Dude.

If you're like me, your husband bought Portal 2 on the day it came out (today) and has been hogging it and the tv and therefore the entire living room all day.  If you've never played Portal, you should know it's a puzzle game, and I ask you what is the joy of a puzzle game if it is not solving the puzzles on your own?  Exactly.  So I can't watch him play, I can't hang out with him, I can't even be within earshot.  Until he's done.
And however long that will be is just too long.

So.

To kill my own time I'm sitting here sipping on some tea, realizing that I've officially stayed up later than I would have had I been playing my own game and I don't even know why.

Arts I Like

I don't have much to say at the moment.  But as matter of inspiration, I just updated my desktop background with an image I've loved long time from an artist I've loved long time.

Click for full-size.  Click this to see the artist, James Jean.

Happy saturday, folks.  We got a kitty, so I've been spending the morning pushing him off the keyboard.

A Point of Random Interest

Just realized I've done two paintings which are basically the same.  (For people who art more often than I, this may not be a matter of import, but...well, I art seldom these days.)

Guess I'm trying to tell myself something?

The Most Annoying Sound in the World

So, I decided to let you in on some of the fun we've been having.

Our fridge isn't broken in the sense that it's not keeping our food cold enough (which it is, barely), but in the sense that this is what it sounds like all day:

Oh Snap! I'm Back!

Well hello!

I was gone for a while.  If I lost any readers due to these weeks of inactivity, let me just say I don't blame you one bit.  In fact, as I scrambled within my alotted 30 minutes-per-weekday of internet time whilst our home computers were in boxes to get through all the daily posts of blogs I read, I had to cut back.  As in stop reading some of them.  Permanently.  And some of these were blogs I've been reading since the dawn of me reading blogs!  It's a little big of a big deal!  Okay so maybe more of a medium deal, unless you're talking to Tony, in which he would say "Blogs are stupid, hurr hurr hurr."

Anyway, where was I?  That's right, boxes.

People, we just moved into our new house.  And it's been a candy-filled boatride of adventure, LET ME TELL YOU.  Actually I don't want to tell you all about it, because a) it's probably boring for you and b) I'm sick of talking about it.  Suffice to say we bought what we thought was a house "in good condition" when actually it needs a new top and a bunch of new insides.  Right about now is when you start to wonder if maybe your sister deciding to go into Real Estate Law is in fact divine intervention?  (Hmmm!)  (Thanks Kari!!!!)

But that's enough of that.  I just realized I'm two paragraphs into this post and don't actually have any pictures of the new house ready to show to you.  Drat!  Here wait, lemme grab my phone. 

Calm down, I know it's exciting.  This is a picture of the chair in our living room in front of our window that does not have any covering of any kind on it, much like 90% of all the windows in the house.  (Sorry, neighbors!  Please don't mention that you've probably seen me naked next time you see me at church, k?) 

Like has been mentioned afore, much of our life is still in box form.  It seems the "settling in" process will be a protracted one.  As an example, I'm waiting to really start thinking about decorating because first we want to repaint everything because seriously you guys should see what color this place is painted.  I can only describe it as "bug throw-up."

The thing is, I miss blogging.  I know Tony probably thinks it's dumb, but the blog world makes me feel kinda connected and like I know people even though I'm shy and awkward in the real world, and there are some terribly hilarious people out there and ,you know, I like to laugh.  In other news, I like sunshine.

Give me a house already.

Rule #1:  When cute little girls look up at you with arms outstretched and a "comfort me" look on their face, pick them up and cuddle them.

Rule #2:  Always aim her away from your body in case she throws up on you.

Addendum to Rule #2:  If you fail to do this, go home from work early because you smell like puke.


(I'm blogging about this because I have nothing else to talk about.)

Unless you want to see some pictures of our Happy Anniversary sushi date?

Perhaps my New Year's resolution should have been to try and get Tony to smile in pictures.

Anyway; 1 year down, at least 5 more to go.

--------------------------------

P.S.  Suzy asked if I drew the header in my picture.  I did, in fact.  There's a link around here somewhere to my DeviantArt account if anyone's interested, though I don't claim to be amazing at the arts.

World's Worst Home Tour

DISCLAIMER:
So, as I was transferring these pictures from the camera to the computer, I thought to myself "Kayla...really?  Do you really want to do this?"  Because, you see, these are not pictures of the classy, inspiring, decorated home.  These are pictures of the home that has been almost completely neglected for about 2 weeks.  You see, I've had a bunch of weeknight classes for my job so I've been getting home late, and what with all this homebuying business (it's c-r-a-z-y!), our little house has been merely the place we come to at the end of the day to sleep in.  Laundry's barely gotten done (and certainly not put away), dishes forgotten, clutter ignored.

