The Creepy Neighbor.

I know that everyone has a strange neighbor of some sort, I mean my poor sister has one that likes to blast porn at strange hours of the day (awkward!) and I'm sure there are some who like to spy on you or throw trash in your yard or whatever. Mine is seriously starting to cross the line. 

We live next to an older couple who have older kids living with them and they seemed great when we first moved in- they came to introduce themselves immediately, say "hi" every time we see them, and they love L. L loves them too and gets really excited every time he sees them. They will take our trash down to the street if we forget, water my dead plants since our house is currently out of commission (thanks, Artemis), and are generally very good people. The wife has a firery personality and will get into anyone's face if they do something that bugs her (which is quite frightening, and she's only 4'10.") However, it's the husband that is making my skin crawl.

He comes out every so often to chat with Nick and me (if we're outside,) but most of the time its when I'm the only one home. I didn't think anything of it since Nick is gone until late due to school and work, but I've noticed that the neighbor takes off right after Nick does get home. Once he said something (and I can't remember his exact words) about him being my boyfriend and he's always saying stuff like "we better not get caught or people will talk." I thought it was strange, but I figured that maybe he was being silly or something. We had never talked for longer than ten minutes and I know that I have never said anything to give him the idea that I was interested in him in any way. Then he kissed my cheek and I avoided him for a month.Things seemed to be back to "normal" friendly neighborliness, until last night:

CN: One day we'll have fun

Me: what?

CN: you know, without the wife or husband barging in

me: what? (I had been studying for twelve hours at this point and I know my brain wasn't functioning correctly. He couldn't possibly mean what I think he does.)

CN: I'm down. You're down?

Me: uh that depends on what you mean by "fun."

CN: whatever you want it to mean. 

Then he walked away before I could say anything else or possibly burn myself with a lighter to make sure I hadn't fallen asleep while studying and was having a nightmare. Even if I didn't love my husband beyond reason, CN is the same age as my dad and not my type in any way. He's pretty yucky. Seriously, I have no idea what to do. I don't want to go over to his house to tell him that his behavior is wildly inappropriate for fear of his wife, and I definitely don't want to invite him to mine. Clearly this guy has invented some sort of attraction between the two of us and I seriously don't know how to handle it. I'm afraid to go outside and have been running to the car with L in hopes of avoiding him all together. Nick knows all of this and has from the beginning. He says I just have to tell him straight out that his advances are not ok, and I agree with Nick. I'm just a chicken. And sleep deprived at the moment. 

What would you do in this situation, besides move, because I really do love my house? Is it time to "man"-up and face him or just keep avoiding him until he gets the message? 

Aging

Believe it or not, I'm not going to moan about getting older in the post.

The other day I attempted a new project. My mother-in-law's dog happened to get ahold of the sheet music for one of my all-time favorite classical pieces (but will most likely never be able to play) and ate most of it. I decided a while back that I wanted to take a page from it and hang it above the piano, but once I tore out one of the few intact pages, I noticed that it was super white (which is to be expected since I bought it a few years ago). So I decided to make it appear to be aged. Here's how I did it: (original directions from this site)

First I brewed some tea. I used a darjeeling since I have a ton of it (and I wanted to drink some it.) It is supposed to be cold so I let it get to room temperature and then stuck it in the fridge for a couple of hours (meanwhile I made Halloween cards.)

After pre-heating the oven to 200*, I put the music on a cookie sheet and poured a little tea on it. Both sides need to wet, but it takes a lot less tea than you would expect (or maybe it was just me.) I used my hand to make sure all of it was covered. Supposedly you can just rub the edges between your fingers to make them look worn, but that didn't work so well for me. And it didn't really matter, so I gave up pretty quickly. You can make darker spots by sprinkling some instant coffee on it, but since I don't believe in instant coffee, that wasn't an option for me.

Next: Stick it in the oven! The directions said that it should bake for about 6 minutes until dry, but it took 30 for me. Lame. Once it did dried I used a fork to get it off the cookie sheet.

Lastly, I stuck it in a frame and it now resides on top of the piano (I'll hang it eventually.)

Pretty easy and it looks pretty cool.

Curtain

I feel kind of lame for "bragging" about this, but I promised a picture. Here's our new shower curtain:

Note: There is a clear liner on the inside.

Home.

We've been living in our new house for almost six months now, but it still doesn't quite feel like it's home yet. Apart from the master bedroom, we haven't painted upstairs at all, there are a ton of pictures that still need hanging, the office/guest room still needs to be unpacked, the backyard is a barren wasteland, and the carpet, bathroom, and cheap blinds still have many visible signs of the messy people who lived here before us. Slowly I have been conquering little projects, but there is just a ton of work to do. And not nearly enough money to accomplish it all any time soon. And I procrastinate.

So last night I finally sat down and did some work. I made a shower curtain for the master bathroom. Nothing horribly exciting, but I think it's pretty cool. It was made from a couple different sheer off-white window curtains and a white towel. I'm going for a neutral/warm color scheme, so pretty much everything has been white or cream colored. Nick doesn't seem super thrilled about the color scheme, but since he's not doing any of the work, he has allowed me to take full creative control over it. Go me. I will take a picture of it eventually. It's not super fancy, but it's unique and I like that.

I'm hoping that this weekend I can drag Nick with me to Jo-Ann's/Hancock/Hobby Lobby to help pick out fabric for the next major project: roman blinds for every room in the house. As much as I love having all this control, I want him to be happy with what I pick out. Hopefully it won't be too painful for all of us.

Here's my ever-growing "To Do" list for the house (don't ask me when any of this will actually get done):

• Make roman shades for living room, library, kitchen, guest bedroom, music room, loft, and Logan's room (that's 10 all together)
• Make curtains for master bedroom 
• Make canopy for bed
• Paint mural in Logan's room
• Paint loft
• Paint bathrooms (after we pick out colors, of course)
• Make floating shelves
• Rip out the ugly bush in the front yard
• Plant bulbs where ugly bush currently is
• Remove the invincible plant/weed from backyard
• Treat the sand so we can plant in backyard next year
• Replace gutters
• Force Nick to finally make art desk for me
• Make ottomans for master bedroom
• Organize closets
• Create reading corner for Logan

I seriously love Pinterest- I have found a ton of ideas for DIY projects around the house. Hopefully I will get all of it done before next summer. We'll see. Right now I have a commissioned painting to work on. 

Until next time!