grammardog

A few weeks ago, I bought some very ugly, dirty chairs from the Salvation Army with the intention of putting them in my small-ish kitchen. They were $12 for the pair, which, frankly, I felt to be quite steep. Look how ugly and filthy! Vinyl cushions! Ew. But they were nice and sturdy, and I liked the metal frame, so I took them home to fix them up.



This photo is pretty out of focus, but you can kind of see how dirty and rusty and gross these chairs were:



I went out looking for red upholstery fabric to look cute with my light green kitchen, but it was either impossible to find something decent, or ridiculously expensive. Luckily, I came across some adorable apple fabric that I fell in love with, and bought some of that. I also got some white glossy rust paint (holy CRAP, it took a lot of spray paint to get these chairs covered). A week with the swine flu later, and here are the repainted and recovered chairs!



The fabric close up:



Here, Bea Arthur faces the conundrum of how he will reach his food bowl while not having to stand up:



The piping around the cushions was a great challenge - I don't have a zipper or piping foot for my sewing machine, so I improvised by positioning my needle as close to the piping as I could, and pulling the piping under the foot at a 45 degree angle, which I'm sure wasn't great for my machine, but it did the trick, if not perfectly.

I'm so happy with the way these turned out! Now I just need to find/revamp a small table to put between them, and I will have a lovely spot to sit and have my tea. I'm looking forward to having seating in the kitchen, as I often have someone in there while I am cooking, or wish there was a place to sit down while I peel potatoes and such.

On our last day in England, Sally and I decided to take the train to Brighton for a little day trip. It was super-beautiful!



Two ladies loving life:





Tiny boy on a scooter, chasing a pigeon. Quaint!



I could have stayed here forever:



But I didn't.

I made these new pillow covers to suit my new blue-green living room. I love the way they turned out, even if they're a little loose:



Bea Arthur being absolutely ridiculous. I lose my mind when I turn around and he's just hanging out on the sofa like this:



A bunch of pretty ribbon I scored at the Sally Ann for 3.99... now what to do with it all?

It's snowing! And it's gorgeous. Probably in 30 minutes I'll have some different feelings about it, maybe when I attempt climbing the giant hill on my street. I have this ominous sense that this will be the winter I start wiping out a lot.

In other news, did I mention that I was able to serve my landlord with the papers about the hearing on Halloween night, after five attempts? His wife answered the door and called to her son to get him. Her son shouted from a far-off distance: "Is it a girl?" Haaaaaa. Yes, it is the girl of your NIGHTMARES. Anyway, the hearing is on Monday, so we'll see if he actually shows up. I have no idea what actually has to happen to make money come out of his wallet and go into my wallet, but I really need it to happen, so cross your fingers for me. I went to my old apartment yesterday, talked to the residents and got confirmation that they moved in at the beginning of September, so I should be able to win this thing, I think.

In more other news, Bea Arthur and I are celebrating two happy years together. Here he is last night after getting trapped in a plastic bag and racing around blindly trying to get it off. Eventually he gave up trying to escape and just chilled out in the bag.

Lesson: if there are things you want to see, you should just Google image search those things. For example:

"zombie michael jackson pumpkin"



"swimming pig"



"so many cupcakes"

As seen from robotropolis' place.

Oh, MAN. Some work friends and I collaborated tonight to make the most awesome costume. This is not a finished pic - imagine the torso painted a solid flesh colour, the pop bottle neck cut down to normal neck length, a necklace added, a dead corsage, and lots of blood at the neck:



It is going to look so great all bloodied up! She is a bit vertically challenged, so she can really pull this look off.

We used a hiking backpack and a mop handle, and a shitload of tape to frame the torso up. We made the torso by duct taping someone into an old shirt and then stuffing it full of newspapers. I am so pleased with it!

Bea Arthur was losing his mind tonight over a cat which sounded like it was on my balcony, so I went outside to investigate. Of course, Bea came running to do a little of his own investigating, and I slammed the door quickly from the balcony to prevent his escape. Only... it was the inside door. Which LOCKS from the outside, as it turns out. So I'm standing on my second floor balcony in a t-shirt and bare feet and a full bladder, shivering and begging Bea Arthur to quickly develop opposable thumbs and unlock the door, already. I'm trying to decide if it's worse to get frostbite or just start shouting ridiculously for help. Horrifying options, both.

I tried to slide the screens off the windows, but they were good and stuck. One of the windows was opened a crack, so I consoled myself with the fact that, if need be, I could always just punch a hole through one of the screens and sheepishly pay for it the next morning so I could reach in and grab the door handle. At the 20-minute mark, I decided to just go ahead and break the screen, only to find that it wouldn't break. I tried to slit it open with a clip I found on the balcony... no luck there, either. Now I'm freezing, and panicking, and laughing at the same time because it's going to be so fucking embarrassing to tell this story to someone. After a full half hour, a very kind lady drove into the parking lot across the way and I confessed my situation to her. She rushed off to ring my super, who broke into my house and let me back into inside.

It would have been a very long and chilly night out there.

In other news, my bird-whisperer Dad has successfully trained the neighbourhood bluejays to enter the house to collect peanuts. Here, a brazen little dude checks out the camera before grabbing this one at the back door and flying off to hide it for winter.

Zebra making me sad at the Regent's Park Zoo in London:



Are you kidding me, nature?



This is a shot from the Ripley's Museum in Piccadilly Circus that I like to call, "Black People Don't Like George Bush":



On a London street:

Would you just look at this owls fabric that pmthreads designed and screenprinted? It's so gorgeous, it made my mouth water!

Also: brantastic is the perfect photographer.

My sister-in-law's water broke this morning! I am going to become an aunt today! I can't use enough exclamation points about this!

(For anyone who may have missed it the first time, I would love it if you would take a photo today and donate it to this project.)

ETA: Ah, jeez. False alarm!

Sally, trying to be patient while waiting for her breakfast. She can get pretty crazy when she knows bacon's on the way.

I took some photos of Ryan and Melissa and their nursery the other day, about a half hour before I dropped my lens. I really like this one of them dicking around:











Mostly I am immune to the cuteness of baby things, but the teeny tiny shoes make my ovaries shoot eggs:



I wish I could really get the hang of photography, but without doing any work or research at all. I admit it; I'm just that lazy.

Sally creating a diversion, natch:



Ha ha... I LOVE that picture so much.

Pretty glass beads for sale at Camden Lock Market:



Friends 4-Ever:

It had to be done:



The perfect vacation nightstand: a sweater, some Diet Pepsi, and a Judy Blume book:



Shop window:

Finally arrived and jetlagged as hell. The interdepartmental envelope holding our travel details finally gets delivered to its destination. Can I do a mail run, or can I DO A MAIL RUN!



Well, technically, I guess this IS two separate beds, but I don't think they could have gotten away with this monkey business on I Love Lucy.

I'll be posting more London pics over time. Sorry.