kayla aimee: only slightly neurotic

Meet our new puppy!

(Lucy says: please vote for KA here because she is very nice and gives me treats and sometimes lets me sleep on the bed. But not if Jeff is reading this. If Jeff is reading this, she never lets me sleep on the bed. Not ever. And most definitely not on your pillow.)

Oh please won't you be my neighbor?

Jeff and I haven't met any of our neighbors yet. I don't understand this because sometimes I see our neighbors milling about outside while I'm peering at them from behind the curtains.

I'm afraid this is why no one has come over: It's late at night and I am checking the mail when I hear a horrible snarling sound and a dog running towards me. I'm nervous because I've seen a pit bull in the neighborhood so I am ready to run back to the house when the light hits it and I realize that it's our neighbor's schnauzer.

Now I'm not worried at all because, hello, schnauzer, when it runs up and BITES me. The dog bit me! And not nipped me, no. It left teeth marks in my boots. I can SEE the neighbor's shadow on the back porch. I keep trying to shoo the dog nicely since I KNOW she can hear me but nothing is working.

The whole time I am thinking "Great, now the neighbors think I hate their dog. I don't want to start off being the neighbor that hates dogs. I like dogs! I HAVE a dog! WHY IS THIS DOG BITING ME?!."

I'm firmly telling the dog to GO HOME! as it keeps trying to bite me and so finally I give it a soft little nudge with my foot and it starts whimpering and runs off like I beat it with a rock or something.

If I was on television, this would be one of those moments where they edit the clip to make it look like I kicked an innocent little dog with nothing to provoke me.

So now I have no idea what to do. On one hand, the neighbors think probably think I beat up their dog. On the other hand, why in the heckfire didn't they call their dog off when it was BITING ME? And how do I meet the neighbors now? "Hi, I like your jacket, I live next door and by the way your dog bit me?"

What would you do?

(Thanks for all the votes so far! Please continue to vote each day so I can afford to build a fence if this whole "neighbor" thing doesn't work out.)

The pizza guy is probably still telling this story

I was rather unfortunate looking when I was younger. I was not, what you might call, a cute kid. I mean that picture? The one that looks like it belongs on Awkward Photos Dot Com? That is THE BEST ONE I HAVE TO SHOW YOU.

My sister, however, was not as unfortunate looking as me. Maybe because by the time she was born my mother was out of the whole "teased bangs" phase. In any case, my sister was really cute.

She was also frequently mistaken for Jon Benet Ramsey.

One night when she was in middle school we ordered pizza. Prominently displayed by the front door was an oversized photo of my sister in her 5 year old Glamour Shot.

The pizza guy looked at the photo and took a startled step back. He stammered for a minute and then asked my dad how he knew the girl in the photo. My father is quite sarcastic, really very unlike me, and made a quip about stealing her. Obviously my father had not read the situation correctly. The pizza guy's face went completely ashen. It's lucky I walked in when I did. I'm very good at diffusing tense situations. Like that time I solved the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The pizza guy mumbled something and we just barely made out the words Jon Benet when my father realized what was going on. He quickly assured the guy that it was, in fact, his daughter and called her downstairs. The pizza guy looked back and forth between the photo and my sister and left, after receiving an extra large tip. Which he probably thought was a bribe. In my life, you don't just order pizza. You order up a whole dish of awkward.

(Thank you for all of your votes on the Good Mood Gig! Please continue to vote for me here, and I'll keep posting awkward photos of my adolescence. It's a win-win for everyone.)

Shameless Self Promotion (and possibly a bit of begging)

1) Jeff and I are featured here today for a Meet The Newlyweds inteview. I'm quite excited about it as I think our "newlywed" title probably expires this coming anniversary. And also because it's just one more photo of my wedding dress and we all know how much I love my wedding dress. I mean, my groom. Definitely my groom.

2) This is the portion where I beg you. I'm not begging you for these really cute new motorcycle boots I saw online. That begging is reserved for Jeff. No, I'm begging for votes. I'm not above it.

I applied to be a blogger at Nature Made and apparently the top 20 finalists are chosen based on the amount of votes they receive. So I'm asking you to please stop by and vote for me. You can vote once a day until October 30, and if you'd be so kind I'd appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Seriously, I'd feel all warm and fuzzy, just like I did last night when I was watching GLEE and Puck was apologizing to Rachel for throwing a grape slushie in her face. You can click here or on the badge on the side of my blog to vote each day. THANK YOU. Really.

Home Before and After: A Sneak Peek

We are renovating the house in three stages. We're finished with Stage One, which was basically making the house move-in ready. We had to replace all the floors as well as disinfect scrub til my hands bled clean and paint all of the walls and trim. Now we're in Stage Two which is refinishing some furniture, updating fixtures, knobs, etc. Stage Three will come in the spring, with new cabinets and countertops and hopefully finishing out the basement.

The house was in good structural condition but cosmetically? It needed a lot of help. Holes in the wall, stains everywhere, ripped vinyl floors.

This is the before view from the living room to the hallway. While I love the french doors, I didn't love the colors. For one thing, they totally clashed. For another, they made the space feel really small and dark.

Here's the after!

I love the mismatched, cottagey feel of the new floors. I prefer cool colors as opposed to warm so we painted the walls a gray based beige color. The back wall we painted a grayish brown, because our couch sits in front of it and I thought it needed grounding. Jeff asked me what I knew about grounding and I was all "Jeff, I scrapbook, get off me". The bookcase was an old piece from collage that used to be brown and worked much better in the space after we sprayed it black. I think overall it looks much more airy now.

Thanks for stopping by to peek! I can't wait to have more to show!
(Paint colors: the dark wall is Safari Beige and the light walls are Oatbran, both by Lowes)