Tax Avoidance (Not Evasion)

It’s funny how, when faced with doing your taxes, vacuuming the sofa and ironing your socks become wildly appealing activities.  Suddenly, tackling that oil painting for my living room that I’ve been putting off since I moved in 11 months ago seems very urgent.  Brushing the cats’ teeth and cleaning out that “catch-all” basket of receipts, screw-drivers, lotion samples, paperclips and nail polish is just too hard to resist.

Doing my taxes really isn’t all that bad.  Because I own a business, I have an accountant who sends me a really nice tax organizer that makes the experience as painless and straight-forward as possible.  Every year, after I complete the document to return to her, I remark on how surprisingly simple it was.  And every year, I put off doing my taxes because something about it makes me want to do just about anything else.  I can’t explain it.

Today, instead of doing my taxes, I’ve done 4 loads of laundry and 1 load of dishes.  I’ve vacuumed, changed the sheets on my bed, rearranged the furniture and cleaned out the refrigerator.  Then I happened to find myself at Homegoods where I purchased 2 mirrors that were not the size I needed, but I had to have them.  Consequently, I have spent the last hour re-hanging everything on the walls in my apartment to accommodate said purchases.

At least I will have a fresh environment in which to do my taxes…whenever that may be.

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Off to French-braid Scarlett’s fur.  Doesn’t she look excited.

Y’all be responsible,

Sugarlump

Oh Christmas Tree

It’s been so long since a fresh post.  Too long really.

It’s so annoying how life gets in the way of blogging about my life.

I’ve been up to a lot of things as the holiday season picks up speed, namely getting my apartment ready to host my immediate family Christmas.

The first order of business was a tree.  I wrangled a live 8 foot Frasier fir into my jeep and then up 2 flights of stairs to my apartment.

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All by myself, thank you very much.

I just flung that puppy over my shoulder and never looked back.

I was very impressed by my achievement as I went to put the stand on the tree and realized I had no tree stand.  What a buzz kill.

What happened was that I saw a tree stand at Lowe’s where they didn’t have any garland so I decided I would just get the tree stand wherever I found garland and save myself a holiday madness check out experience.  I found garland at Home Depot and plumb forgot about that there tree stand thing.

It’s a miracle that I can make it to work with matching shoes on a regular basis.

So glad that my efforts toward time efficiency had paid off, I trudged out to my car and drove to Home Depot.  I parked my car and grabbed for my wallet in my purse.  No wallet.  Man, that day was really shaping up to be a good one.

Thoroughly frustrated by myself, I drove back to my apartment, went and grabbed my wallet and set off for my FOURTH journey for that dang tree stand.

Even though I never got out of the car at Home Depot, my pride would not allow me to drive back there for the third time in 2 hours.  So I found myself at Lowe’s, purchasing the tree stand that I had opted out of purchasing just hours earlier so I could save myself some time.

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BAH, HUMBUG, y’all,

Sugarlump

Handy (Wo)man

This precious little furball is a real trouble maker.

She gets into EVERYTHING.

And almost always leaves evidence.

“Who, me?”

I mentioned before how quickly she took to my new drapes.  I thought she was just cuddling up on them, but I should have known better.  This is Scarlett we’re talking about after all.

She likes to cocoon herself in the drapes and then have a crazy spell, which invariably results in tangled drapes.  The other day, however, she took it too far.  Literally.  Scarlett got caught in the drapes and decided to take them with her, thus pulling the drapery rod bracket out of the wall.

As the only member of the household with opposable thumbs, I had the privilege of buying new wall anchors and installing them to fix the drapes.

I also bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday while I was out buying wall anchors.  Talk about an annoying way to spend several hundred dollars.

After I played handyman again and put the vacuum together, I got Scarlett back for her destructive behavior by running my new airplane engine of a vacuum for about 10 minutes.

Scarlett does not like the new vacuum cleaner as well as the new drapes.

Y’all hurry back,

Sugarlump

Mugged

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Yesterday, I was mugged at Homegoods.  Mugged by coffee mugs, that is. I have been mugless since I moved to Tennessee.  The set of dishes I inherited came with teacups, but no coffee mugs.  I knew I wanted something interesting … Continue reading 

Apartment Update

I have been working hard to make my apartment feel like home since I moved in almost 4 weeks ago.  I brought with me most of my major furniture so I’m just missing the smaller accent pieces like a coffee table and an end table.

And barstools for my desk so I have a real place to eat a meal instead of on the sofa.

And an armoire for my bedroom, but that may take me a while to find just the one and, thanks to my closet handywork, it’s not critical.

Here’s a peak at the situation:

Currently, I have a pair of lovely storage bins from Walmart acting as my coffee table.  It’s a great look, don’t you think?

I think the label really sets it off.

And here is my end table.  Who knew that not only were the pots and pans useful, but also that the box they come in is the ideal end table height when turned up sideways?

This may start a trend.  I think it will be called “makeshift chic.”

While it may be a while before I upgrade my “tables,” I have been making considerable progress on the dreadful, soul-sucking white walls that come standard in my apartment complex.

I painted my kitchen and my bedroom in the past 24 hours and I painted my bathroom last week.  (I will post pictures once I get everything accessorized.)

My cats were super helpful with the painting.

Not.

They slept all day in the sun.

Can I be a cat?

The room in which they spent their leisurely afternoon is giving me some heartburn.  Not only does it have the makeshift tables and a chairless desk/dining table, but it also has lots of different walls that catch light very differently.  This is making it difficult to find a color that looks good on all of the walls throughout the day.

By the time I decide which color to go with, the walls will probably be covered in paint swatches, I will have taken out a loan for paint and it will probably be time to move.

I think I am up to 8 colors so far and they all are either too gray, too yellow, too green, too light or too dark. I’m seriously considering mixing some of them together to get my ideal color and then taking it to the paint store and having them color match it.

This is my “dining” area that houses my enormous desk and will also serve as a place to eat once I get some barstools…

So this is how all of the colors look on this wall.

This is the space between the living and dining areas on the window wall, which is perpendicular to the wall with the desk.  It is the darkest wall.

This is the wall opposite the desk wall on the other side of the rectangular room, behind my sofa.

I swear, these are all the same color swatches on each wall even though they look quite different.

Turning another 90 degrees, this wall is opposite the main window wall and thus receives the most natural light.  This is where we see the true colors.

Doesn’t that white make you want to cry? It does me.

And these are two more walls that form a bar-height counter around my kitchen.  That little bit of chair rail on the right is part of the desk wall.

Congratulations, we have just completed a 360 degree turn around the room.

There are actually 3 other walls that will also be the same color in my entry way, however trying to add them into the mix for consideration might just send me over the edge.

It’s a miracle that I can get dressed in the morning.

So you see, I have a lot of walls to consider and the lighting is kind of drastic, not only from one wall to the next, but throughout the course of the day since my apartment is South-facing.

These pictures make the colors look a little bit greener than they actually are, but if anyone wants to vote, please feel free to leave a comment.  (I don’t know how you will possibly describe to me which color it is since they are painted haphazardly and differently on each wall, but it’s worth a shot.)

You would think this would be easy for me since I’m a designer.  While I know exactly what to suggest for clients, it’s really hard to do my own place.  Please send help.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump