Diapering A Couch

Today was a small victory for us!  Finally after more than a week of feeling like I live in one of those back alleys with all the upturned furniture and garbage everywhere, a hobo warming his hands over a barrel with a fire blazing inside...yes that is the picture I had in my mind everytime I lay eyes on my living room. Finally the couch is in the upright and locked position with cushions on it and everything!

There was still one spot that smelled like pee on the cushions that you lean on.  I sprayed the crap out of it with Renuzit spray and waaaalaaa it smells beautiful now.  Also steam cleaned the entire thing underneath with my new gadget :)

I screwed the legs back on and shoved the quilt batting stuff up between the springs and the cloth that the cushions sit on.  We had to get rid of some of that stuff so instead of buying more I used 4 of the cloth diapers that I had left over from when I was all hippie natural earth mommy and had bought a ton of them.  Of course I gave most of them to Goodwill about a month ago so I only had enough to do one area.  This is why I hate getting rid of stuff.  But I do it to make other people happy!!!

Now what to do with the cushions.  They are made of this thick yellowish foam that soaks up moisture and doesn't let it go.  Ever.  Even if I hold a hair dryer to it or let it sit out in the sun for days.  SO I first steamed the hell out of it with the Annihilator attachment on the Shark and then held the Renuzit spray can right up against it and let loose.  Now that the cushion foams smelled like what I can only assume its like to hang your laundry outside on a fresh spring morning it was time for a more prophylactic approach.

I grabbed the Dollar General drop cloths (remember, for $1.50 you get a sheet the size of the moon), spread them out, and laid one piece of foam on one.  Using my Christmas wrapping skills I badly judged how much I would need to wrap, or as I like to say diaper, these bad boys.



I cut the plastic and then grabbed the clear packing tape.  You know, for aesthetic reasons.  I secured the plastic so that none of the foam was showing and then shoved it into the slip cover.  WAY easier to put that foam into the slip cover when its lubed up with plastic!  Shot right in!  I then put the quilt batting stuff in the top of the slip cover, spread a piece of plastic on that also for good measure, and zipped her up.  Good as new!


After I had all the cushions wrapped I excitedly brought them into the living room and shoved them into the couch.  It looked like nothing had ever happened!  Sure, when you sit down you slide around a bit and it makes a crinkly sound, but that's better than buying a new one for $1800!!

 Update:  I wrote this a couple of weeks ago but didn't publish it.  It is now March 1 and still no cat pee!  What worked, you may be wondering?  I put the cat litter box back in the dining room next to our freaking table where it was when we first got Mr Kitty.  Apparently he is a total basket case and can't handle change.  We had had it in the laundry room which is the only other option in my house and he was fine with it until we acquired the 3rd cat which apparently triggered some kind of psychosis or something.  Now we are back to dealing with him taking a huge dump every time we sit down to eat (I swear he times it), but at least we have a place to sit when we are watching TV!

My New Steam Cleaner & Me!

In the midst of my panic about the couch last week I went online to good ol' Wally World and bought me a Shark Portable Steam Pocket cleaner!  I had a gift card we had received from my husband's relatives for Christmas that in my usual swiss cheese headedness had stashed away for just such an emergency...somewhere!!!  I frantically searched the counter and its vast possible hiding spots and within 15 min I did find it!  

The Steam Cleaner got here on Tuesday and when I opened the box I wondered, where do I put all this crap???  There are a TON of attachments of various awkward shapes and sizes.  And no case to put them in!  

This attachment scares me!

I steam cleaned this filter that goes in my vacuum that normally smells like a monkey's butt and now it smells fine!  I just saved myself whatever one of these things cost!  

My favorite attachment:  I like to call it "The Annihilator"

The white hair clip is there to hold the trigger down as they neglected to put a lock so you don't have to squeeze the handle the entire time you are cleaning!  I'm stho sthmart!

About to be used to clean the counters.  Ain't no bugs on me!

I have steamed part of the couch and also coated the couch again in vinegar and baking soda and Resolve...and am going to steam it again!  So far Mr Kitty hasn't peed on it in 48 hours...

Curse Of The Tax Return Part 2

Now you may be wondering why I titled both my posts "Curse of the Tax Return"  as I have not yet mentioned anything about said tax return.  See, these little events which all cost money happened just after I filed for our tax return and found we were getting enough money back to pay off some debts that we have been dealing with for a couple of years, and then hopefully SAVE some, you know, like in a savings account?

