All posts by Rivergirl

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Adaptation, thy name is cat.

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While His Lordship has fully embraced the temporary plastic room our repair project requires, he has been less than pleased with furniture being moved around and the disruption to his sleeping schedule.

The living room footstool has long been a favorite afternoon napping spot, and though it’s taken a while… Lord Dudley Mountcatten has adapted.

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Upside down and on top of a couch?

No problem.

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He even brought his catnip mice for company.

Of course having the couches up against the kitchen wall comes with it’s own challenges…

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As I discovered the other day when I was reading in the living room and heard slurping. Following the noise, I found His Lordship licking two prime filet mignons I was thawing on the counter. He could do this thanks to the back of a couch being perfectly aligned with the kitchen wall opening.

Scolding and chasing him off seems to have had no effect judging from his interest in my soon to be creamy chicken and wild rice soup.

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Perfect alignment has its price.

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🥴

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A funny flashback.

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I had to laugh at my Facebook page’s memory section today.

It was a post I had written after I had my full abdominal hysterectomy in 2015. And though I’m laughing now it was anything but funny at the time.

For those of you who have been through it, laugh along with me.

For those of you who might have it in your future, I’m sorry.

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The 5 things you learn after abdominal surgery… whether you want to or not:

  1. Seatbelts are not your friend. They are medieval torture devices designed to make you gasp in pain everytime they tighten over your midsection.
  2. You will have hairy legs for the first week following surgery. The resulting pain from bending over to shave them is not worth it… trust me on this.
  3. Those awful grey stretch pants you previously never went out of the house in are now your go to outfit for the rare excursions you take to town. The mere thought of stuffing your swollen muffin top belly into anything tighter makes you break out in hives.
  4. You become adept at picking up things with your feet, rather like a chimpanzee. Who knew you were so talented?
  5. You anxiously await the day you can once again mow the lawn, stay up past 8:00pm and sleep on your stomach without cringing. (Okay, maybe not having to mow the lawn
    hasn’t been that awful, but you know what I mean.

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🤣

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(Not always) helpful survival tips.

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I saw a list of what were supposed to be helpful survival tips online the other day and after reading the first few… I knew I had to share.

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Now call me crazy, but I never thought doing a striptease would be the first line of defense for any dangerous situation no less being chased by a giant bear in the Arctic.

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How bizarre. Do electrical fires really smell like fried haddock?

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Right.

Chased by a polar bear – clothes off.

And after you have hypothermia from out running a polar bear in the nude – – clothes on.

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And me with no coloring books or crayons. Damn.

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This last one was an ad on the page, and if you want to pee faster and stronger? Sorry, you’re on your own. I know better than to click. .

😉

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At least someone is enjoying the nightmare.

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This beam and ceiling repair project has been disruptive to say the least. We’ve lost our living room, our dining room, egress to the back deck and most importantly… the large television my husband is utterly devoted to watching. Sawdust, wood chips and dry wall fragments have been flying and I can’t even imagine the mess I’ll have to clean up when it’s finished.

I hate to say it…. but moving probably would have been easier.

Though while the husband and I have been inconvenienced, there’s one member of our family who seems to be having fun.

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You can see his ghostly reflection on the floor in the middle of that photo.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten, who is not supposed to be walking around in the plastic room… is constantly found doing just that.

And even when I don’t physically catch him in there?

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I find evidence of his presence.

Unless our contractor has a thing for catnip mice, which is another blog topic entirely.

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His Lordship seems to think the plastic walls have been erected exclusively for his playing pleasure and has a habit of pulling the sheets from their corners and making entrance holes.

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Look at him.

The very picture of innocence…

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But not for long.

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Cats.

They will not be denied…

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day 6 and 7.

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Not much exciting or even mildly humorous to report now. And if you’ve ever done drywall mudding you’ll know why.

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It’s a tedious time consuming process made even more unenjoyable by the fact that it all has to be done over our contractor’s head. My shoulders and neck are spasming just thinking about it.

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Scrape, tape, mud, smooth, let dry.

