Thank you, Aladdin

My favorite childhood movie was Aladdin. My hero? Aladdin. My role model? Aladdin.

Instead of teaching me to become skilled at flying a carpet, or to love monkeys... I expressed this adoration through attempting to pick locks and developed a fascination for climbing on roofs.

Today it all paid off. I successfully locked myself out of my condo, with no help near enough to get me to work on time. Using McGuiver-reminiscent skills I remembered days of discovering the magic of springing a lock without a key.

25 minutes and lots of prayer later, the front door opened and I retrieved the desired artifact, just in time to get to work right on time.

Needless to say, we will be double locking our door to prevent other such vagabonds from using "key-card" entry to our home.

Mildew be-gone

It seems like once you do something multiple times you SHOULD be better at it, but often you are just more LAZY at it. Ok, admission: this applies to me, and I don't know any other people it applies to.
I have washed the curtain before. I purposely bought a thicker one so that I COULD wash it and dry it on cool for short amounts of time without melting it. Voila, easy cleaning solution.

This time, it was getting mildewy and my inner cleaning lady started to nag the lazy me. The ensuing clash of the titans resulted in my throwing the curtain into the washer, (beautiful) and then into the dryer where I promptly forgot to turn the heat down, and left it in for way too long.

Result

Please note: it has shrunk about 1.5 feet in length, and melted to become about 3 feet in width. Hence the outer curtain is also in the tub to prevent floor puddles.

No cleaning kudos for me this time. Inner cleaning lady is hiding in embarrassment.

Our home take 2

Despite this place now being easier to clean, it took me a few weeks to get around to getting it cleaned up enough to give an idea of what IT looks like, instead of what our clothes and school books look like.

View from the desk, please notice how easy it is to sit at the desk and work while watching tv. Awesome.

View from the kitchen.  To the right, the TV swivels to face the seat of all things cookery. One can watch BOTH while tasting ones kitchen creations at the stove. Note: I can see when J takes a break from schoolwork to play StarCraft while I am cleaning the kitchen. Enter Big Bride - er, Brother.

Here is the kennel, sufficiently demoted from larger than dining table to blendy with the curtains in the corner. One hardly notices it in the picture above this one. Love it!