I love Parentheses, couldn't you tell?

[kaitou]

On Friday my Japanese coworker's wife and kids came over and we played video games and ate pizza. I think it's hilarious that when the kids start to bicker they switch into English. It's all "はやと！猫をいじわらないで！Go Away, Stupid!"

I've had the family over a lot lately, which really triggered my need to do something with my house. For as much as I like art and such, I'm an awful decorator. And I hate spending money on furniture and such that could be spent buying books and video games and movies. But if I'm going to have guests, maybe it's time to fix up the coffee table at least, so it's not just a wooden top stuck on top of two rubbermaid bins. (Dad made my coffee table, and it was very nice, but it was not sturdy. It survived the trip TO St. Marys, but not so much moving it out of the way to play the wii)

But I'm still a cheap, cheap person, so instead of buying a new coffee table I decided to just get some legs from idea and fix up the top. But the top will look funny no matter what legs I get. So then I decided to decoupage the top. So Saturday I drove all the way out to a Jo-Anns (why is this like, over an hour away?) and picked up some Mod Podge and cotton yarn for a different project, and went to a bookstore where they had a new volume of Emma. (Yay! Side Stories! Eleanor! The Crystal Palace!)

And Sunday I went to work. I ripped up an old book of mine that I never got around to reading, a 1904 copy of Beverly of Graustark. The Graustark books are basically 'Prisoner of Zenda' fanfiction. All American guys rescuing princesses of tiny East European countries, and American heiresses being rescued by princes of tiny East European countries. It's all gloriously melodramatic and full of purple prose and Gilded Age illustrations. I trimmed up the pages and got as far as covering the edges of the table while watching Doctor Who on my laptop. (Yay Donna! ...Russel T. Davies, I sincerely suspect you of hating Christmas.) Tonight I can work on the main top.

In other news I got a Flickr account, because I am entirely too lazy to fiddle with my pictures and load them to my webspace, but I still have a deep seated need to show everyone my cat. I have a lot more to upload, but right now I have pictures from my fantabulous Christmas in Oregon with exgentlemen & ideographer, and pictures of the cat. Sadly Roxy's pictures aren't my own. I have a hell of a time trying to get a decent picture with the lighting in my house. But I didn't think Mom would mind if I posted her pictures to my account.

Comments

[velithya]

KITTY.

[kaitou1412.livejournal.com]

XD

[bardofawen.livejournal.com]

Do you ever get on AIM anymore? I've been wanting to ask you about something, but I've been putting off an e-mail in hopes that you might hop on.

[kaitou1412.livejournal.com]

I tend to spend more time on the gmail chat than AIM anymore. But I'll make sure I remember to sign in more this week.

[m-steelgrave.livejournal.com]

Kitty! And a bonus otter! This post is full of win. It might just be the pictures, but Roxy seems to have a perpetual, "Meh, human," expression. those eyes are just unreal.

I love doing bookoupage (as my mom calls it). My last apartment was laid out strangely and I needed to divide the space somehow, so I got a folding closet door from Home Depot for $15 (it had a big hold punched in it) and I did book decoupage on it. It looks pretty cool, but I'll bet a coffee table done like that is awesome.

[kaitou1412.livejournal.com]

It's just the pictures. She is very rarely 'Meh' looking. Though when she's ticked at me for being in the bathroom and meows she looks disturbingly like the cat-things in Mirrormask.

The divider sounds awesome, do you have pictures? I'm hoping the table looks cool. I've never done decoupage before so I'm worried about not doing a good job. Oh well, if it all goes bad I can just get an ikea tabletop later.

[m-steelgrave.livejournal.com]

Though when she's ticked at me for being in the bathroom and meows she looks disturbingly like the cat-things in Mirrormask.

Yikes.

I don't have pictures, sadly. I'll have to take some soon. Decoupage is hard to screw up, I think. I didn't like the divider at first, because the mod podge kind of made some of the pages splotchy looking. I thinned some brown paint and washed over all the pages with that so it looked more uniform, and it helped.

[mewsrissicat.livejournal.com]

Roxy is adorable, and I can't wait to meet her! *squeeeeeee*

[anchan218.livejournal.com]

For a minute I thought you were talking about me with the "went to a bookstore where they had a new volume of Emma. (Yay! Side Stories! Eleanor! The Crystal Palace!)" line but then I realized you meant Emma manga, where there is a character named Eleanor. LOL