Repeat.

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The fact that it keeps raining and the dew point is high makes the quick dry mud anything but so a fan has been strategically placed to aid the process.

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Let’s play.

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You don’t have to, but you should all the same.

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I’d have to say being a New Jersey fast talker.

I was born in Jersey and lived there until I was 15. I don’t look like Carmela Soprano or a blinged out housewife, no leopard print leggings or teased shellacked hair … but I did retain a bit of New Jersey twang in my speech (think dawg and cawfee) and I’m most definitely a fast talker.

Jersey people have places to go and people to dump in the Meadowlands swamp, we don’t like wasting time with slow conversation .

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How about you?

What stereotype do you embody.

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Apparently down is harder than up.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten is still fascinated with the temporary plastic room.

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But the other day he stepped it up a notch.

Literally…

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I walked by and saw he had climbed the ladder the contractor left behind and apparently found himself the perfect bird watching perch.

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Perfect until he tried to get down that is.

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After laughing and filming his blog worthy attempt… I rescued his silly butt and lowered him to the floor.

Unharmed, but definitely embarrassed.

🤣

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Beam/ceiling repair project day 5… no more hole.

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Work continued on day 5, with the focus on prepping the surface for drywall.

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We have one of those stupid popcorn ceilings and I’m not lying when I say it makes a mess.

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But by the end of the day it was sufficiently scraped… and drywall covered the giant hole.

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By removing all those stupid little pieces of useless plywood the contractor found up there, he was able to give the beam a much lower and less defined profile than it had before .

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It’s still there, but no where near as deep, which is nice.

Next step will be mudding. (Which spellcheck just changed to muffins. You can never go wrong with muffins, but I don’t think they’d give us nearly the smooth finish we’re hoping for.)

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The end should be in sight now…

Though I know His Lordship is going to miss the plastic room.

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Return to the Pig.

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Though my husband isn’t crazy about their food, I finally wore him down enough for another evening at one of my favorite cocktail bars, The Blind Pig.

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Located in downtown Gardiner…

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In a lovely old brick building…

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With a terraced outdoor seating section…

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We made straight for the bar… because that’s where the magic happens. The Pig’s cocktail list is epic and changes with the seasons. I started with a pear mojito because it’s my go to there and never disappoints.

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Luckily the salmon baked in parchment paper with roasted fingerlings and asparagus tickled my spouse’s tastebuds so much he agreed to rethink his previous Blind Pig ban.

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I had a yummy lamb bolognese, and because we were sitting under a pig wearing a pink cowboy hat…

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A blackberry lavender margarita as well.

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Dessert was homemade lemon blueberry cake…

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Which the husband didn’t like and I was forced to finish by myself.

Oh. The hardships I endure for love…

😉

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day 4… where a little snag was hit.

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Things started out well early that morning with Lord Dudley Mountcatten innocently gazing at the plastic room.

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Yes, I’m talking about you.

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He knows he’s not supposed to go in there, so of course it’s the only place he wants to be…

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And before long our smiling, happy contractor was busy replacing the insulation and installing strapping for the sheet rock.

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By mid afternoon he had both sides of the beam done…

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And the ceiling was ready for the next phase.

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Which is when he hit a snag.

Thankfully it wasn’t with the project per se, but when it started drizzling outside and he set up his saw in the garage to stay dry… things went a little haywire.

We love Tom. He’s a very clean and conscientious worker. So when he started cutting things in the garage, he turned on his shop vac to suck up the sawdust and splinters at the same time… but in doing so he also overloaded our sometimes squirrelly electrical system and knocked out power to the entire garage and part of my laundry room.

This resulted in a solid hour of trying to figure out why.

Thankfully Tom knows his way around electricity and after removing a few outlets, testing various circuits and doing a whole lot of other things I can’t explain…. he had it up and running again and would be able to resume work.

Until my husband came home a few minutes later and decided it was time to call it quits and consume adult beverages in the man cave.

No sheet rock was installed that day.

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But at least we had garage lights to illuminate our way home.

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