Lint Pants

The other day I ventured to the store to buy another pair of black pants.  After purging my closets I realized that black, gray, and brown are my primary colors, and since I only had one pair of black pants, and one pair of brown pants, I would need two more pairs of pants in order to cover my 4-day work week without wearing the same pair twice in a week... any longer.

Off to the big box store I went.  I pretty much shop like this:

1.) Go to the same place I got stuff before
2.) Grab the size I need
3.) Run to the checkout lane

I also needed underwear, but that's a separate rant, but as usual, I went, I grabbed the pants (1 black, 1 brown) and after the underwear fiasco, ran to the checkout counter, paid and fled the store.

New pants go into the wash, hung up, and now wait for Monday, at which time I grab the black pants, put them on along with a new sweater that I got a while back and head to work.

It was the moment I got out of the car at work that I realized that the pants were different than the ones I had bought before.  The original pair seemed quite fur and lint proof (which is why I bought them).  The new ones, on the other hand, appeared to be created from the same material used on those fancy reusable lint brushes.

Exhibit A: Fancy Lint Brush

Additionally, the new long sweater that I was wearing appeared to be knitted using lint from the dryer, and it had lovingly deposited half of a pound of lint on my pants... along with a huge tuft of dog fur I hadn't noticed that probably came from dragging the pant leg on the floor while getting dressed.

Go into work and grab the handy lint roller and begin rolling the lint off, except it seemed that the moment I cleared a swathe of pant, the sweater would deposit even more in its wake.

Gave up.

Then my client called and asked if I could come over and have a meeting.

Um... sure.

By the time I got to the client office, I was literally covered in more debris, not only from the sweater, but I'm sure from the shuttle bus seat, random things floating in the breeze, and whatever I happened to walk near enough.  It was as if the pants had their own gravitational force to suck objects onto them.

By the time I got to my meeting...

Thankfully my clients know I'm a mess and expect things like this.

The Squirrels

I hate squirrels.

Rats with fluffy tails.

They raid bird feeders, and they chew things... like our roof.... to get in... to build nests and pee and poop in our attic.

I hate squirrels.

Apparently squirrels chewing into our attic is not a rare event.  Doing google searches on how to get rid of them came up with a zillion "How To" articles, and millions of other people complaining about squirrels in their attics.

While misery does love company, apparently the company doesn't want to help you out by forking out the dough needed to get rid of the horrible things.  It's not cheap and it's not covered by insurance... of course.

So a while back we noticed that we had a hole in our soffit.  WTF?

We paid a roofer to come out and fix the hole in the soffit (cha ching $450).

A corner of our roof was coming up, and suspected it may be the squirrel.

We hammered the corner of the roof back on and bought some spray that was supposed to repel squirrels. A week later we noticed that something had peeled back the corner of our roof and was chewing up the wood!  Holy crap!  We kept watch and saw this going on:

A week later I heard a strange knocking noise in the kitchen, walked outside and there was a squirrel, chewing on the roof and peeling it back again.

UGH!  So we got some estimates, and found a wildlife removal service that we felt knew what the problem was, and what the solution was, and could fix this crap.

Step 1:  He put out traps (and so did we, because at this point we wanted to remove as many squirrels as possible.

They responded like this:

Step 2: Cut down all of the branches that may lead a path to our roof.  We had some decorative trees out front, and our neighbor's tree that had branches close to the house, so I trimmed those.

The squirrel continued to leap onto our roof from the neighbor's tree.  I trimmed some more.  Now the squirrel had to fling itself onto the roof.  I know because I'd be sitting in the living room watching tv and hear a huge BOOM as it flung itself onto the roof.

We hoped the stupid thing would bash its brains out flinging itself onto the roof.  I trimmed more branches and really made it mad.  Now it had to climb onto our deck to get to the roof, which it did WHILE WE WERE STANDING ON THE DECK and glared at us the whole time.  It also wasn't pleased that we attacked it with Super Soaker squirt guns, threw things at it, and generally made its life so miserable that it would sit in a tree and bitch at us until we went inside.

After a few days with only catching squirrels in the yard (which we drove to a nice park and released because we aren't heartless bastards), we noticed that it wasn't climbing into the corner hole any more.

We totally thought we had caught and released the squirrel until... I saw it at the peak of the roof and it disappeared somewhere near the chimney.

Yep, the little bitch got tired of us and went and chewed another hole into our attic.

