Yours truly, Dr. Dolittle

I mentioned yesterday that our weekend ended up somewhat of a whirl. If we haven't spoken on the phone over the past couple of days or met in person, I guess I still owe you an explanation, especially since the whirl ..or whirls kept us from indulging our DIY habits.

Thursday night - I was already in bed curled up with a new book - I heard the husband come home from work. Now, that's nothing unusual. He works late, I'm more of a morning-type person, so we trade more quick hugs and good-night kisses on week nights. Now, coming home at night, the husband has to fend his way through the gaggle? flock? murder? pack of porch cats who are getting their hopes up for a late-night treat. Polly, the female adult cow-cat (she's white with big tiger-striped splotches a la cow print), is always very vocal about her need for a snack. This time, she was making quite a racket, so - curiousity piqued - I mosied downstairs to see what husband was doing that caused such a commotion.

Turns out it was NOT Polly making all that noise.

This loudest meowing EVER was coming from a tiny kitten or rather, a kitten-shaped creature that was just skin and bones. She dove head first into one of the food dishes, ravenous and desperate.

Big wusses that we are, we couldn't help but melt. I scooped her up; featherlight and not an ounce of fat, this kitten must have been without food for days.


For the past week we've been feeding her weaning milk for an extra dose of protein and vitamins, along with kitten soft food and crunchies, and she's slowly starting to plumb up. She's quarantined in our library, away from all the other members of our zoo, and spends her days for the most part like this:

Curled up in a worn sweater of mine and snuggled up against a warm water bottle. Awww - I know! She's adorable: kitten-fierce and a big snuggler, and she was mighty fortunate to have picked our porch. I don't know how long she'd have been able to hang in ...

On Friday (that's the day right after the kitty marched into our lives) we returned to our car from Little Man's Karate class to find a dog flattened to the ground right next to it.

You see where I'm going with this?

Nobody who was out on this block of our 'hood that night recognized him and so ... yes, we took him home. Truth be told, I wasn't planning on keeping him that night. I was hoping I could hook up with a neighbor or a member of our neighborhood's animal rescue since, you know, we have cats. No such luck although our neighborhood animal rescue SACARC came to my rescue and generously provided me with a crate and dog food.

Fergus, as we dubbed our temporary visitor, took well to the crate and our home in general. I'd grown up with a dog and missed having one, but Fergus showed me just how much I miss having a dog.

This young Labrador and Pit Mix is an absolute delight. I swear there is not one aggressive hair on this dog. Over the entire 4 days we spent with him I did not hear one growl, not when touching him while he was eating, not when he was playing, not when we accidentally tripped over him, not even when I reached into his snout to pull out a bone he'd found while on a walk through the neighborhood.

Fergus clearly loved snoozing right next to our feet on a corner of the shaggy rug.

He also enjoyed getting to meet the kitties. Cats had him happily excited unless the cat was Boots; then he was just terrified. She's one grumpy old cat, I'm telling you.

Right now Fergus is over at ACPS so he can be checked for a microchip and to see if there's an owner searching for him. If nothing happens over the next week, SACARC will take him back and find him a loving home (yours, maybe?). We can't keep him, unfortunately, because he got my husband's allergies all riled up. However, he has given us the gift of a crazy-fun weekend and the realization that we could fit a dog right in. We just have to find a dog that's easier on my husband. You know, I really love for him to be able to breathe.

Oh, and he started calling me "Dr. Dolittle"

Oh Look!

Little Old House went all wintery and christmas-y!

Good thing the temperatures here in North East Florida are still ranging in the (low) 70s: perfect sock weather but not freezing yet!

We've had a whirl of a weekend over here at the Ugly Duckling. Hope yours was great! I'm working on my posts since I was a bit pre-occupied these past couple of days as we ...errm, speak!

Catch you in a bit!

Exterior Dreaming

As the year is winding down we're gifting ourselves with a little bit of downtime in regards to projects. Naww, we are far from stopping any kind of work but the jobs are smaller, more decorative and contained while we're spending a bigger chunk of our time curled up with a good book, snuggling together watching a movie and just plain enjoying the season (as much as work allows).

It's been 10 1/2 months since we closed on our "Ugly Duckling" and 6 months since we moved in and it's been a whirlwind of home improvement projects ever since. A teeny bit of downtime sure is in order, isn't it?

While we're kind of stationary on the couch, we're happy and eager to plan next year's projects. The biggest one on our list is giving our Ugly Duckling an exterior facelift. It needs it baaaad. The last paint job is failing bad and our house is starting to look like that creepy haunted house at the end of the road. Not to mention we're not too overly crazy about the current depressive blue-grey paint job and dingy blue trim. And the windows need some loving too.

Poking around for inspiration on the 'net, I stumbled across the Sherwin-Williams' color visualizer. Best. new. toy. ever! This fun online tool allows you to upload a picture, define areas to be painted and with the click of your mouse and a drag and a drop you get to "paint" your place in whatever color you dare (and then some)!

