Tag Archives: house

March 17, 2011 · 11:50 AM

Disposing Martha

There was a time when women got married, bought a four-bedroom house, and expertly knew how to care for every aspect of their home.

2008, the year I got married, was not that time.

And my mother knew this about me. She knew that not only did I not really have a clue about home maintainance, but that I was taking the easy road by living in a condo versus a house (thereby eliminating half the work — cleaning out gutters is not part of my spring cleaning routine).

So she turned to the expert to teach me how to become a decent homeowner:

Yes, she bought me Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook, and I’ve never looked back.

While most people would stuff this on a shelf and only dive for it in the wine-on-carpet disaster scenario, I have decided to read it cover-to-cover. I tend to retain information like this, so I figure if I just read the whole thing I won’t need to look everything up all of the time. Naturally I do this in a closet with a flashlight, because reading it is, of course, mortifying.

What’s less embarrassing is when that book totally saves the day.

Last week, Mike and I were talking about how we tend to make each other do chores based on gender. For instance, I always do the laundry and change the sheets, and he always takes out the garbage and fixes anything that breaks.

But then the garbage disposal broke. And we got into a tiny argument about the fact that neither of us intrinsically knows how to fix a garbage disposal. I was extremely dismissive, you know, in that charming “Not my problem!” manner. He was slightly irritated that this was his job just because he’s wearing the pants.

And then it hit me — MARTHA!

I ran into the den and pulled Martha off her place on the bookshelf. I remembered reading a little how-to on fixing the garbage disposal. I raced through my index, found “Garbage Disposals” and flipped to page 89.

“How to Fix a Jammed Garbage Disposal.” Eureka!

(I love how she even has optimism in her How-To. No, your disposal is not broken — it’s merely jammed! Let’s fix this in a jiffy!)

Mike opened the cabinet below the sink and had all his tools at the ready. I started reading from Martha (everything was numbered and extremely detailed with things like “1. Turn off circuit breaker to stop power to disposal.” I honestly would not have thought of that).

After shutting off the power, Martha told us all about removing blockage and using our “reset button” (disposals have buttons?).

After jamming things around in the sink for a few minutes (no actual tools required), we turned the power back on and tested the disposal — voila! The genius of Martha lives on!

Mike’s look of shock was barely disguised, and my victory dance wasn’t remotely concealed. We felt like we had broken through the genderism and had actually fixed something together…well, the three of us — Mike, Abby, and Martha.

8 Comments

Filed under Good WORD (Etiquette)

Tagged as house, marriage, Martha Stewart, Mike Reph

December 14, 2010 · 11:28 AM

On Eating My Words

Despite being one of the thriftiest people on Earth, I abhor shopping at Ross.

And TJ Maxx.

And Nordstrom Rack.

And any place that requires an inordinate amount of “digging” to find what I need. One would think that a cheap-o like me would call TJ Maxx my mecca, but one would be forgetting that my need for organization will always, always trump my frugality.

I have needed structure and order for as long as I can remember. Not an obsessive compulsive, lock-and-unlock-the-door-six-times type, but enough that walking into a store with rows and rows of clothes makes me want to turn around and flee.

Did I mention my other disorder, commitment-phobia? When it takes decades to make seemingly insignificant decisions (which boot? Black or brown? Knee-length or ankle?), it becomes nearly impossible to make decisions if nothing is in its proper place. How do I know if I’ve seen all of my paralyzing options if they are strewn down an aisle?

Last week, however, I had to make a concession: I was throwing a party, I needed decor, and I needed it cheap.

And I knew exactly what this meant.

I Binged all the thrift stores I could think of, and was a little embarrassed to find so many of them in such close proximity to my home. How did I not realize they were there before?

Anyway.

I walked into Ross and braced myself for feeling like a arachnophobe in a store full of spiders. But as I made my way to the back of the store I saw the rows upon rows of glass vases — exactly what I was looking for. I bent over to pick one up to check its price tag, and nearly dropped it to its death on the tile floor — $4.99! Was I hallucinating? Is this a joke? Or is this Merry Christmas to me?

I quickly stashed every last one of them in my cart, totally convinced that I had just snagged the deal of the year and surely 15 angry women would be coming around the corner to claim their vases too.

Jingle Bell Rock tinged in the background as I had these paranoid thoughts. No angry women. Just Jingle Bell Rock.

I hurried around the rest of the store convinced I was going to find a hundred other things I couldn’t live without, but sadly, Ross only had one treasure to offer me that day (or any day).

My next stop was Tuesday Morning, which was so chaotic and out-of-order that I almost reconsidered before making it past the front door. I walked down two aisles and saw that their glass vases were $9.99 — apparently not all discount stores are created equal. I felt a surge of pride at my wise Ross choice.

