Terra Cotta's Gotta Go from Walnut Grove

When I was looking at houses, I passed over the one I bought a couple dozen times because I hated the shutters.  I know what that anonymous eponymous they say about getting hung up on paint colors that can be changed.  But this paint color gave the house such a repugnant drab watery look that I couldn't get over it.  These terra cotta shutters destroyed the whole house for me - so much so that it took a little convincing from my real estate agent to include it on the caravan of listings we were scheduled to see in the neighborhood.  Once I saw the inside and - let's face it - the towering trees in the backyard, I was sold.  Suddenly the odious repulsive shutters seemed like a small obstacle standing between me and home sweet home.  (We need not return to the list of much larger obstacles that have presented themselves since then.)  But back to the vile shutters that looked like this:

There's something so...old about those boring brick-colored shutters that do absolutely nothing for the brick color of the house.  It all melted together in one awful conglomeration of blah.  And I may be many things, but blah is not one of them.  As such, I decided to leave Terra Cotta Town for the olive-toned territory of Walnut Grove.  Behold the great greenness:

It's like a new house.  Like I left behind moth balls and knitting nights for swinging 21st century living.  Or something like that.  Also, I clearly need to spend some time admiring my new shutters while raking. *Ahem*  And while I was at it, I had the deck stained to better match the house, too.

Perhaps part of the moving problem had to do with the atrocious exterior - the dated ill-chosen shutters that made me feel like I might be learning macrame and hanging velvet paint-by-numbers inside while wearing orthopedic shoes and sporting shapeless day dresses.  But now that we're in Walnut Grove, I think that I have found a befitting haven for my stilettos, pumps and flats that is retro chic instead of retro shack.

Adventure Monkey: Tallulah Gorge

Appetite for Destruction

In the 27 years we have lived in this house, a lot of things about it have changed.  The county renumbered our street, taking our original 255 house number.  The carpet in the downstairs changed twice before getting the hardwood treatment.  Wallpaper stuck up and then stripped down off walls now layered with paints of many colors.  But aside from the avocado green and Gulden's mustard yellow fixtures in the bathrooms, the kitchen is probably the most constant.

The cabinet doors, once a depressingly dark wood, received a whitewash some time in the 90s.  But other than that, the white freckled formica counters and the pantry with the squeaky door and even the totally retro shelf paper have stood the test of time.  That is until a leaky sink led to rotted cabinets and the need for some serious kitchen aid.

Yesterday morning, I let a guy in who demolished those 30-year-old cabinets, stripped out the pantry with its squeaky door and pulverized those plastic-topped counters.  And now, we find ourselves inhabiting a house in which the following are true:

- The stove is in the garage.  The kitchen table is in my bedroom.
- When Dad put the utensil drawer under the table, he said to Mom, "Be careful when you pull out that drawer that you don't tear the carpet."
- I wash dishes in the bathroom.  I put them away in my bedroom.  My sister's bedroom.  And the dining room floor.
- The microwave is in my parents' room.  So is the coffeemaker.
- The poor cats are so distressed.  Last night I found one of them sitting in the bald patch left behind by the pantry.  He's since taken to sleeping in a cardboard box at the foot of my parents' bed.
- Half the contents of our refrigerator are at my house.  The essentials - creamer, for example - are in the tiny microfridge I had in college that now resides in our bonus room upstairs.
- Likewise, my mother carefully located the box of Splenda like she was transporting the Ark of the Covenant.
- You may be asked, "Do you know where the salt is?"  And the answer may be, "In Ashley's room."
- Yesterday morning, I was putting on makeup during the demolition, as the various lights in the room blinked on and off while they worked with the circuit box.
- Paper plates are dispensable.  And therefore, indispensable.
- We will not be hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year.

Just as I was about to post this, I knocked over my water glass.  I headed toward the kitchen to get a towel.  And of course, all I found was rubble.  And so it goes.

Introducing the New Guy in My Life

A few weeks ago, I was on a whirlwind tour of five states in five weeks.  I went from D.C. to the hills of northwest Georgia.  Then west to Texas, north to Indiana and east to North Carolina.  Along the way, I acquired a new companion.  A lone Barrel of Monkeys monkey got mixed up at a bar with a bunch of Jenga pieces.  Who could leave such a poor bereft creature behind?  Clearly, he'd broken free from the confines of his barrel, consorted with a bunch of wooden blocks of questionable stability and made his way into my life.  And so following that night at a Dallas pub (in which the rickety Jenga blocks failed me several times), Adventure Monkey joined my travels.

As noted before, I am not a particularly fine traveler.  Adventurer in heart but trapped in a definitively homebody, I don't even have my passport.  But perhaps, with the help of a swinging monkey man, I can find my way to a few more adventures in life. 

Adventure Monkey is Born

Adventure Monkey takes on the Texas State Fair

Adventure Monkey in Kokomo, Indiana, City of Firsts

Adventure Monkey explores the cornfields of the Hoosier State

Rocking goat at the Valle Crucis Fair

With a little help from Dad, Adventure Monkey takes in the Valle Crucis view

Mama Harp joins in the Adventure Monkey game.