Betty White to the Rescue!

Ok, not the real Betty White- I should explain.  Our neighbor "collects" cats.  She feeds them and houses a few, so there are many cats running around our neighborhood.  One of which has stood out to us (mostly because it loves to sleep in our driveway).  Everything about this cat is crooked, she even walks a little crooked and looks like she is about 90 in cat years.  I have taken to calling her Betty White, she is a sassy old lady cat.
We were awakened one night by Toby, who was barking like crazy at something outside.  Turns out Betty White was in our trash can, digging around and making a HUGE mess all over the street at about 3:30 in the morning.  We go out to get everything cleaned up, and think that we have cleaned up all our trash.  Until the next day, when a neighbor brings over a check that has been mistakenly thrown away and brought out of the trash can by Betty White!
Michael and I have been sneaking her treats whenever we see her, I think she may be hanging outside our house for awhile and we are more than happy to have her!

I finally found my camera, so I can post a few pics!  I'm hoping to be posting some before and after pictures next week.  Michael has been working like crazy to get our yard functional- and the dogs are loving it!

Baily and Charlie are really enjoying the yard, as you can see!  See how tall the weeds are behind Baily?  They were that tall ALL over the yard, front and back!  It looks so much better now :)  There were also a few trees and things that we took out, the yard looks SO much bigger!

Baily LOVES to sunbathe!

Bees are pollentating the orange tree!  I'm hoping for some fruit this summer!

I also (finally) ordered some curtains from overstock.com, we really need them!  I got a great deal and cash back from ebates.com, excited to put them up next weekend.

Where the Wild Things Were

We finally got around to "trimming" our backyard.  In all honesty, our yard needed more than just a trim- it looked like it could double as a set for "Where the Wild Things Are" with a few Dr Seuss trees mixed in to make it more interesting.  Chopping things down was very theraputic and educational- I learned that we have 3 ficus trees and not 2 like I originally thought!
The orange tree is flourishing with all the sunlight it is getting now, hopefully we will be getting a nice crop of oranges this year!   I must admit, when we were chopping down trees I half expected a Lorax to jump out at us.  It is looking better and we are moved in with internet (yay!) so updates will finally be more frequent!
I will be posting pictures as soon as we can find the USB cable for the camera.  It has to be in one of our boxes...

Projects!

The house did finally close (YAY!) and we have been working like crazy to get it ready for us to move in!  There has been many coats of primer put on the walls, just so we can start actually painting the walls!  The man who lived there before us was a heavy smoker, and we finally have painted over the tobacco stains on the walls. 
We also took down the wallpaper in the bathroom (which was the worst project so far, I swear to never put up wallpaper of any kind!) and the bathroom looks SO much bigger and cleaner.  In fact, the whole house looks much cleaner and smells a lot better!
The next big project will be refinishing the hardwood floors, which will be happening on the 15th- very exciting!
I will be taking pictures this weekend of our progress, I think we will be itching to move in after this weekend!

filled the tank with gas tonight for the first time in the new ‘hood. Since the crystal of the pump screen was broken, I headed inside to pay. I passed a woman wearing an aging, white Toyota Corolla. She stopped me and asked, “Hey baby, can you spare some change?” I responded, “I don’t know if I have anything”. She chuckled, “yeah right!” (Didn’t I realize that she was eyeing my PHAT ride, the new company Jeep?) I asked her if she planned to use it for gas, to which she responded, “yeah right, survival!” Five dollars later, I walked away, realizing by the load of junk in the car that she was probably living out of it. How thankful I am for my friends, family and home!




Shannon and I stopped at the house this evening to find the plumber working by artificial light. The plumbing update is almost complete. I guess we can flush freely for a number of years to come and we have the designer toilet seat to prove it! The electrical update is nearly done, the roof will get torn off tomorrow and we will soon have a means of heat that really works! Fumigation occurs on the 19th. We are very excited as moving day draws closer. Then, the real fun will begin! Now, if we can only rent the condo….

Our awesome bathroom in the new house!

-Michael

Painting, painting and more painting!

The condo is almost all painted, thanks mostly to Michael.  He is a rockstar painter! I wish we had painted the condo a long time ago, the tan walls and white ceiling make everything look so much warmer.  Hopefully this will help us rent out the condo super quickly to great tenants! 

The pumbers started digging up the front yard at the new house today, hopefully all the pumbing work will go easily and on schedule :)  Our awesome real estate agent stopped by to make sure everything was going as planned and sent us a picture of the work that was being done. 

Almost all of the upstairs is painted!

Toby Won!

Michael has been painting like a fiend so we can (hopefully) get our condo rented out in a timely manner. Up until this evening, the dogs had been doing a great job of keeping their paws out of the paint. Toby won as first dog to dunk his entire paw into a paint tray and then walk around the bedroom that was being painted.
Thank goodness for Folex, it can get ANY stain out! We are almost all packed up here and ready to move, the house should close the end of January- maybe earlier if all the stars align.
We are heading down to the new house tomorrow to see how the pumbing project is coming along! Just one project on a list of many :)

How could such an innocent dog create such a big mess?