Well I guess I never should have said the "S" word out loud!!!

Doesn't he look so cute and innocent?

The subtitle of this post is "How to Clean Cat Pee Out Of Your Couch Again and Again and Again!"

I am determined not to have to spend $1000+ on a new couch.  And since all of this happened during a time of the month where we have less than $50 to our name I could not exactly go out and buy expensive cleaners or take Mr Kitty to the vet to see what is wrong with him.   I had already tried using what we had left of a bottle of Nature's Miracle which is $10 and not to be found in my town. We have not been able to sit in our living room for 8 days now.  And this is not a big house.  The kids are driving me to want to drink but I can't afford a bottle of wine.

Step One:  couch prep.  We flipped the couches upside down and discovered to our horror that the pee had soaked down through the hollow part and then through the canvas-y stuff that covers the underside and then onto the floor.

I grabbed a standard head screwdriver and a pair of pliers and started yanking the staples out to remove the fabric.  I just about fell over from the stench that came wafting at me.To my dismay I saw that there is a layer of a quilt batting type material between the springs and the fabric that sits under the cushions, most likely to keep the springs from ripping through into the cushion.

It was SEWN into the main part of the couch.  UGH.  So I had to cut it away with the scissors and try to clean it too.  And so both pieces of my couch lay, naked and gutted, in the middle of the living room floor.

Step Two: Figure out how the hell to clean oodles of cat pee,both male and female, from my couch on a budget of basically $5.

We used precious money (wasted, I should say) on one of those rental carpet cleaners with an upholstery attachment from Hannaford which I thought was a steam cleaner but through my feverish haze could not go with Kris to the store to make sure.

The Rug Doctor

We couldn't afford to buy the fancy carpet cleaning fluid either so we were just using water which did nothing but make it worse.  And the cat peed on it again that night.  So the next day I went online and googled "homemade carpet cleaner" and came up with this:

3 quarts HOT water (not boiling)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup hydrogen pyroxide (might bleach out something with color)
3 tbsp blue dawn mixed into the water thoroughly
drop or two of essential oils if ya got em

They call that an "enzyme" cleaner.   Cost to make: NOTHING since I already had all this crap!!

While I couldn't really use this solution effectively on the couch I did use it on cleaning the carpets in the kids' bedrooms so as not to have completely wasted the thing.  It took out a PUKE stain from about 5 years ago that the commercial cleaner couldn't!

That stain was way darker before...wish I had taken a pic of it first!

 The stain was kind of like a grayish black splotch on the floor.  I just held the machine over it, made it spew the mixture down, and then turned the vacuum part on and it was gone!!  So that helped me feel a little better about the $40 bill.

What I did for the couch was make a mixture similar to above except added baking soda, less peroxide, and more vinegar.  I like thinking about Al's French Frys when I'm sitting on my couch.  I then took a cleaning cloth and soaked the areas with this mixture.  The springs began to rust immediately.  AWESOME.  I just ignored that little chemical reaction and kept scrubbing.  Once I was sort of satisfied we left it to dry.  I put a layer of plastic over the couch that I got for $1.50 at the Dollar General and went to bed.

DG "Drop Cloth" for $1.50 found in the Hardware aisle.

The cat peed on the plastic TWICE.  Ok, well at least its not on the couch.  I threw it away and put the cat in the basement for the night.

The next morning no pee.  Well duh he was in the basement.  So I let him out thinking maybe he'd learned a lesson (yeah right.  He's a cat.) and then went away for three hours to visit a friend.  I thought I was being smart by laying down another piece of DG plastic on it.  When I got back there was a huge puddle of pee on the plastic in the one area no one had peed on, and a hole had been clawed through it so the pee soaked into the couch. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!   When do I get to walk out and never look back?  I took a pee sample and double bagged it and put it in the fridge so when we do get money I can bring it to the vet.

I just about gave up until I had a new idea.  I found a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner that says it removes urine in the back of my kitchen cabinet.  Who knows how old it is, and who cares.   I shook it up and scrubbed the hell out of the couch.  Then I took a can of Febreze air freshener and sprayed it all over the cushions and inside the couch.  The smell was gone!  I smelled nothing but "Spring Laundry Scent".   I covered the couch in a third sheet of DG plastic and so far its been 48 hours since he has peed on it.  I'm thinking he was just stressed out from the other cat and the basement being flooded and had a mental breakdown.  I can relate but usually I just go in the closet and cry instead of peeing on things.  Maybe he's onto something...

