Category: Home

How It All Went Down

Stefanie Snider

aka “The Twisted Ankle Tale”:

We had just gotten home from grocery shopping, which I hate hate hate to do (why can’t the food just, like, appear?) I was on my way to the soup drawer* to put away, well, soup, and Zoey, our ginormous female cat, got under my feet. I decided to gracefully sidestep her, thus sparing both of us any trauma whatsoever…it didn’t go like that. I stepped full on her (I still don’t know which part of her) and somehow came down wrong on my foot. Cue flashing lights and little cartoon birds. My husband, C, came to my aid but I was worried I’d broken the cat’s leg or something, so told him to go look after her.

She was cowering behind a chair in the kitchen, then came out growling and spitting and hissing. She ran into the living room and attacked our scaredy cat, Jade, who held her own surprisingly well. It was all National Geographic in there; claws and fangs and spiked black fur everywhere. C ran in there and pulled them apart. He was rewarded with nasty cuts all up his arms.

Then cat piss! Everywhere! Delightful! and both cats ran upstairs.

So Zoey is behind the chair in my office, making horrific noises, and I’m trying to lure her out as I’m bawling because I’m in pain and thinking I’ve caused her serious harm, and Jade is trying to come in the room and C is dripping blood everywhere.

Finally, after wet food and treats, Zoey comes out. She’s skittish all night, but otherwise fine. The cuts on C’s arms are not so bad once clean. Jade is her normal doofy self and seems relatively unfazed. I’m left with an ankle that throbs with my pulse and a huge goose-egg on my shin where a can of soup clonked me a good one.

Moral of the story: I am not a ballerina. And I need to watch where the fuck I’m going sometimes.

*I’m not sure how the soup drawer happened. It’s just a deep drawer full of cans of soup.

A Typewriter Named Oliver

Stefanie Snider

Today I received a very special antique from my mother in law.

His name is Oliver, and he comes from my husband’s grandmother’s aunt’s mother.

He needs some love. But until I can find someone who can fix him up properly, he’s perfect just as he is. Either way, he’s going to be the crown jewel of my writing room, and will stay in our family.

Here’s hoping I can do him justice.

Dreams Take Time…And Cash.

Stefanie Snider

I’m in the midst of developing a Grand Five-Year Plan. It has glorious secrets, some of which I can’t reveal yet, but it also involves regular stuff like moving into a better house and having more money in the bank.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how it will all come together. The number one, very-most-important thing I need to work on is saving more money. For a number of my plans to come to fruition, we’ll need a sizable cushion in the bank. And I can’t count on us making more money for a while, so it’s all about budgeting and spending less.

I use Quicken already when I remember to. It’s moderately helpful, considering I don’t use half the widgets. The pie charts are pretty, though.

We use debit for most purchases. Debit isn’t necessarily the best move, because it lets you access your whole bank account ALL THE TIME, but at least it’s trackable when I remember to read the statements.

We’ve been getting better about the little things, like buying less drive-through coffee, but I still feel an unholy consumer lust when I see things like this.

Obviously, I need to get my financial shit together. And, being a word-person who can’t math, I’ll be diving into books for help. (Have any recommendations? I’d love to hear them.)

In the meantime I found some great blogs and websites that are geared to us artsy folks.

The Saddest Day is the Last Day of Vacation

Stefanie Snider

It’s my last day of vacation. A lot happened in the past two weeks.

The floor is down in the new office:
(You may remember it looking like this.)

Some things I did:

baked, set up a home office, read, wrote, published, sold some work, took on an art job, slept for days, drank 500 pots of coffee, listened to hours of late-night conspiracy radio, watched cartoons, played with the cats, hung out with the husband, hung out with friends, worked on two novels, and applied for freelance writing work.

I wish I didn’t have to go back. I wish I could work from home instead.

I’d get so much done if I could work here. I’d use breaks so productively, on things like organizing the new spaces. And going on grocery runs. And doing the laundry, in our dark, scary basement…

Shit. Well, maybe that can be the husband’s job instead.

Horrors of Home Ownership

Stefanie Snider

As you know, my most excellent husband decided it would be good for me to have my own creative space. Someplace to write, and knit, and drink tea, and have brilliant thoughts.

“Wonderful!” says I, and we commence dramatic upheaval.

Upstairs goes downstairs. Downstairs comes upstairs. Once the furniture is in place in my swank new digs, I realize the carpet is pretty shabby. And nasty. And I figure, hey, we have hardwood under there (as evidenced by my horrible cats who pull at the edges). Let’s just rip up the carpet! Sweet! I never did like that carpet anyway.

So we begin cutting up the carpet. And rolling it back. The floor looks a little…iffy…but it’s a 100+ year-old house, it’s going to have issues. My dude gets it all pulled up and

WHAT THE DEAR SWEET JESUS IS THAT.

You know how some people maybe aren’t great at stuff? And how they should just own up to that fact, and maybe not do things they don’t know how to do? Yeahhh. The previous owners of our house took it upon themselves to GLUE carpet down, on what was at some point beautiful hardwood. That picture? Totally not the worst of it. I spared you. You’re welcome.

Unspeakable horrors have occurred on this floor. I daren’t speak of it, but I’m pretty sure it’s haunted.

Tomorrow: laminate-flooring shopping, then attempted installation. Pray for our fingers.

My Assistant

Stefanie Snider

I spent today writing.
(And slacking. But trust me, a lot of writing happened.)

I’m out of words. My brain is mush.
And it appears that certain members of my staff feel woefully neglected.

This is Zoey. If I could only teach her to make coffee, life would be grand.

Never Grow Up

Stefanie Snider

I’ve been melancholy lately. Things have been weighing really heavily.

But right now, they don’t matter.

Because guess where I am.

I’M IN A FORT.

My husband made me a fort.

Then he made me weird little shadow puppets. (This one’s a jackal.)

I feel like a little kid again, and it’s the best. Ever.

Writer’s Rooms

Stefanie Snider

After yesterday’s Bag of Bones post, I got to thinking about the act of writing. It thrills me to see a character who is a writer, because other than the people pecking away at their laptops in coffee shops all over, writing is a very private act. It’s not featured much at all in movies or on tv. It happens behind the scenes. You’d no more stumble on a writer at work than you’d walk into someone’s house uninvited.

But what if you were invited, welcomed even, to see the spaces where writers tuck themselves away? Would you notice some common link, some talisman that summons the Muses?

I’m not the only one hoping to tap the magic (and be a nosy little snoop while I’m at it); The Guardian offers a whole series of peeks into the most private spaces of authors.

Have a look.