Not a city girl any more and I’m not sure that I’ll move back to a city, at least not for the foreseeable future. So what do I call myself? Not so citygirl? Citygirl/ Countrygirl? A Girl with her Dog? Bogart and Bacall?  Any other ideas?

 

Thanks for listening,

?

 

p.s. My Chicago phone has been turned off, so if you tried to text or call me, that’s why I haven’t responded. I’ll have a new phone with a new number this week and I’ll text everyone so you’ll have it.

Tags: bogart, changes

Cats are evil and so is laundry

Another thing that has suddenly become harder since the whole car + fire = unholy mess thing is that now going to the laundry mat is a big ordeal that I have been too tired to mess with. Which is why I first had to get really creative with my clothing choices and then I was reduced to wearing Xmas themed tinker bell pajama pants. In public. (my pottery teacher saw me and pointed me out to her boyfriend. Yes. Oy.) I went Monday night and washed a ton of clothes but I haven’t gotten to sheets and towels yet so you can maybe imagine my frustration when I got out of the shower Tuesday morning to find that one of the cats had puked all over my side of the bed. And my only other set of sheets was still in the dirty laundry. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it. So. It was either back to the laundry mat or buy new sheets and if you follow me on twitter or Facebook you may already know the answer to that question. Target it is! I thought I would go in a grab a set of their cheap jersey sheets, easy peasy, but I swear to you every non-objectionable color was only in twin or king so I was left with colors I DO NOT want on my bed. I stood there for I don’t know how long trying to decide what to do and finally just grabbed the least objectionable set and left before I had to cry. It was pissing me off to spend money to buy something I don’t like but there you go, it was either ugly sheets or sleep on dry cat puke. *shudder* I came home with my denim blue sheets that aren’t exactly ugly but don’t match anything I own and even BFP who is a freaking color blind man didn’t like them. (Eww was his exact word, actually. Lol)

I should wrap this story up somehow with something clever but I’m exhausted and almost fell asleep on my bus ride home from pottery class so I’ll leave you with this…..wash your sheets because cats are crafty and mean enough to puke on your only clean ones and then flee the scene of the crime leaving you looking ridiculous cursing in your fuzzy blue robe.

Thanks for listening,
citygirl

Tags: cats, Laundry, shopping, Target

The True Story of My Car, Extra Crispy

Until today, I drove a 2002 Taurus, the most unexceptional car on the planet. When I first got it, everything worked and it was fully loaded with anything your little 2002 heart desired. But little by little, things started going wrong. The light that came on when a door was ajar, came on whenever it felt like it. The a/c died last summer. The starter died last fall. And this winter, off and on, I had been having trouble with the fuel filter or pump or something of that nature but didn’t really have the money to have it fixed. As of a couple of days ago, I finally had a few hundred dollars set aside to take the car to my car guy and have him look it over. (Oh, and I had a slow leak in one of the tires.)

This morning, I went to work as usual, and was on my third dog walking visit. I couldn’t find street parking, so I decided to “borrow” a spot behind an apartment building. They were all empty and I was only going to be there 25 minutes. I went up, got the dogs, took them on their walk and we were headed back to their place when I heard sirens and smelled something burning. “Eww, must be a fire nearby.” As we got further down the street, I saw the fire truck and the  smoke. It was coming from where I had parked the car. “Pleasedon’tletitbemycar.Pleasedon’tletitbemycar.” It was my car. On fire. I stood there in stunned silence while the firemen tried to get the fire out, while they pried the hood up and shot water into the engine to put out truly impressive flames.

Thank god I wasn’t in it.

Thank god it wasn’t near another car when it went up.

Thank god someone called the fire department at the first sign of smoke.

My car went from perfectly fine (as far as I knew) to fire ball in less than 20 minutes.

I think I’m done with cars. I’m bad for them.

 

Thanks for listening,

citygirl

Tags: bad things come in threes, cars, fire

Sunday Stars

I have a huge file of web pages bookmarked under “project ideas” but for the last few weeks of stress and nastiness, I’ve barely sat down at my computer at all. I’ve been keeping up with all the blogs I read with my ipod touch (it’s a hand-me-down from BFP’s purchase of his ipad). Now the only way to save projects that I love and want to do is to star the post in my reader so I can find them later. I was skimming through the posts I saved this week and thought it might be a fun way to share with all of you (all three of you. heh.)some good ideas I’ve seen on the interwebs. Note: The links embedded in the name of each site will take you to their home pages. To go to the project itself, just click on the photo.

First up is a cardigan update from Dear Lizzy. I love updating, altering or recycling clothes you already have in your closet and I can think of some old tired cardigans in my closet that would benefit from a shot of color like this one did.

Up next is another sewing project (apparently I have sewing on the brain this week). I found it through UCreate, but the creative momma who made this little number is Cami from Tidbits.

She made this adorable dress for her daughter entirely from her stash of old t-shirts! Is it wrong that I ‘d love an adult size one for myself?

 

One last sewing project and then moving on. I found this felt pillow on Knock Off Décor, who featured Jen from Life, Crafts and Whatever for her Crate and Barrel inspired pillow.

I could totally see a couple of these babies hanging out on my couch and I could even hand sew it while watching TV. I love TV watching projects! (I have a basket that slides under the couch that holds any projects I’m currently working on so that I look neater than I am)

I love maps and I have a collection of magnets from places I’ve been so these map magnets from Jessica at How About Orange are right up my alley.

Something fun to do with your travel guide/map stash. Wait. I’m the only one who has that stash?

