Lilah

Another exciting thing that happened shortly after Dayne and I moved into the house is that we got our third (and FINAL) cat. I know, I know. Three cats is too many. I agree. It's not like I was LOOKING for another cat, but it just happened.

I went to the bank for work and when I got back my coworker asked me to go check on the cat in her car. I said 'sure' and then realized that Ashley doesn't usually come to work with a cat in her car. Long story short, a trashy woman got evicted from her apartment and said 'if you're kicking me out, I'm kicking the cats out.' She then gave her two kittens the boot and drove off.

So here we had two dirty, homeless, hungry, pathetic, and ADORABLE kittens. All the homeless shelters were full (of course it wouldn't have mattered if they had plenty of room) and Ashley's boyfriend is allergic.

I called Dayne and knew exactly what he would say about a sweet, homeless, little kitty. 'Dang it, Maggie. The last thing we need is another cat. Bring it home.' Fortunately, a sweet maintenance man named Paul took the other kitten, which had a terrible habit of meowing constantly. Lilah's brother, Rocky, joined Paul and Paula's (his girlfriend, how cute is that?) three other strays, so he makes #4.

After a long drive, I arrived home covered in cat puke. Covered. She puked all over my lap and my arm and then hid in my purse. Note to self: Have cat carrier in trunk at all times. She got a bath and was locked in the guest room until the vet gave her a clean bill of health and she was able to meet Oliver and Kenzi.

*By the way, Rocky peed on Paul during their trip home which proves that no good deed goes unpunished*

Turns out 3 is the perfect number. We do live at 303 Keeney Street... Oliver and Lilah play all the time and do a great job entertaining themselves (and us). Even Kenzi loves having Lilah around because Oliver leaves her alone.

So we're done now. I have my Chicago shelter kitty *Kenzi*, my Indiana, bottle fed by my very own daddy kitty *Oliver*, and now our rescued Connecticut kitty *Lilah*. No more cats. Zip. Zero. None.

...Until the next one :)

Goodbye Flowers & Stripes

First things first, we had to get rid of the sponge painting throughout the house. Dayne loves dark colors so I let him make the final choice for the downstairs rooms. I did this for two reasons... One, I am a wonderful and generous fiancee. Two, if the paint colors looked awful, I wanted someone to blame.



Painting is such a long, awful, terrible, horrendous process that I knew if we didn't like it we would have to live with it for 3 to 5 years before we could convince ourselves to redo anything. That's a lot of pressure to put on one little paint chip! Fortunately, Dayne did a great job with the color choices, even though I was scared of the dark colors at first.

*For Aunt Shelley: Our living room is Valspar brand from Lowe's in 'Dark Toast'*


*Our bathroom is free of hand painted flowers and is now 'Fields of Green'*

The kitchen needs a lot more updating, but for now it will have to settle for a good cleaning, new knobs, a coat of paint, and a new refrigerator. I want a new stove so badly, but the darn thing works perfectly so I can't justify a replacement for a while.

*The kitchen is sporting 'Cliveden Henna Red' walls with black laminate counters and white laminate cabinets. Black plastic knobs were replaced by stainless steel that matches our new refrigerator*


I picked the color for our guest room and Dayne complains of how boring it is every time he walks by the door. Maybe it's a good thing he picked the other colors because I would have been very happy to have 'boring' colors in every room.

The color is called 'Oregon Coast' and I picked it because my very best friend is from Oregon and I can't wait for her to be our guest. I love the color, but I'd put money down that she'll say it's a blah color. It beats the neon yellow that was there before! Oh and I got that wooden trunk at the end of a bed by the dumpster at my old apartment. You can't beat the price!

303 Keeney Street

We first saw this house online after spending a month of Sundays visiting open houses in the area. It got our attention because it was one of the few we saw that wasn't built in the 1800's and full of asbestos and ghosts. It had everything on our wish list (spare bedroom, 2 baths, 2 car garage, NO oil heat) PLUS we could afford it, so we knew it was the one.

It was a looooong buying process, but we finally got the keys to our house on the Friday before Valentine's Day. We spent the whole weekend cleaning, moving, and painting but it was hands down the best Valentine's Day I've ever had.