Curse Of The Tax Return Part 1

Mr Kitty 

This past week has been one "crisis" after another.  While I am very grateful for the things we are blessed with, such as family, a house that is big enough (just barely lol) for us all, Kris' job, and our generally good health, when something comes in to burst the little bubble that I call my life I tend to forget these things.

Things had been going along pretty good, almost too good if you ask me.  Kris is starting to enjoy his job more, Autumn's behavior got better, and the other kids weren't hating school.  I had a bit of a handle on the housework and was getting out more.  Clinical depression tends to make me hermit-y and I've been trying to fight it.

When you build yourself up the devil will knock you down.  Yes, I believe in evil.  I believe in Satan.  How can I not if I profess my faith in Jesus and my belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God!  One thing I do not want to be is a hypocrite (so hard).  And I do feel that once and awhile a thorn is sent to my side to keep me and my ridiculous (and mostly secret) ego in check.

The things that have happened to me this week are not life threatening, they are not disastrous or devastating (well they are starting to make me feel that way but they really aren't) and in the grand scheme of things they really do not matter any more than a drop of water matters when it disappears into a lake.  But unfortunately things always seem worse when the little stuff piles up and makes a big mess. 

Where is the snow???  Its February in Vermont!!

My front "yard"

Last Friday after the third of a series of 40+ degree days here in Vermont (its supposed to be WINTER) the small bit of snow melted, and it rained heavily.  Our house is apparently a low spot for the immediate area and all the water running down the sidewalk and sitting on the ice that fills our front yard started to channel towards our house and directly into the large well window in our basement.  That window can only drain so fast, as it has gravel at the bottom, and it overwhelmed the seal of the cement and poured in.  Just as I was texting my friend about how we were lucky so far our basement hadn't--oh crap!!!

Seriously I was walking down the basement stairs writing that with my thumbnails when I stepped in and splash!

We had gotten cocky, comfortable even, after the flooding of 2011 Spring had given us 6 weeks of a living hell (again, not nearly as bad as the real Hell).

Last Spring's fiasco

We had to go out this time and buy a utility pump.  $100 later I was standing out in the driveway pumping water from the large pad of ice to the backyard as far as it would go.  Wearing blue rubber boots with red tomatoes on them.  Sexy.  My toes kept going numb as I stood out there with my garden shovel, hacking channels in the ice to try to divert the water away from the house.  You may be asking, "Where was Kris?"  Well I will tell you. He was furiously trying to get everything off the basement floor and back into the garage just like last year.  I was quite enjoying myself hacking the crap out of that ice. Sure, I couldn't extend my forearm completely for about 4 days but you should have seen my biceps.  No flap underneath!! 

The basement was only the first little issue.  That resolved within 2 days.  The water actually drained out through the cracks in the floor and we shop vac'd the rest.  During the watery part of the incident we had to purge out my sister's cat that we had decided to take on as she moved to Virginia suddenly and couldn't bring her along.  She had been hiding in the basement for 3 weeks from the circus that is my life.  I'm a bit jealous.  She came upstairs to the chagrin of Shadow and Mr. Kitty and at first things seemed like they would be tolerable.

Kitkit, the former basement cat

Then on Wednesday morning Alicia said, "Mom, the couch smells funny right there" and pointed to the cushions on the right arm of our beautiful 2 year old sectional.  There was a large wet splotch that covered half each of 2 cushions and also had soaked into the upper cushion flap that you lean against.  It smelled like girl cat pee (yes there is a difference) and it was a very large amount so I knew it was not our 6 month old kitten.  Kitkit (basement cat) apparently had decided to mark her territory.  I always thought only males did that.  Now I know better. 

Shadow, the mostly innocent cat.  Pretty sure she peed on the first pee though...can't prove it!

I decided to deal with it later as I had to get Alex to his morning band practice.  I ran upstairs and immediately could smell something foul.  I kept saying to myself "please not on my bed anywhere but my bed".  And there it was.  A steaming pile of cat shit right on the soft blanket on my as-of-yet unmade bed.  I screamed obscenities, flushed the pile of crap down the toilet, and dealt with the blanket later.  A few hours later I walked into the living room.  There was a smaller fresh pile of cat pee on the same spot (but where the cushion had been, as I was washing it) and another pile of cat shit on the throw rug.  You can see where I'm going with this. 