But maybe a little brazen honesty is a good thing?  I'll admit our house has never been what I wanted it to be, because a) it's a rental, and b) this has been a nutty year anyway.  All our furniture is mismatched, I haven't hung curtains anywhere, and we're still trying to figure out how we want everything anyway.  However, our place usually does look better than it does in these photos.  Alright, not much.  At least try and picture it cleaner, okay?

So here goes.  My mom would kill me if she saw this.

As you pull into our tiny cul-de-sac of duplexes and walk to our front door, this is what you see.

Ah, another dreary rainy day in Salt Lake City, Utah.  This next shot is just because I like my car so much.

The front door opens into our living room, so this setup is the first thing you see.

See what I mean about mismatched furniture?  Does this scream college dorm to anyone else?  Couch, entertainment center: thrifted.  Coffee table: free.  I guess this is what being a poor newlywed's all about.  Maya is wondering what the heck I'm doing.

Turning left, you see this:

Clutter, clutter, clutter.  That half wall which my pride and joy (piano) is sitting against is probably my favorite thing about this house, and I'm sad to leave it.  On the left wall is my computer desk, where I'm sitting right now.

You can barely see it, right?  I know.  Excuse the flash in the picture.  If you turn around from here, you see our little reading nook, encumbered by boxes and a gigantic teddy bear.

The chair we found on Craigslist for $25.  And I know you can't really see it in this picture, but it's not awful and it's friggin comfy.

Alright, let's move on to the kitchen.  Left-face and you see our very spacious, very 70s kitchen, complete with yellow laminate flooring and dark, dark, depressing cabinets.

It's bigger than this picture makes it look.  I had plans to soften it up with a nice big rug, but rugs are expensive, yo.  There's last night's penne pasta dinner still on the stove.  Stay classy, Wades!

This little movable counter thingy we got for free as an extra when we bought our kitchen table (Craigslist.)  That's where we put our garbage can.  You can see one of the many examples of our random poster collection: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, from the thrift store.  You can also see the bowl of cereal milk I accidentally dipped my hair in this morning.  Moving on.

This is the view from the kitchen back towards the living room, and our kitchen table which mostly doubles as a place-to-put-everything.

To the left is the washing machine (the bi-fold doors are open) and the sliding doors on the right house the water heater and such other necessities.  Here's another view back into the living room.

If you turn right from here, you enter a mini-hallway, and directly across from the kitchen is our bathroom.  I am so in love with our shower curtain.

I know this bathroom doesn't look like much, but guys, you will see the bathroom we are inheriting and then you'll think this one looks like a palace.

If you turn left in the mini-hallway, you come to our  bedroom.  This is the room we spend the least amount of time in, and thusly have spent the least amount of effort on.  Also, there's clothes on the floor.

Notice how Maya's bed on the floor is kindof almost as big as ours?  Yeah.

Our bed and dresser are a matching (!) set from Ikea.  Bringing them home and then putting them together just after we got married is a happy memory. 

This room is so bare it's painful.  Can you believe I didn't even make the bed before taking this picture?  Honesty, folks!  And more random wall posters.  (Not pictured: Star Wars poster in the hallway.)

Okay, and if you had turned right in the hall rather than left, you would have entered the craft/extra room.

(This picture was taken a while ago, hence the pretty green outside instead of cold, grey rain.)  But it still looks the same.  In fact, I've had the same half-finished painting on my easel for months.

And that's the whole house.  Here's the yard to round things out.

And in case you, like me, can't get past the sad, end-of-winter state of things, you can go back to this post of when we put in the chain link fence to remember what grass is supposed to look like.


Wow.  Was that too much real life for you?  It kind of was for me.  Now at least I have motivation to really put in the effort to making our new house polished and put together so I can prove to you we're not actually a bunch of slobs with no sense of interior design.  I have a bazillion ideas floating around in my head, and I guess bazillion is a real word because spell check didn't underline it.

We haven't closed on the new house yet, but it's pretty much a sure thing.  I'll photograph the whole house before we move in while it's still empty and untouched by us, and then I plan to keep you updated on all our changes.  We're very excited, and I at least am insanely intimidated.  Homeowners?  That's, like, what adults are called.