Stinky Cheese House

Our new house is smelly.

Now Paul will tell you that I have super olfactory skills and there might be some truth that. It's not a desirable superpower like teleportation or speed eating. Falls right below being Yard Squirrel Whistler, I think.

The previous owners had a temperamental cat, it seems {As per new neighbor. Brief aside: the neighbor has published Acrostic books. How cool is that? How do you become a published puzzle crafter? I'm fascinated.} and I think the cat misbehaved but our very responsible, military couple homeowners worked to chemically remove the offending remnants, now leaving an unusual new connocotion. This is all conjection, mind you. It could be me.

But after living somewhere for four years, I'm probably used to how my old house smelled. This possessed environment isn't bright enough to adopt to our lemony fresh scent yet. How do you exorcise the ghostly imprint of old owner-smell? Other than sticking Rejuvenate or whatever they call it sticky, floral things all over the place? How many batches of chocolate chip cookies or pies does a happy homemaker have to bake? It probably would be more efficient if my hubby could conform to my "our smell" agenda and cut back on packing the fridge with the strong French, triple-cream cheeses. I don't want the house to get confused and think that's our scent.

The image is from the book, The Stinky Cheese Man. I love that book. But don't read it in my house--yet.

The Next Big Thing

Because I'm a publishing geek...

Based on browsing recent bestseller lists, of both Christian books and general market hits, I determined to develop {fast-track, of course} a novel set in a nineteenth century gold mining town, where a young hardened prostitute is taken in by tent revival preacher who speaks to the miners about how God really wants them to be rich and if they give him all their nuggets, they will strike gold and drive really fancy wagons.

He gets struck on the head by an angry miner and is dead for ninety-seven minutes before the prostitute-turned-bookclub maven revives him. He comes back—but is somehow changed into a vampire and she must flee her sudden, incredible attraction to him so she does a really hard thing, and runs off with her adorable-but-naughty yellow lab to eat in Italy, pray in India, and love in Indonesia… with purpose.

The book will be called The Hut.

Packed, Painted, Moved, Exhausted... it must be September

This summer's gauntlet has landed us here, one hand gripping loose dirt across the finish line, and barely coherent. Recent Septembers have been busy months, workwise and travelwise, and the coming weeks don't promise anything different. So we'll pull ourselves up, try to find the box with the clean clothes, pretend the shower doesn't leak a little, and get back to it.

But the dining room and family room are painted {much thanks to Sandi for all her help!} and we are completely moved in. We cut the grass-gone-wild with our craigslist-found Briggs & Stratton. I even cooked for friends on Sunday. And this view is definitely worth it. {I know I look a little crazed.}