the blank wall is slowly eating my soul

Jparks and I have owned our house for over a year now and the living rooms walls are still bare. Now that I'm spending hours upon hours every day staring at these walls, I'm starting to think maybe it's time to do something to them. But what? The previous owners had a picture split over three canvasses hung and that worked well. But the previous owners are friends of ours and it's already stalker-ish enough that we now own their house, I think decorating it similar to how they had it would be a overkill. If we decorated like them, then all that's left is for jparks and I to get pregnant because they just had a baby. Oh crap, wait.

Here's a picture of the wall in the living room. The room has high ceilings and the wall goes on forever. There are two speakers hanging on it (which I don't think work right now) so whatever I hang will need to be centered between them though not as high. The wall isn't white, it's a dark cream color and the other walls are various shades of brown.



I was thinking of doing a collage wall, but have no idea how to get started on it. And now I'm thinking that all the holes that a wall of pictures would leave will be a real pain if we ever decide that we're tired of it. But I'm also afraid that one large picture will be too visually heavy for that spot because it would have to be tall as well as wide.

Tips for how to do the collage wall so that it looks intentional and not too ADD? Or should I skip the collage wall because it's more work than it's worth? If I'm skipping it, what the hell should I do? Should I just hire an interior designer? And if so, how do I find one that doesn't specialize in tacky?

Also, we are over that dark couch on that wall. It's too small and a larger one would be better for many reasons. But the one jparks wants is stupid expensive and won't fit through our front door and the one I want is unknown to me because I'm too scared to go couch shopping. Dude, couches are not cheap and spending money right now gives me hives. (let's ignore the fact that I just mentioned hiring an interior designer which costs money)

So, what do you suggest?

(And now that I'm looking at this, I see that my living room is void of color. Crap, I want to paint again)

festering

This might come as a surprise, but I am not a chipper person by nature. I can fake it when I need to, like at work meetings or family events so I don't scare my relatives, but my general temperament is kind of pissy. Not to point fingers, but I blame my grandfather on my father's side for this. He was a piss and vinegar old man, but in a nice way, which is also a pretty accurate description of me. While most would say I run closer to sarcastic than cranky old man, I will be the first to correct them by admitting the sarcasm is just my way of softening the crankiness. And besides if I were to go full cranky old man at the age of 29, what will I have to look forward to when I'm 80? I mean other than pooping in a diaper because woohoo! nothing says good times like crapping yourself.

My pissiness was something I was always able to control and dial back as needed, but lately I have been mad at the world and I can't make it stop. I'll see something in my google reader and I won't even be able to finish reading the post because OMG, MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE FROM ANGER. Or Twitter, I probably shouldn't even start about Twitter. I've had to remove certain twitter-ers from being sent to my phone because I am certain if I didn't, I would throw my phone down the garbage disposal. (Of course I didn't remove you. And your blog never makes me angry. I love you, you are awesome)

I don't want to be all "ha, one more crappy thing about pregnancy!" but honestly this is one more crappy thing I wasn't expecting. I can feel that my hormones are all over the damn placel and yet I can't take the reigns and control them. One minute I'm fine and the next I'm crying, complete with big, air sucking sobs. And then I'm immediately fiery mad and poor jparks is the one crying because holy crap who is this hellbeast that claims to be his wife?

Here's a list of things that I've gotten incredibly mad about lately:

Douche face Emeril Lagasse being the guest judge on Top Chef's semi finale

jparks "watching" a tv show with me while playing on the computer and then asking a question about what's going on every five seconds (bonus anger if he asks the same question multiple times)

The Home Owner's Association for our neighborhood. Seriously people, I will go to your house and break things if you don't come out here and fix the leak in my garage

People that want to buy my furniture on craigslist and then never reply when I contact them about arranging pick up

When jparks says "I'm going to tweak your hooters" while we're debating something important. Seriously? Tweak my hooters? I will kill you and everyone would understand once I tell them what you've said. In fact, I think people will crown me a saint for not killing you sooner.

The fact that I can't order a king cake until March. And that it's going to cost me $45, when I would never have paid more than $10 for one in NOLA

And don't even get me started on Mardi Gras. I'm unemployed, I don't have to ask for time off of work. I should be at Mardi Gras this year.

Anything else that happens to me, near me, or around me. The rain? It pisses me off. The netflix site going down for an hour yesterday? ANGER. The damn kids that won't stay off my lawn? I shake my cane at them.

I am truly a ball of sunshine.

snobbery at its best

This weekend jparks and I were in Austin for his best friend's Valentine's Day wedding. At first I wasn't really excited about a Valentine's Wedding (not that we do anything special for VDay) but then I realized that we would have a night of dinner and dancing and we wouldn't have to plan for it at all. That's a winning situation for two people that usually stay home to avoid the crowds on the 14th. In the future I plan on crashing other VDay weddings.

While the wedding was lovely, I do have one major complaint about this trip. In an effort to save money jparks and I booked the hotel room through hotwire. You know, hotwire where you don't learn your hotel room until you complete the booking process. Hotwire, where the star ratings are wrong. Hotwire, who wants you to die in your hotel room, so you can't complain about the crappy hotel they stuck you with.

Hotwire booked us at the La Quinta Inn off MoPac. Please keep in mind that I am a bit of a hotel snob, but I wasn't always. I can lower my standards in certain situations and this was one time when I was really trying to be open minded about the La Quinta Inn, mostly because no refunds were given for cancellations.