And even though Michael’s isn’t a discount store, it is decidedly crafty, and I had hopes it would be cheap. It was not. Not only did they not have anything I could use, but they had things I couldn’t use that were overpriced. I moved on quickly.

Twenty minutes later I was standing in Target because I couldn’t think of any more discount stores. Target had exactly the ornaments and ribbon I was looking for, but I realized that I felt like a failure for paying full price. And since I was in a such a panic about not being able to find more things I needed, I bought twice the ornaments necessary, grossly overestimating the size of my glass vases.

When I got home and started putting the vases and ornaments together, I realized that the vases were filthy. They were completely covered in dust and I spent 15 minutes hand washing each one. At first I was irritated, but that feeling quickly dissipated each time I turned a vase over to clean the base and saw the price tag. Yes, I thought to myself, I am willing to spend 15 minutes for $4.99 vases. Who wouldn’t?

I feel like I owe an apology to discount stores everywhere: Why do I judge you when you are so good to me?

The decorations worked really well, and I was thrilled with the look. In fact, I got several compliments on them throughout the evening, and now I am going to use them to decorate our home for Christmas.

I am secretly hoping that someone comes to my house and asks about my vases. I am looking for an opportunity to sound exactly like the radio commercial, “I got it at Ross!”

7 Comments

Filed under UpWORD (Beauty)

Tagged as design, house, money

August 31, 2010 · 12:35 PM

Despite This, I Still Cry During Marley & Me

You know the rush of affectionate emotion you feel when you enter someone’s home and their dog comes to greet you?

I rarely feel that.

I do not know why this is; it’s as if while moving down the human-making assembly line I somehow skipped right past “affection for furry friends” and instead got a nice dose of “allergic to anything with hair.”

That’s why I don’t feel too guilty about not adoring animals — I was programmed to reject them. It’s not my fault.

But I wish I did. I wish I was one of those people. I want to be the type of person who adores every kind of animal, large or small, attractive or not, smart or…otherwise.

Instead, everyone else is always rubbing dogs from head to tail and I’m standing there like I have a black heart.

Last weekend Mike and I house-sat for my parents while they were traveling, and that included the care of their two dogs, Belle (11 years old) and Griffey (10 months old).

They are really good-looking dogs, and are probably the closest thing to a pet I would want. In fact, my parents’ dogs have always won me over, probably because I knew them as puppies. Even I can’t resist a puppy; I may have a black heart, but I’m not dead.

Griffey at 12 weeks

The hiccup in my pet-aversion is the fact that I married not just a dog lover, but a dog OBSESSOR. Mike is completely sold out for dogs of all shapes and sizes. He will approach any stranger to befriend their dog and then turn to me with a child’s desperation and say “see? How can you not love this?!”

When we walk around the waterfront, I point out adorable children and he points out adorable puppies. The difference is, I am admiring the children as gorgeous little people who are a pleasure to look at from a distance; Mike is looking at the dogs and silently choosing the breeds of future family members.

On Saturday, in order for us to have a true doggie adventure with Griffey, we decided to visit the off-leash dog park at Marymoor. Just to put Mike’s love of dogs in perspective: we have actually visited the dog park without a dog before, solely so Mike could get his fill. For the record, it felt weird. Kind of like visiting a daycare without a child. Creepy.

This time, dog in hand, we felt like we were card-carrying members of the dog-owner club. We did the polite nod of acceptance with other dog owners as we proudly entered the park with Griffey. It didn’t hurt that we had taken my mom’s Mini Cooper convertible to the dog park — we were flying down the freeway with the top down and a happy dog in the backseat. Everyone stared. And we all know that I love when everyone stares.

We were walking along, basking in dog-pride, when a woman passed by and said with more attitude than necessary, “You’re brave to bring food into the dog park.” No smile — just sass.

Mike looked at me holding our Chipotle burrito bowls. The thought of a picnic-in-a-dog-park conflict never crossed our minds. We had just exposed ourselves as dog-owner fakes. Rookie mistake.

I’ll show her, I thought.

I sat down on a rock and started to open the bag when three dogs came charging at me. I jumped up, food in hand, while irritated owners called their dogs back. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “My bad.”

Needless to say, I took the food back to the car.

Griffey got along well with the other dogs, and garnered praise from other owners for being so beautiful. Mike and I shuffled our feet in bashful pride; we didn’t think it necessary to tell them she wasn’t technically ours. Why reject a decent compliment?

The best part was taking her to the waterfront. She didn’t hesitate to race down the steps into the water. Every other owner was throwing balls into the water for their dogs to fetch. I turned to Mike and said, “Oh my gosh. It’s like we’re the awful parents who don’t buy toys for our child! Griffey is humiliated!”

For the next hour she avoided eye-contact with us like an 8-year-old kid getting out of the car for school. Please, her face said, pretend you don’t know me.