The Reality of $20

For a brief moment, I’d like to invite you on a trip back to 1988. When I was in college, my parents used to give me $20 a week for spending money. Granted, I was on scholarship, lived in the dorm, and my meals were paid for. (Well, my normal three meals a day – not the 2 AM – after the bars closed down - eating frenzy that put 20 pounds on my already big enough butt.)

Anyhoo! Knowing full well that $20 wasn’t a lot of money, I could stretch it beautifully. My friend Rebecca had the car (Becca I know that I am indebted to you for the rest of my life for gas money and back seat road sign stealing repairs.) Since she had the car, and I was a huge moocher, I didn’t pay for gas. Becca would pick me up Sunday evening and drive us both to school. On the way, we would detour a bit and pay our weekly homage to the bootlegger. The bootlegger lived in a house with a circle drive. We simply pulled up, blew the horn, and someone would appear and take our order. $5 later, I had a six pack of hot bud light. (It was college, ok?! We drank it hot if we had to.)

That was Sunday and I had $15 left. No mater what happened, come hell, high water, a natural disaster, or war I needed to save another $5 for Wednesday night. That was Shenanigans night. That was ladies night - $5 to get in the door with a fake ID, and all the beer you could drink for free. Done. If I didn’t have $5 of my $20 left, that meant I was borrowing $50 cents from every person I knew to cover my cover – so to speak. Believe me, I have done this before. Once or twice is charming, more than that is not cool. After a night of partying on Wednesdays we usually stopped off at some Crusty Crab along the drive back for food. Thursdays were hangover days and that meant grease. Which usually meant lunch at the all you can eat Pizza Inn buffet for $3.50. By Thursday night I was completely out of money, but headed home on Friday for the weekend.

Why am I telling you this? I suppose as a reality check. In 1988, $20 bought me all the fun I had to pay for in a week. The rest was mooched and free. Yesterday $20 bought me 5 gallons of gas. Not even a half a tank, folks. If yesterday were 1988, I would have been screwed. Perhaps the lack of funds would have forced me to stay in my dorm and study. Maybe the reality check is not so much that $20 doesn’t go very far these days…. but that if I had studied the first time around instead of partying like a rock star, I wouldn’t still be taking classes today.

You Say Goodbye; But I Say Hello

Hello? Hello? I don’t know why you say good-bye; I say hello. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about my latest trip to Target. I’m talking about my golf game. After 6 months of the winter blues, and a season opening trip to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy a new putter, I’m back out on the golf course. Last week was kick-off of my weekly golf game with Foreplay. (My fun foursome gal pal golf posse – aka Wik, Jugs, Gracie, and GG.)

I’m the first to admit that I am not that great of a golfer. There are some golfers out there who are worse than me, but my girly golf shoes won’t be gracing any LPGA greens. Ever. And I’m ok with that. Besides, I’m straight. (Did I just say that in my out-loud voice?)

At the end of last season, I was getting close to an occasional par…. mostly bogeys or double-bogeys. (I seem to always choke on the par – like a big old chicken bone in the throat - choke.) But, par wasn’t that far out of my reach. Then Jack Frost rolls around, and poof! Golf game gone. Twice out this spring and I’m back to stinking like a big ‘ol dead skunk on the side of a dirt road. My little pink noodle ball is lying there motionless just laughing at me. She’s looking up at me going “Come on.. come on dumb ass.. hit me if you can – you silly little girl-golfer.” I’m hacking at it like I’m trying to kill a 6 foot long python in my back yard. When little pink noodle wasn’t just sitting there, she was getting comfortable perched in the middle of a bush, wedging herself between rocks, flocking to the nearest sand trap, or hiding under a tree like a pretty little Easter egg. Well, it ain’t Easter, sister.

I know it’s early, so I’m completely optimistic. So for now, I will resign to chasing the noodle. In the end, I WILL get that par.

Hela, heba helloa

The Peacock Stays, Two Sets of Curtains, Four Rugs and Counting….

Yet again after 5 different shades of green splashed all over the walls of our study, I decide on Chopped Dill. Ahhhhhh. I love this color. It looks so pretty across the hall from the dining room and the Odendaga Clay. I’m feeling funky-fied and little bit color feng shui’d all at the same time.