You can find the color visualizer here . You need to register first but since that comes with the gift of a $10 off your next purchase coupon, it's worth it. Plus, you get to play with the color visualizer. 'nuff said!

Once you're registered and logged in, you're ready to roll. You can either use a scene provided by Sherwin-Williams or upload your own interior or exterior photo. You then need to "mask" or define the areas you want to paint using a masking tool you might recognize from using Photoshop.

What's really cool is that not only do you get to use -all- of the paint colors by Sherwin-Williams but that they have it neatly organized for you. There are collections by color as well as a collection of historical colors sorted, again, by time period. That's really nifty for us Old House lovers!

Color Collections to choose from

A glimpse of the historical color collections

Here's the Ugly Duckling in its ...ahem, current state (more or less: we have removed the weird handle bar in the middle of the steps, the ugly old awning is gone, mailbox and porch lights have changed and the downstairs window frames were tentatively painted white, just to see what it'd look like)

Our Ugly Duckling is considered a "Vernacular" style house meaning it looks like a typical house of the time and place it was built without following too much of any particular architectural style such as Foursquare, Colonial, Queen Anne, Victorian, etc. It was built in 1914 or 1915 and if you ask me ,it shows a bit of Bungalow flavor with its low-pitched roof and the somewhat prominent eaves. I masked these characteristics to emphasize the architecture through paint. Kind of like putting on make-up.

Playing with the colors from the historical collection, the colors of the Craftman era always seem to work best with their down-to-earth beauty and simplicity.

[Grey doesn't have to look dreary. This is actually pretty sharp looking,

thanks to the crisp contrast of trim to body color]

I especially like it when the front gable is painted a different color than the body. Here I tried some different warm shades of grey and crisp white trim. Yum! Looking so much better!

Don't you love how the color visualizer makes the color change look so natural and real? It's amazing how light and shade are still visible and no detail gets lost. Since you're not using bucket of paints, spending endless hours rolling, brushing or spraying on paint, you can go stir crazy in your color choices to boot!

Here's the Ugly Duckling in daring red and a touch of grey

Sweet and modest in yellow with a bit of brown

Or airy and peaceful in turquoise

Best. Toy. Ever!

So far, I like the turquoise look best on our house but then again I'm usually drawn to blues and greens (case in point: turquoise dining room, teal bedroom, blue-grey bathroom ... you get the idea). What do you think?

We're still in the very very early planning stages of this project. It's going to be a bear of a project - our house is not all that little and has two stories as well and the old paint job is abysmal. I've picked up a couple of DIY books on this topic from the library that make it sound doable even at two-stories, and we're following up on a couple of painter's recommendation from the neighborhood for an estimate to find out just how much we value our sanity.

Pretty-fying the Ugly Duckling on the outside is something I -really- want to do. I want it so much, I'd even consider scaling a ladder taller than my step stool. No kidding.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Born and raised German in Germany I brought a whole slew of German traditions into husband's and my marriage. Occasionally that leads to rather .... quirky combos such as our Christmas eve meal plan: chicken soup and pizza. Husband's family traditionally served pizza on Christmas eve and for me, Christmas isn't Christmas unless it's heralded by a bowl of steaming chicken soup for lunch on Christmas eve. No kidding. Ask my Mom about the Beef broth debacle from a couple of years ago. It wasn't pretty.

One of our family's traditions was that no Christmas decoration showed up until the first of December or the first Sunday of Advent. After that, the house was fair game. Slowly, over the next couple of weeks, we'd add Christmas decorations building up to the grand finale that was the arrival of the Christmas tree (always fresh! never plastic) just a few days before Christmas eve.

We'd decorate the tree and it would remain unlit until Christmas Eve. In our family, presents are delivered by the "Christkind" (aka the Christ child although it's usually depicted as a golden-haired and rather girly angel) on Christmas eve. The benefit of that is that you never have to wreck your brain trying to find a solution to keep your children from waking you at o'dark on Christmas morning.

Anyways, what with the quirky combo of German and American traditions in our house we started decorating the Ugly Duckling just in time for the first of Advent. I have added bits and bops of Christmas decorations here and there but the tree has still to arrive. It's tentatively slated for this weekend but there's no rush (for me). Our filled stockings magically appear on Christmas eve after chicken soup lunch and pizza dinner, and Santa drops off the remainder of the blessings on Christmas morning.

Anyways, I thought you might enjoy a few pre-Christmas glimpses from the Ugly Duckling so here it goes:


The chalkboard (Love Love LOVE it!) has become our personal countdown to Christmas. I'm always hovering between giddy excitement and barely suppressed panic when I look at the number of days left. How on earth does time fly by so fast? Sheesh!

We added a garland and sparkly lights to our fireplace mantle. While we did have two fireplaces at our old Silver Street home, neither of them were in the livingroom and we enjoy this glittery glimmery eye candy the most. I found those beautiful vintage brass colored glitter snow flakes at Walmart of all places and they are THE.BEST! I'd coat my entire house with them if I could :o)



Our advent wreath. This year I'm loving it simple with some greenery, holly twigs, snow-dusted pine cones and some berries and candy canes for a pop of color.