Kitkit had had an appointment with the shelter all set up when we decided to try taking her into our home, and I'm glad we did not cancel it.  We really wanted to keep her as her personality is great and she's super sweet...but three cats is too many.  On top of all this I came down with a nasty head cold that required me to keep a tissue shoved up my nostrils at all times or disgusting things would flow out of my nose.  You could say I'd reached my breaking point.

Even with Kitkit gone Mr Kitty continued to pee on the couch.  The couch has been torn apart for 1 week now and our bedroom has become the new living room, with Autumn saying to me "Mommy sit on couch with me" and pointing to my pillow.  Last night I had to brush pretzel crumbs out of my sheets.  Not cool!!!

Too be continued...

Time For A Change

Phew long time no write.  Like months.  I've started so many posts but never finished them.  BUT right now I do have something exciting (for me) to write about.  I had the opportunity to work (yes real work, the kind that makes you a little sweaty) helping paint in a local restaurant.  It gave me the decorating bug.  And no, there isn't a cream for that ;)

I have decided that I am going to redecorate my bedroom.  Well, I should say DECORATE since redecorating insinuates that it was ever done in the first place.  I have lived in this townhouse for holy crap going on 8 years! And there is still primer on every wall upstairs except for what was once the nursery and is now Alex's room.

In 2005 on my bedroom wall I gleefully pasted up a huge wallpaper mural of a tropical waterfall thinking that I would really enjoy gazing at it during these long Vermont winters.  I ordered it off Ebay for $80 and put it up myself with the help of a friend who also had no clue what he was doing.  It was hung off center, slightly crooked, and probably with way too much paste.  2 or 3 days later a small child from next door came over with his mom and I was showing my masterpiece to them.  I had my back turned to the wall talking to the mom, and when I turned to look at it I saw her child peeling one of the overlap edges (the mural is 6 separate pieces that you have to match up and overlap) the way you would peel a sunburn that wasn't quite ready yet.  Little scraps of my beautiful waterfall were falling to the ground.  I shrieked, tried not to swear, and his mom took him home.

You can see the damage to the left of the lamp.

 It was ruined from then on out for me.  Its hard to imagine you are quietly perched on the edge of a rock in front of a lush rain forest waterfall if there's a big white scallopy rip in it!!!!!  Boo!!

So now a bunch of year later I am at a turning point in my life where I want a grown up room.   After observing how the decorative finisher worked at the job I was at I have gleaned there are three steps.  First, you need to pick something that you really really like.  Then you need to decide which colors would go with that theme and also match something that you want to work around in your room.  Third you need to do something that makes that room really special.  A flourish.  A unique trait that makes you (or whoever) say "WOW that is cool!"

Here is my room:

The bathroom and closet doors facing East

Shadow the Siamese posing on my bed.

The West wall.  Yes it looks like total crap in there I know!!!

What I hide behind the closet door.  Seriously put NO thought into this room ever.

Here are my three steps.

My object d'inspiration (total fake french) is....Chinese cork sculpture!  HA!  What is that you say?  It is this:

Aren't they beautiful?  I think so.  My favorite is the one on the left.  But I like them both.  SO because I am choosing these to be inspired by I therefore am going to do an Asian theme all around.  In January, when we can't open or unplastic any windows.  That's how I would roll, if I were to roll.

For colors I chose an olive-ish green and a medium gold.  Well that is what the paint chips looked like in the store.  When I went to get the paint mixed the green came out ok since it was a real color, Aventurine.  But the gold color I wanted to have them custom mix from my bedspread (which is green and gold).  It came out light brown.  Blech.  Luckily they saw that it was not even close and didn't make me buy it.  In the end we held up the pillowcase to the paint chips that were already displayed and found one called Midas Gold.  

I think I am going to paint the wall with the windows gold, the rest of the room green, and the bathroom and walk in closet gold.  I also plan to take my old school transparency projector and paint silhouettes of the trees you see in the scultptures above, along with silhouettes of butterflies and birds here and there.  

Here are a few ideas that I found while perusing the web:

Over my bed I want to put four shelves.  I want the lowest one to be a little wider than the bed itself, and then going upwards each one will be about a foot shorter.  Then I want to drape a darkish brown fabric from the top center to create a pagoda look. 

 I also want to make a head board piece using plywood, foam, and fabric. This looks somewhat simple to make:

Using geisha fabric like this:

 This fabric has both the green and gold in it, and I love how it kind of tells a story.  I think it would be fun to use.