A few months back when this project was a mere speck on my brain (before there was even a feather in my peacock), I bought a rug. My peoples know that I likes me animal print. So, of course I bought a zebra rug. No. I do not think this is classy, sophisticated, or even trendy at this point. I liked it, so I bought it. It makes me laugh. End of story. Unfortunately, it did not go with my Pier One lottery curtains. So, what to do? New curtains, of course! I go back to Pier One and get the second set of curtains – ones that I had hoped would go with my zebra rug. They did not. As things usually go for me, I loved the curtains so much… that the zebra rug had to go.

Now I know what you are thinking. Kim! Stop the madness! People – I say this with every ounce of integrity I have left. I simply can’t. I cannot rest until it’s perfect. So I charge on. With all of my Pier One excursions, purchases and returns, believe it or not I still have a store credit. (Again, see How I Won the Pier One Lottery.) So I go on the hunt for another rug. Back to Pier One, I find a $300 rug for $37! I’m not kidding. This Pier One lottery gift card is the gift that keeps on giving. Unfortunately, that rug didn’t work either. Back it went. For now I’ve settled on a Target rug that is sitting there taking up space until the perfect rug jumps into my car and makes its way into my insane life.

With everything in place, we are ready to hang my piece de resistance. My peacock. After searching the house top to bottom for the stud finder, and then replacing batteries in said stud finder, Greg sets to work. Ten minutes later, it’s up. It’s beautiful, and it’s perfect for the room. We step back, take a look, and I exclaim “Oh, Greg. Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you love it?” His answer – “Oh, it’s you alright. It’s totally you. It fits your personality perfectly. You’re crazy! Crazy like a fu**ing peacock.”

I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.

The Peacock and The Gas Tank – Who was the Bigger Retard Here?

This is a long one, folks. So saddle up for a true Caccavo retard adventure.

Still in the middle of Project Spread-age. Dining room complete, moving across the hall now to the study. My house had been turned upside down for weeks at this point. I was nearing the end of this nightmare when we were off to our first family Nats game of the season. (Washington Nationals vs. Atlanta Braves.) We were all super excited as this was our first family trip to the new Nationals Park. (Translate – Greg did NOT want to be late.)

In the previous week, I had made yet another trip to Pier One where I purchased yet another piece of art for the study. As things usually go with me, I hated it and it had to go back. I remembered seeing this really beautiful wooden picture of a peacock. Yes, you heard me correctly, I said peacock. I remembered that it was really big, though. How big? An unfortunate slip of the brain….

I needed two things in order to make operation peacock swap a success 1.) Greg 2) His van. I knew that this would be the only day in the near future that I could catch both Greg and his van in the vicinity of a Pier One. So, me being the ever-resourceful person that I am (toot toot goes my horn), thought “Great! We can load up the ugly picture that I hated and exchange it for the peacock picture on our way back from the Nats game.” So off we go……

We left the house approximately three hours before game time. The boys needed haircuts first, so we stopped off to get that done along the way. Greg says “I’m dropping you and the boys off so that I can go get gas and cash.” A time-saving plan – I love it. The boys finish up much faster than we thought so now we have about two hours before game time. Back in the car we go, and I suggest we just go to Pier One now so that operation peacock swap is complete and we don’t have to stop on the way back. (I’m always looking for a time-saving plan.)

Some would argue that size does not matter. I can inform you that in the case of the newly acquired Caccavo peacock, size did matter. I had not realized the peacock was so big. Like 5 feet tall and 50 pounds big. In my mind – whatever! I had to be had. So it was had. As Greg is waiting for me, he circles the parking lot and returns to find a large box with two hands poking around each side, two sneakers underneath, and a Washington Nationals tee shirt flapping in the wind. Shock and horror set in as he realizes those body parts belong to his wife, and we now have to load this thing into the van. Again, after a few choice words, the removal of the kids, the repositioning of seats, and 10 minutes of sweat and swearing, the peacock is wedged in between the boys and we are on our way to DC. To say the least, no one is happy with me at this moment.

