Come On In

Because I don't share enough with you all, I thought I'd give you a little tour of the Neurotic Household. I actually did this, on a smaller scale, last year when I first started this blog. However, you might recall that I accidentally deleted the first two months of my blog entries last March. It was not one of my finest moments. Any attempt I had ever made to promote my sound mind and knack for common sense were fully refuted on that terrible day. It may have taken a major gaff on my part, but from here on out, I now fully comprehend the finality of the delete key.

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.

Anyway...come on in!

We live in a fairly nondescript townhouse in a row of several equally nondescript townhouses within a subdivision of even more nondescript townhouses. The townhouses with brick fronts are a little more eye catching than those without brick; we happen to live in a brick-less townhouse. That's okay. We rent. Therefore we make do with what we have. On a side note, I love to watch House Hunters on HGTV. I always crack up at the demands of some of these homeowners-to-be. Every time I hear one of the ladies make a fuss about the lack of granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances or hear some guy complain about the outdated light fixtures and bathrooms, I laugh. I laugh because obviously none of these people have ever lived in military housing. If they had lived in military housing, they'd be much less picky. When living in substandard housing, your requirements and expectations are automatically lowered.

Whew, tangent over.

Let's start the tour. Like I said 300 words ago, come on in!

This is our front door.

The front of our house bakes in the midday sun. Anything you put on the front door fades pretty quickly. This wreath used to be various shades of vibrant green. I'm hesitant to put anything too nice up there because I don't want it to be ruined by the sun.

You have to climb all these stairs to get to our front door. It's a good workout when you're carrying groceries from your car. It's also a little dangerous when it's snowy or icy.

I spy with my little eye, Craig's little green car. Do you see it?


Right behind the door, we store Caroline's backpack and other school related paraphernalia. I need to weed through that basket and get rid of all the papers we don't need anymore.




Next to Caroline's school basket is a little red table I bought at Target before we moved here. At the time I did not know that we would be renting a house with green walls, but I put it in the hallway anyway. The little red table holds a basket that is strategically placed so that Craig can dump his keys, wallet, sunglasses in there. His stuff makes it in the basket 60% of the time.

Since Craig isn't here, Caroline and I have taken over the basket. We fill it with essentials only: pencils, mail box key and a Cold Stone Creamery gift card. Oh and plastic doll hairbrushes that don't even belong to us.





Also in our foyer is one of our house's two shoe baskets. My shoes make it in the basket 100% of the time; Caroline's average is WAY LOWER.




What's that you see? Well, its sand. Sand is used on the roads after it snows. Sand gets stuck in the cracks and crevices of our shoes which then transfers to the cracks and crevices of our floors.

You'd cry if you knew how much sand I sweep up on a daily basis. Well, you might not cry, but I sure do.

Straight ahead is our coat/art supplies/hats & gloves closet. It also houses our paper shredder that we bought because real adults shred their documents. Um, I've used that thing ONCE in like three years. Oops.

The final thing in our foyer is the wobbly railing. Every child who enters our house hangs their coats and hats on it and then uses it to practice Juliet's soliloquy from Romeo and Juliet. Well, not really. BUT they do hang on it even when I tell each and every child to stop because it's wobbly. Somehow this info has failed to compute in their brains.

From the foyer, you can see our sparsely decorated living room.
Our paint looks minty green. It's not. It's apple green. Much more vibrant than how it is being represented in these picture.





When we first moved in, I knew that I wanted to buy a couch to place in the living room to fill the cavernous void in the middle of the room. It's been over 18 months and I still haven't. I keep talking myself out of if because I fear that we won't have room for it in our next location, where ever that may be. It's just one more thing to move. On the bright side, this open space serves Caroline and her friend's well. It's a great place to do craft projects, build a tent, hold a sleepover or bust a move.

On an even brighter side, the living room and kitchen windows are all covered in white plantation shutters.


Next up: dining room.



Here are the pictures I have on the wall. I hate this picture arrangement; I tried to work with the existing holes in the walls, so the pictures aren't spaced as accurately as I would like. I'd love to get rid of them and put something a little more contemporary on the wall. Like a big black framed mirror. But, I think I'll wait. Like I said, we're only going to move again. Who knows what our next place will look like.



This is just a little table that a neighbor of my parents made a zillion years ago. I bought the copper bowl at a garage sale for $1.

Time to enter the eat in kitchen.



We're *supposed to put our table by the end of the island, where a light fixture is strategically placed, but our table won't fit. Instead we put it across from the island in a poorly lit corner.

Here are our pantry doors, covered with the original artwork of the up and coming artist, Caroline Smith.

The last room on this floor is our bathroom. YES, we have a powder room in our kitchen. It's convenient, but kind of gross, if you think about it. I try not to think about it, actually. If I had it my way, I'd put the laundry room where the bathroom is and put the bathroom downstairs where the laundry room is.

Again, a custom door. "Cricket" by Caroline Smith.

It's very hard to take a picture in a small room. I used the mirror as my assistant; pardon my hands in the picture.



Oh hey, I turned the light on. Helpful, much?


A towel that no one is allowed to use. As my great aunt says, it's "for show, not for blow."



More towels no one can use.



Whew, this is a long tour, huh?

Let's go downstairs now, shall we?

This is our dungeon. It's relatively devoid of any natural light, minus the one window in the room and some french doors in the corner that lead to the backyard. The backyard is heavily shaded and therefore hardly any light enters through the windows. The dungeon is dark. And it's cold. We call it the frigid ice box.

The absence of natural light makes it hard to take a decent picture.
This is our living room in the early morning light.




Here it is in the afternoon.



This is the gas fire place, which looks a little sad and unadorned (and off center!) in this picture. I have a ton of different wreaths to embellish that scrolly mirror with. Right now it's adorned with a shamrock wreath. I pretty much have one for each holiday or season: heart, Easter eggs, red berries, fall foliage. I sometimes drape the mantle with fall leaf or red berry garland. Right now, it just looks sad.




Our OLD entertainment center, which will be replaced the next time we move. Yippee!



I used the flash here. Sorry.


This is my childhood dresser that has been white, green and now black. It holds all sorts of miscellaneous junk: DVDs, linens, laptop accessories.



Here's our bookcase. The white door leads to the garage; there is another white door next to it that leads to our laundry room. I didn't take pictures of our washer/dryer. I might have if we had those awesome, brightly colored front loaders. I think doing laundry in a red front loader would be way more enjoyable than in the standard white top loader we have.
I'm an advertiser's dream; I believe whatever they're trying to indoctrinate me with.

Good reading. Right mom?



The desk. Where I work my blog magic.

Actually, I blog from the laptop on my bedroom floor, or from that brown chair in our living room if I'm feeling proper. Before the laptop and that glorious thing they call wireless Internet, that's where the magic happened. It's one of those hutch things that you're *supposed* to be able to close away. Unfortunately the tower to our PC sticks out too far and we can't close both doors.



Okay, this post is really long. I suppose this is where we'll end the tour of the Neurotic House for now.

Please don't fret; tomorrow I'll show you the third level.

Until then, I'm sure you'll be biting your nails in anticipation.