Our door wreath got a little tweak too and now sports a bright red bow with bells (no whistles) and a fir garland. For starters :o)

Next stop, outdoor lights!

Elfing around

Right after I discovered that Little Man still believes in Santa, I -had- to get me one of those elves from "The Elf on the Shelf". Target was (is?) selling them for the same price as online but you don't pay shipping and as an added perk you got (get?) a $5 giftcard, so after dropping off the kids at school last week I made a quick detour, hopped into the store and bought me a Santa's helper.

All morning at work, I was distracted by plotting possible elfcapades and especially the arrival of our new friend. There are gazillion webpages out there, if you're lacking for ideas on what to do with your elf, like this one here at Blossom Bunkhouse. Pinterest doesn't leave yo hanging either and provides a treasure trove of ideas.

Husband was very skeptic, I wasn't 100% sure it would work but Little Man's been eating this whole thing about the elf and his escapades up. He's nuts about the little guy and his antics and husband and I are having a great time staging Santa's little helper every night. (We were also thoroughly amused by some bad elf on the shelf escapades we found on the web' and are convinced the elf offers some naughty amusement for adults without children. Just sayin' ...)



Santa mailed our elf. I searched the web until I found a 2011 Santa mailing stamp picture and printed that with our address and Santa's on a sheet of paper. I stuck a real stamp on our package (Little Man doesn't has never paid attention to postage on a package) and continued the lines of the stamp with pencil to make it look just right. Little Man bought it, so it obviously worked!

Our elf's name is "Barrigade", a name Little Man derived from the word "Barricade". I have no clue why but it does have a nice ring to it.

After his first trip to the North Pole to report to Santa, Barrigade ended up making a bed for himself in the downstair's half bath.



The next night, Barrigade - true to his name - barricaded the door to the guest bedroom with toilet paper. Little Man loves to camp out in the guest bedroom on the weekend - his special treat - and so far this was the funniest elfcapade. He did not see that one coming! Neither did the husband. Heh :o)

Barrigade used the cover of the night to bake us some special reindeer cookies. He made a real mess in the kitchen and did not clean up. Bad elf, no cookie!


Last night Barricade went to town with toothpaste! Hopefully B's nice design and handwriting will inspire Little Man to stop smearing his toothpaste over the window (he does that; I don't know why) and expand his artistic toothpaste expressions beyond the occasional smiley face.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of nights, cackling and rubbing my hands gleefully.

An apple a day

I don't know about you but I believe that apples and cinnamon is a match made in heaven, and fortunately this time of the year it's also the best comfort food to warm your heart on ...ahem, cold days.
Truth be told, it's not really been all that cold here in NE Florida but that's okay in my book. I don't need snow and freezing temperatures to get into the Christmas spirit.

One of my favorite seasonal treats is spiced apple cider caramel from Starbucks. It's sweet and warm and just plain yummy! It's in fact so yummy, that I couldn't stop thinking about recreating it at home for easier access to my treat of the season (without busting the budget).

After some quick experimenting, here's what Little Man and I came up with and have been indulging in ever since. You could almost say it's better than the version from Ye Olde Coffeeshoppe ...

[Oh, baby, watch me stage the ingredients ...]

You'll need apple cider, whipping cream (or whipped cream in a can), cinnamon
and Hershey's Caramel sauce.

[That's my Lucy mug. Little Man chose Linus; and the rest of the
Peanuts gang was in the dishwasher]

Pour some apple cider into your mug and dust with cinnamon.

[This is liquid apple pie ... delicious!]

Nuke your mug with cinnamon-spiced apple cider briefly in your microwave
(or heat it on a stove, without the mug, of course). Depending on how hot you like it
and your settings, 45 seconds is adequate.

Add a splash of caramel sauce (a solid squirt from the bottle - about 2 tbs,
I reckon) and top it off with whipped cream.

Both, the caramel sauce and the cream mellow the acidity of the apple cider
and the cinnamon adds interest and flavor - heaven!

Enjoy!

Meet George!

I'm obviously a child of the 70s because I looooove shag! After secretely ordering a shag rug for our livingroom about which I haven't written at all and knowing the husband would like it, the last thing missing to absolute shaggy happiness on our livingroom couch was a shaggy pillow.

You know, texture and all that jazz.

That's when I stumbled across this fuzzy darling here at Target. Laaaaaaaaa!

Perfect!

Dear husband looked at it when we brought my shopping loot in and asked "what I wanted to do with it".
The only correct answer in this case?
"Hug it and pet it and call it George."

Here, George (aka "The Yak") is hanging out with his buddies on the livingroom couch

And you know what?

EVERYBODY loves George!

That's strike 2 for shag(gy stuff). Ha!

Anybody else with a hankering for shag?