We upped the ante and bought some gourmet squirrel food to bait the traps with.  The Wildlife guy caught the 2 that had been terrorizing the roof area, and we caught 7 in the yard and one on the deck.

At one point, chimney squirrel was so mad about its nest being blocked with an extractor (a device they put on a hole that will let them out, but they can't get back in) that it ripped it out of the roof and threw it to the ground.  It got caught the next day and removed.

Once all of the squirrels had been removed, the Wildlife guy came back and began securing the seams of the roof and areas where the squirrels were getting in with heavy duty wiring and metal flashing, spraying the roof and paths with some pheromone spray to hide their trail so other squirrels wouldn't be tempted by the path to the roof, then inspected the attic to make sure they were all out, and setting off bombs to kill any pests and sanitize any mess up there.

$1,400.  CHA CHING!!!!

So, we keep an eye out for more intruders, have some traps to set out in case they come back, plus we have a 1-year guarantee where they'll come back out and get rid of them again if they get into the attic.

Overall, we feel pretty secure, if not somewhat poorer.

Just know this:  squirrels are devious, vindictive assholes and will cause all sorts of damage, stink, chew your wires, and drive you insane, so hire a guy that knows all about them, gets rid of them, makes sure they're gone, makes sure they can't get back in, secures your area, treats the crap they leave, and has a warranty.

We can't thank TruTech Wildlife Services enough, and especially Jason, who made us laugh even when we wanted to scream.

July 2016 Shenanigans

June 2016 Shenanigans

May 2016 Shenanigans

Watering

This is how our neighbor is watering her flowers.

I'm pretty sure there's a better way

Grocery Shopping

So this happened at the grocery store yesterday.

Apparently in the State of Maryland the proper protocol is to completely avoid the old woman that slipped on something wet in aisle 8 and face planted... including all of the cashiers.

She said she was fine.  I walked her up to a manager.

Front Load Washers are Satan

While you may feel that the title is a bit strong, I can assure you that no matter how much you "love" your front load washer, you truly hate it deep in your soul, and you just "love" it because you are stuck with it.

Here is why front load washers are satan.

1.) You have to clean it.

I'm not talking about just throwing one of those little, expensive, compressed circles of cleaning pucks into it and walking away.  No, you have to do that all the time, but you also have to wash that huge rubber gasket that keeps all the water from flooding your laundry room.

If that isn't bad enough, you are supposed to wipe and dry that same stupid rubber gasket after you finish using it.  Every. time. you. use. it.  Don't forget the back of the gasket, and the inner gunky part of the gasket, because if you don't, within seconds of walking away from the washer, it starts cultivating toxic and deadly mold.

Washing your clothes is bad enough (folding and putting them away is even worse) but who has time to do all of that cleaning and wiping and sopping up gunk after you do all of that crappy laundry?

Oh, did I mention you have to leave the door open?  Oh yeah, because no matter how well you scrub and sop and dry that thing, it's still wet and if you keep the door closed, it will grow mold of horrific proportions.

2.) Once those little mold dots start appearing on the gasket, the only way to get rid of them is to replace the gasket.

So, we forget ONCE to wipe and scrub and clean the stupid rubber gasket and you get some icky mold spots on the gasket.  Game over, you're done, throw up your hands and quit because they won't come off.  I don't care what horrible toxins you use, the gasket is screwed.  Oh sure, you can buy a gasket and watch some youtube videos and do it yourself, but who wants to do that?  Laundry and now gasket replacement?  Frankly it's easier to beat your clothes in a toxic stream than deal with all of this crap.

4.) The filter is hidden

Who doesn't forget kleenex, change, dog biscuits, and all manner of crap in your pockets.  I can hear you whining "you just have to check the pockets".  OFFS, on top of everything else you expect me to search every nook and cranny on every load??  That's what filters are for, except if you have a front loader where they had the "filter" behind a panel at the bottom that you have to remove three screws, put a basin under it to drain out the stink water that sits in there, then unscrew a thing and dig out nasty crap that is hiding in there and causing your washer to blink a cryptic F-21 message and refuse to drain.

When front loaders encounter the smallest of problems, they throw up their hands, give up and flash a stupid F number.  Some of them aren't even in the handy troubleshooting book.  Typically its something stuck in the "filter".

5.) They Walk.