Thursday night was our first night at the La Quinta and I had to check in alone because jparks was off getting shitfaced at the bachelor party. I checked into my room and was happily settling in to watch 30 Rock, when I noticed that one of the two doors leading out looked like it had been kicked in. This particular door supposedly faced a courtyard, but since I was in the last room in the wing the door actually faced the parking lot. The top lock, which was one of these, was totally broken. The part that attaches to the door frame was missing, as well as a chunk of the frame. How in the hell much brute force does it take to break one of those locks? Seeing as I was alone until jparks drunkenly stumbled in, I figured it was not the best idea to push my luck and find out.

I asked the front desk to move me, and they happily did. I was settling into my new room when I walked into the bathroom to find a tub that looked scarier than most gym showers. The bottom of it was gray and gross and I could feel my toes rotting off just from looking at it. At this point what were my options? Go complain again? Move to another freaking room only to find out that the toilet was home to ass biting piranhas? Or that the sink only dispensed flesh melting acid? I decided to suck it up and deal with the tub. But not before letting slynnro and whitney know that should they never hear from me again please come claim my body at the lovely La Quinta Inn.

Did I mention that the room only had two double beds and that jparks was forced to not sleep with me? Because seriously, you can't go from sharing a king sized bed with a person to sharing a double bed. Life does not work like that. Or that out of boredom I started looking up reviews of the hotel and found some gems that included "Hotel was nice until police started knocking on doors in the middle of the night. Never found out what was going on." Or "Four cars were vandalized in the parking lot. Hotel took no responsibility for this."

When all was said and done I did survive the weekend (obviously). We put a towel down on the floor of the tub every day and stood on that when we showered. I'm sure housekeeping loved us, but whatever. And to make up for the crappy room, I got jparks to upgrade us to first class for the flight home. Which was the best and the worst idea ever. First class is seriously awesome. So awesome I will never be able to fly coach again without a lot of whining about how I should be in first class. Where they hand out real silverware and hot towels. And your drinks come in real glasses. And the stewardess even knows your name and calls you Ms. Parks. Holy crap, first class is the land of milk and honey.

let my dreams be mellow tonight

Jparks left for Austin yesterday (yes he's there longer than I am, but for the days when we are both there, he packed more clothes) and that means that I'm living the bachelorette life until Thursday when I depart for Austin too. I don't know what that means for other people, but for me it's watching the crappiest tv shows I tivo without anyone complaining about how bad they are.

Last night I was in the middle of my crappy tv marathon when I passed out on the couch. And, proving that I need jparks more than I admit, that's where I stayed all night because no one was here to force me to move upstairs. To the comfortable bed where I wouldn't wake up confused and in pain. To take off the many layers of clothing I was wearing. And wash my face and brush my teeth.

I did wake up a few times during the night and was plagued with extremely weird dreams. I woke up once while The Secret Life was playing and I worked into my dream that I was helping pregnant teenagers by adopting all their babies. And then word got out at the local high school that I was helping out the preggos with the babies while they finished school and I ended up with 50 babies to care for. I'm fairly certain I woke up in a cold sweat. And cursing all those teens for being whores.

When I woke up that time a Girls Gone Wild infomercial was on and that became my main dream focus. I was back in college and creepy Joe Francis was in a bunch of my classes harassing all the girls to go wild. Also, I have never seen a full 30 minute Girls Gone Wild infomercial but it was weird and way beyond creepy. After watching it, even in my hazy sleep state, I can't imagine being a guy and ever wanting to order the dvds. I kind of figured the content was girls lifting their shirts with music playing, but apparently they leave in the guy asking the girls to remove their shirts and complimenting their boobs. Creepy.

The last time I woke up an infomercial about buying homes for less than $300 because they are bank repos was on. If you're wondering why I didn't turn the tv off I honestly don't have a good answer. The remote was right there, I have functioning thumbs for hitting buttons, and I probably would have slept a bit better if someone wasn't yelling at me about all the missed housing opportunities that are just passing me by. (You too could be like Bill here and own A WHOLE STREET!)

Tonight I'm going to go to bed early, like right now, before I hit the wall where walking up the stairs is beyond too much work. Although I still have more episodes of The Secret Life to watch and they are on the tivo downstairs. Decisions, decisions.

Also, the last time I got this crappy of a night of sleep was a week ago when jparks woke me up every half hour by yelling "OATMEAL CREME PIE!" in his sleep.

Unrelated, you might want to ignore anything I post here for the next 6 months or so. I've got a raging case of pregnancy brain going on and I can't remember anything to save my life. Which means that I'll probably start posts and not have any clue where I was headed by the time I reach the halfway point. Not that I'm saying that happened today or anything. No, today I was totally on track the whole time.

I love jparks despite the fact...

that he's not a Beatles fan (although he did not complain once when Sir Paul played on the Grammy's tonight. I think that's called personal growth.)

that he has an opinion about what every person at the Grammy's is wearing. A strong opinion.

that he's bringing more clothes to Austin than I am.

that he forbid me from going to see our friend's new baby while he's out of town because "I'm the one with baby fever! You don't even like babies!"

that he has to google every person that wins a Grammy because he's never heard of them. cough coughsomeone is getting old and unhipcough cough

except for Miley Cyrus, who he knew right away.

because jparks is nothing if not a 12 year old girl

excitement all around

People, seriously there is so much stuff going on that I need to tell you about. Like the fact that I took a nap on Monday. Or that I cleaned house and found an extra wide bull penis and Lily is in heaven thanks to it. And let's not forget that my new copy of Lucky magazine arrived so now I can browse through it and dream of clothes that won't fit me and that I can't afford.

Do you guys see what I did there? I lied about exciting things in my life because there is nothing really going on. I am so witty and funny. I totally tricked you! Don't you feel like a fool now!

God, I am lame.

Unrelated to anything, the first clothing for the baby that I've bought has arrived. We still don't know if the sea monkey will end up being a boy or a girl, but either way it'll be rocking the Jolly Roger flag on its onesie.