Here are some pics of poor Kris peeling off the wallpaper one tiny scrap at a time:

 My next post is going to be about the furniture I recently acquired for this room...if I get time to type it this year! :)

Crack Potting with Autumn

Little Autumn has been getting what I can only assume are night terrors every night since Tuesday of this week.  The first night I was able to deal.  Now it has been 4 nights and I'm starting to crack.  She never was up much as a baby.

Somehow in my foggy pre-coffee haze on Thursdsay (or was it Wednesday) I managed to recall that I had bought a slightly expensive cut of meat to make a pot roast with a few days earlier.  It was sitting in the fridge waiting to be remembered.  I hauled out the shiny unused in a few months crackpot and started dumping crap in.

Autumn wanted to see what I was doing and then said "Mommy!  I help?"  Part of me was saying "Go watch Nemo for the 800th time (probably not an exaggeration at this point) and let me be" and then I vaguely remembered blaming my mom for giving up trying to teach me to cook and pulled up the stool.



I tried to let her dump the Onion Soup Mix in but for some reason she was scared of it.  She tried to eat the raw potato as she thought it was an apple so that was a no go.  So I dumped the bag of baby carrots (yes I'm too lazy to buy the cheaper adult carrots and peel them.) into a dish and showed her how to throw them in.  "Its like throwing rocks into the lake, honey."  I said.

She likey that idea and started to pick up the carrots, one by one, and toss them in saying "I did it!  I did it!" with each one.



 There were about 60 carrots I would say, and since she had to do her victory dance after every win it took a little while.

8 hours later (hey, its a crackpot, it takes that long!) my husband was saying that it was the best meat he had had in a long time.  My friend Nancy says that is the secret (shhh).  Don't cook for your man for about 6 months and then when you do he finds it DELISH!  I have got this down pat.

Out Of Touch

We have been internetless for almost 3 weeks now!  I have to write blogs in Notepad and then go to the library or a kind friend's house and post them!

We got rid of the internet because of its cost.  I can't believe how much cable companies charge for "high speed" internet.  We had a great deal with Comcast at first and when that ran out it kept going up every month and was going to top out at 72$ a month!  We have only basic cable which is less than $20 a month.  My husband hasn't had any work at his second job for months now and that really has forced us to cut way back. Thank God that his regular job gives him a free bus pass and that the bus comes to our town and picks up within walking distance.  For the first time in my life I have had to turn down doing things with family and friends due to gasoline prices.  Some would say this builds character or teaches me a life lesson of some sort.  I say its a reflection of the sad times our nation is facing.  Gas will cost $3.65 at 9:00am and $3.72 at the same station 4 hours later.  Someone needs to stop this madness.  The world is going online and we can't afford it!!


The temporary solution with a permanent side effect has been to use the Public Library!  Ours is within walking distance, has free wi-fi, and you can bring your own computer/device to hook up to their unsecured connection.  Of course one has to be careful with that but for checking and writing emails, updating blogs, uploading photos, etc. it is perfect.  My only problem is I can rarely go without Autumn and she is not exactly library material yet.  Plus they are not open on holidays, Sundays, and some evenings they close at 5 instead of 8.  But its better than nothing!  The best part is that I am reading books again!  Haven't done that in years.

There was also another cost for having such easy access internet at home.  I was spending most of my days online and doing the bare minimum of being a SAHM in between Facebook posts and reading news sites.  I personally feel that I wasted much of the summer except the last 2 weeks.  My back hurt daily from sitting in bad positions as I have no good place to use the computer except on the kitchen table or the counter top.  I did not get in very good shape as I had planned because when you are in your 30's and sit on your butt for 80% of the day the weight does not exactly fall off you!  It kind of settles in to squishy parts.  I also barely took any walks and walking has always been something that has defined me.  I try to use the 3 kids as an excuse but most of the time at least one of them was in summer camp...!!

I have a wonderful opportunity to operate my church's website and other online doings.  This means I will need to use the internet!  But in order to avoid falling back into bad habits we are going to do something a little non-traditional.  I am going to purchase a device to use as a wi-fi hotspot.  Verizon has a hotspot that does nothing else but be a hotspot.  There is also a chance for us to get an iPhone which we could tether because we have a discount for a new phone waiting for us...we haven't firmly decided yet.  We can't get either one until mid-September when our finances will have a little more breathing room.  Either way I am excited to be involved in our church in more than just attendance.

Well I am off to read the latest book I got at the library:  In The Plex by Steven Levy.  Its all about how Google was born and raised.  If I can't use the internet I might as well at least read about it!!