Sure, all washers walk, but since you have a very top heavy front load washer on a spindly pedestal, when it gets even a tiny bit uneven during the spin cycle you may as well throw your fitbit on it and get some miles out of it.  The solution to that: use the handy storage pedestal to full cans of paint or bricks.  The solution to that would be not to use a pedestals, but then you have to lay on the floor to put in and take out the clothes.

6.) Does it clean?

Meh, it does ok.  Being all "green" and High Efficient (which stands for: uses only a tiny bit of water, so now you have a tiny bit of water sloshing around that is dirtier than a lot of water), you only use a teeny tiny bit of detergent.  Of course you are saying "oh, but that's good because it save you a lot of money".  Yes, you are right, but until you figure out that the more detergent you use, the more your clothes reek, and then you start using only a dropper full of detergent and fabric softener.

But we're back to all of the other complaints, and is it worth having a washer that is more needy that your drunk friend who just broke up with her 15th boyfriend in 3 months?

NOOOOO

Which is why this morning when my front loader died, I went out and bought a top loader this morning.

Good riddance.

Dinner Swim

Kitchen Hint - Sculpture

Why spend large amounts of cash (that you can use on purses and shoes) on those fancy shmancy sculptures and vases with random sticks and weeds in them when you can use common household items to create that perfect artsy display.

Use contrasting colors and shapes to create that "one-of-a-kind" masterpiece, great for parties, and social gatherings.

Helpful Tip - Folding a Fitted Sheet

Hello everyone, it's time for another helpful tip!

You've probably seen all of the videos where smarmy people demonstrate how to fold a fitted sheet.

I'm not going to bore you with a video, mainly because my husband is currently napping and won't hold my cell phone while I fold a fitted sheet, so I'll just describe the process to you in these minor steps.

Anyone can do this, don't let those pompous know-it-alls in the videos make you feel little or inadequate... screw them, who do they think they are anyway!!!

Step 1: Pull the fitted sheet from the dryer.  Typically it is all bunched up, wrapped among itself in a ball, and probably still wet in the middle.

That's it!  Shove it in a drawer!

Use your appliances as they were made to work... and folding a fitted sheet is one of their jobs, not yours.

Now go have a glass of wine, job well done!

My Helpful Tips

One of the things I like about Feedly is that if you run out of blogs you follow, they have suggestions with all sorts of topics.

I made the mistake of hitting some of the "design" and "fashion" blogs and was astounded... ASTOUNDED at the number of followers some of these blogs have, that appear to be manned by either robots, or pretentious people who just found out that you can hang a towel rack on a door to save space and have taken black and white snooty pictures of their handy work.

So, to get more followers, I'm going to start providing "tips" to every day people.  You know, people like you and me who don't have the time, PTO, money, or willpower to jet off to fabulous foreign countries while carrying your Prada bag and wearing designer clothes.

I would link to some of these pompous blogs if it wasn't for the fear of being sued because then I'll never get to jet off to the Turks and Caicos with my Target skinny jeans and thrift store t-shirt.  Full disclosure: I do haul around a Longchamp Le Pliage but only because I can cram everything I own into it, including a donut and sandwich, some tupperware containers, probably a crock pot, and cleanup is a breeze.

So, after a whirlwind shopping trip, you'll be more interested in checking out your swag than taking out the trash, so utilizing your chest freezer as your temporary (or longer) storage facility for all of those Prime boxes is a no-brainer.

The trash guy only comes once a week, so there's no hurry getting that stuff out to the curb, besides, you may be able to repurpose those boxes for a fantastic... place to shove more crap you find to throw away but can't be bothered by walking downstairs and tossing it into the trash can... I mean recycling can, because EARTH and all that.

Do you have a pesky drain pipe and corrugated plastic drain pipe thing that takes the water away from your foundation?  I know these have real names, but I can't be bothered to Google them at the moment.

Don't you hate when that plastic pipe thing falls off the gutter whatever and water goes everywhere?  Yep, me too.  I'm pretty sure you can secure them both together with something, but why do that when you can take this fabulous deck planter and use it as a support!

Using the deck planter gives you a stunning, matched support structure that keeps that pipe up there and saves you from using your steam cleaner to suck up all the water that leaks into your foundation (or so I've heard).  It was almost as if it was created just to do that!

That's it for today!  Next time I'll show you how you can put screen up using Gorilla tape and how to paint your decaying mailbox pole!

Innocent

Slipper Trap

Eyeglass Cleaner

Dog Pile

Yoga

Chapstick

More Poop Bag Fail

Poop Bag Fail