A few miles down the road. Sniff. Sniff, sniff. What is that smell???? Ok – when Greg said he was going to get gas, I assumed he meant in the van. Not the plastic gas tank that he uses to fill the lawn mower. The same gas tank that has now spilled in the back of our van. On our way to DC. Are you kidding me? There is a gas station less than a mile from our house. I’m not sure why he felt the need to fill up a plastic gas tank that would travel with us for 60 miles to DC, and then 60 miles back from DC, as well as sit and fumigate the van in the hot sun. Please God, don’t let one of the kids fart and blow us to kingdom come.

So here we are on our way to DC smelling like shit with a big ass peacock perched in the middle of the van in all its glory. Four pissed-off Caccavos, and a day at the ball park to go. I’ll let you decide who was the bigger retard in this adventure.

Project Spread-age

So in the middle of the kitchen face lift (see How I won the Pier One Lottery) below, A very Kim and Greg thing happened. Before we went to Pier One and bought our kitchen furniture, we first looked around at furniture stores. Big mistake. In the door with kitchen furniture on the brain turned into out the door with a new dining room set. This meant one thing. The dining room had to be redecorated. Which meant just one more thing. The study across the hall had to also be redecorated. Sigh. Project Spread-age begins.

I had been anticipating these two projects for over a year. I just couldn’t find what I wanted… and I wasn’t sure of the colors that I wanted to use… yada yada yada. I knew that whatever I decided to do had to now blend in with my new kitchen and my freak-nasty hot orange chairs. So back to the source I went. Pier One.

Let me just say that I do my best shopping (ok – damage) when I am in a hurry. I was on my way to get my hair cut (ok FINE – colored) when I decided just to “pop in for a bit.” Within 20.4 minutes, I was on fire and used my lottery winnings (aka gift card) to purchase curtains, pillows, and an enormous piece of art for my dining room wall. (Barely got it in the car – so thank you nice Pier One associate with the magical art/car seat maneuvering techniques.) You rock.

Alas – ½ of the idea for project spread-age was born.

Now although you have never seen me paint - let me tell you that I am the queen of painting. In the five years of East Chincoteague living, I have painted every inch of every wall, in all sixteen rooms of that house. Some more than once. Some more than twice. Its common knowledge that I am insane, but I accept this.

After purchasing three gallons of the wrong shades of red (I was just sure I had it right every time!), 5 trips to the paint store, and 4 more sample colors strategically painted (ok splattered) all over the wall for “testing” purposes (thank you Benjamin Moore for creating little sample sizes), Odendaga Clay became the color of choice. Unfortunately, I didn’t get finished with this nightmare before my husband came home, saw all of the evidence, and told me that I had turned our house into, what looked like, a murder scene.

How I won the Pier One Lottery

It had been a good 5 years on Chincoteague Ct. But it was time for little nip tuck action. Before you start thinking that I got that much needed lipo, tummy tuck, or botox treatment – rest assured that I am still au naturale. This nippin’ and tuckin’ was of the redecorating kind. We decided that since the kitchen was the heartbeat of 301 East, it would be the first to get the face lift. In true Caccavo style, one project always spreads like a giant cancer, but I will save “project spread-age” for another post.

The first thing we did was to update a few appliances. We stuck with black because, frankly, the only other thing I would go to would be stainless and kid-boogers and finger prints aren’t synonymous with stainless.

We changed our counter tops to a nice earth-tone brown granite, and thus the kitchen table and chairs search began. Thankfully that hunt was short-lived because one trip to Pier One and I was in love. The chairs were orange, they were leather (translate: booger-retardant), and they were fabulous. They were not, however, on sale. After a minor furrow of the brow, a flinch, and a few choice words, he hands over the check book. (Yes, that would be Greg.) A few minutes later, they were mine. Ohhhhh lovely, lovely, mine.

A month or so later, my beloved Catherine calls me up on a Saturday to tell me that she had just left Pier One where my faboo-new orange chairs were - shock and horror – now on sale! Not only were they on sale, they were on big time sale. Now normally, I am not so ballsy. But I grew a pair that day, and gave them a buzz. After a two minute conversation, I was in the car on my way to the store where the lovely folks at Pier One (my new favorite store) gave me a three-hundred-dollar gift card store credit. Cha-ching! Can I just say – I love you Pier One.

Of course, in true Kim fashion, there is much much more to this story… Stay tuned…..