Last, but not least, is a project I found through Design Sponge, this piece of vintage luggage turned bench.

This one inspired me since BFP has one of those old trunks that every college student has had at one time or another and I’ve been looking for something pretty to do with it since storage is not something you get rid of. After some TLC to alter the hideous color and some short legs, it could serve like this one as a end of the bed bench/doggie step with storage for extra blankets and such.

 

Thanks for listening and feel free to share your own inspiration!

citygirl

 

Note: The links embedded in the name of each site will take you to their home pages. To go to the project itself, just click on the photo.

Tags: felt circle pillow, map magnets, storage bench, tshirt dress, updated cardigan

Vet visits and harsh realities

If you follow me on twitter, you may already know that our 19 year old cat, Peanut, wasn’t doing well over the weekend so we made her an appointment with a new vet(our last one being in the old neighborhood) and then didn’t talk about it, with each other. I honestly expected them to tell us that it was time to let her go and though she is failing, medication will slow things down and give her more time. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. On one hand, I’m glad that BFP gets more time with her and she’s not really sick enough to pull him aside and tell him to face reality, that he needs to be realistic about her quality of life. But at the same time, we’ve been watching her waste away to nothing for the past 2 years because of a hyperactive thyroid and now she has stage 2 kidney failure, so there’s no going back now. She’ll never really be healthy again it’s just time we’re playing with here. And in the past week I’ve watched this 4 and a half pound cat go from top cat and aggressor to the weak one that the other two either ignore or harass now. It’s sad, the whole thing is sad.

And I’m tired.

Thanks for listening,
citygirl

Tags: Death and dying, peanut, vet visits

Bogart doesn’t like the word NO

A few months after BFP and I moved in together and to Chicago at the same time, I checked out some books from the library on dog training to help with some of Bogart’s more…ahem, charming qualities. Some strategies worked and some didn’t, but I did gain a better understanding of what goes on in his doggie brain.

One of the things that the authors said that made me literally laugh out loud was the assurance that dogs are not vindictive. Ok, sure. No, your dog peeing in your shoes isn’t because he is trying to get back at you but I don’t think any of these people have had a dog that reacts to the word no quite like Bogart does.

No joke. I recently told him no to something he wanted. He huffed and pouted and when that didn’t move me, he left the room and came back less than a minute later with one of my boots. In his mouth. That he dropped in the middle of the floor. Then he sat and looked at me. Yeah. Not vindictive AT ALL.

He makes me crazy.

But he thinks snow is AWESOME

Even if it means trying to move around in snow up to his neck…

Living with a ridiculous dog does have it’s advantages. My feet stay pretty warm and he loves the smell of morning breath so he’s a good morning snuggler.

But if he touches my boots again, he’s a dead man.

 

Thanks for listening,

citygirl

 

P.S. Thanks so much for the words of support while I’m dealing with family stuff. I’m not ready to talk about it yet, but it made me think of stories to tell so I’ll get there and then we can finally get around to talking about all the changes I’ve made to our apartment.

P.S.S Yes, these are photos I took during our blizzard in Chicago from the safety of our apartment since I still had the flu. Taking a dog out to go to the bathroom was REALLY interesting for a few days, let me tell ya.

Tags: bad dog, blizzard, bogart, boots, chicago

Questions and updates

First of all, I’ve been doing a little housecleaning of the blog tonight, do you like the new background?

I loved the kitties but they had to go to work on my new years resolution of taking the blog more seriously. Now that we’re coming out on the other side of February and my brain is no longer composed of mush and snot, we can get that going. I found the background on a blog, The Graphics Fairy, an awesome place to find vintage images and backgrounds to use for just about anything you need.

And the buttons? Better? I kinda hated the other ones but was too lazy to do anything about it. (Taking the blog more seriously, right?) The twitter one should work, facebook is something I’m still thinking about. (see below) I’m going to do a rework on my etsy shop, and when I get the whole “what do I want to make and sell right now?” thing down, I’ll put a new button up for that too. I found the buttons here, just by googling blog buttons. Sweet, huh?

Another something I’ve been wondering about, since I don’t use my name on the blog, would it be a good idea to make a facebook page for just the blog? Do you use facebook for blogging? How’s that going for ya?

I’ve been on this kick lately where I don’t want to go back to school but I really miss learning, you know? I’ve been putting aside some money here and there and I should be able to take that pottery class I mentioned in April, which I’m super excited about, but it’s not quite enough and I’m not sure what to do about it. Anyway, one step at a time.

I took some shots around the apartment the other day so I could show you the changes we’ve made so far making this place a home. I have SO many ideas, but time and money and deciding how to EXECUTE those ideas have put some things on the back burner, so to speak.

Here’s a little sneak peek:

The before we moved in….

The walls are now a soft gray and you can see the nook in the hallway with the fabric panel we found at IKEA (we have a slight obsession with bulldogs) hanging on the wall. In the last apartment, I had kind of wallpapered it to the wall with starch, but here we hung it with thumbtacks. Underneath is the IKEA bookshelf I bought last spring with it’s rainbow of books on the bottom. Eventually, the art supplies and cat stuff (we feed the cats here where Bogart can’t reach) will be housed in pretty bins or baskets, I can’t quite decide how I want it to look or how I want to organize it. Our original idea for this nook was to put an easel or small drafting table for creating. Maybe we still will, but neither of us has been terribly creative and the smell of cat food doesn’t help.

I have tons more to share, but it will have to wait for another post, but for now…

Thanks for listening,

citygirl

Tags: blog upgrades, hallway, IKEA, links, work in progress