Book Club Monday #23: The Munsters - A Trip Down Mockingbird Lane by Stephen Cox

I tried Grammarly's grammar and plagiarism checker free of charge to write this blog post because no one should hang out with people who use bad grammar, and I do not want to be one of those people!

Ever since I was a kid, I remember watching reruns of The Munsters on television at night and just falling in love with it. As an adult, I have spent many a weekend watching one episode after another on Netflix, and just remembering why it was such a great show. It had a great way of explaining current events in its own way, much like television shows do now. All of the characters brought something great to the show - from Lily's motherly, caring personality to Grandpa's goofy experiments and his way of regularly making everyone laugh. Or Herman and his silly ideas, and that laugh! Of course, we can not forget about Marilyn, who could never catch a break with the opposite sex.

On a recent trip to Half Price Books, I was wandering through the stacks as usual when I found this gem in the pop culture section. The Munsters: A Trip Down Mockingbird Lane by Stephen Cox came into my view pretty quickly, and I picked it up and flipped through it, and decided to buy it just by the photographs alone.

When I got it home and got into it, I learned so much about the show I've loved for so many years! The photos were just the icing on the cake I realized, once I got into it. There were chapters with character profiles, the history of monsters on film, and the history of how The Munsters made it onto television in the first place. My favorite parts of the book were the photos and the interviews, as well as the in-depth look at everyone's makeup. There was a chapter comparing The Munsters to The Addam's Family, as well as a chapter each on the films they made after the television show had its' run. As a unique beginning and ending, the foreword is by Yvonne DeCarlo and the afterword by Butch Patrick. Did you know that The Munsters were only on television for a total of two seasons? That and more was explained in the book's trivia section!

I got everything I wanted out of it and more, and I think you will too! If you know anything about The Munsters, or at least have seen it and would like to learn more, you would love this book.

We have a winner in our Diamond Candles giveaway!

Great news! The Diamond Candles giveaway ended just today, and I have a winner already! The winner is....

Jenna Thurn!

Look for an e-mail from me with your next steps today - congratulations, and thanks to everyone who entered! I have another great giveaway coming at you very soon - and hopefully you'll love it as much as I do!

Blogtember 8: Discuss ways that blogging or social media has changed you.

To start off - I don't do much shopping on Etsy, which is why you don't have a post from me for yesterday. I felt like pretending I'd bought stuff would have been awful!

It's no secret that social media as a whole has changed the way that we do things in our day-to-day lives. With Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it seems like there should be no way for us to have secrets from the world. Of course, at the same time, the oversharing drives me absolutely up a wall. As for me, though, I think it's changed me - it has made me more comfortable with sharing parts of my life I otherwise wouldn't have. It's fun to be able to post a picture on Instagram of one of my cats, or just something silly I'm doing, and have other people like it and comment on it. It's also great to be able to promote my brands (both my blog and handmade business) via an outlet like Facebook. I'm not one of those people who just sits on Facebook for hours at a time - in fact, I barely use it to communicate! It's just a good timewaster for when I have a few minutes.

As for blogging, for a long time, I always just read blogs and loved reading the stories of other people's lives. It was a bit of a double edged sword, since I've been a writer for a long time and figured there would be no reason why I couldn't do it, except for how I felt about myself and how I compared myself to others. Now, though, I've gotten comfortable enough to toss caution to the wind and just write again, which is something I haven't been able to do for years and something I can definitely thank blogging for. And I always thought it would be really difficult for me to think of new things to write, and things like that - but every once and awhile, a great idea just pops into my head and I run with it! That's one thing I love about blogging, and one thing I definitely wouldn't change.
 

How to Tuesday: Cat Tower Re-Do

A few years ago, a neighbor of mine built a great cat tower for my cat kids. All real wood and carpet, it has been a joy to have in my home. Of course, though, as the years have passed and the carpets deteriorated with the constant scratching of multiple sets of nails, the posts were looking a little worse for wear (the carpet completely worn down to the posts in a couple spots). Our carpenters at work were going to re-cover the tower for me last year, but I didn't want to take it out of my place, even for a day. So, I took to Google and figured out that I could re-cover the carpet posts with sisal rope fairly inexpensively, and it sure beat buying a piece of fiberboard crap cat furniture that I (and they) would hate every day and that wouldn't last nearly as long.

So, I set off collecting supplies! Here's the list of things you'll need:

Sisal Rope
Hammer and Small Nails (or staple gun)
Box Knife
Wood Glue

Seems pretty simple, right? What I would do, though, is before you pick up the rope, especially, comparison shop! The day I had the idea I spent $5.99 each for balls of 50 feet, and a couple of days later found balls of 100 feet at Lowe's for about $1 more! As for the rope, I picked the 5/8" diameter, but you could go smaller - though you'll need more. How much you need will depend on what you're trying to cover - for the front posts on mine, it took right around 150-200 feet. Everything else is pretty easy to find. I chose to use Gorilla Wood Glue, but any wood glue should suffice. As for the small nails, anything less than 1" should be fine - I used all small nails out of a picture hanging kit that I picked up at Target and had no issues.

Here we go, the steps:

1. Rip the old carpet off of what you're trying to re-cover with a box knife so you're left with a bare surface.

If there are staples or anything in your way, either pull them out the best you can or pound them into the wood. I cut straight down the side of mine and pretty much just yanked until the carpet came off. If you have older, flakier carpet, you'll want to have a trash bag and the vacuum handy!

2. Apply a liberal layer of glue to about the first four to five inches of the surface.

Why do I say four or five inches? If you don't have help (like I didn't), you will need to hold the rope taut and if you have too much area, it's hard to get the glue to stay sticky long enough to get all the way up a post.

3. Pound a nail into the center of the rope at the back of a post to start with. Pull the rope taut as you wrap, and add another nail every four to five wraps.

I started with a nail so that as I pulled the rope, I wouldn't have slack. The tighter the pull, the closer the rows will be together.

4. As you go, use your hammer to pound down on your rope, so you can fit more on and have a tighter wrap.

5. Repeat the above steps. Nail, wrap, repeat. And before you know it, your cats will be enjoying the fruits of your labor like Vegas is here!

Overall, it looks scary, but it was pretty easy to accomplish, and Vegas and Reno definitely appreciate my giving their favorite perch new life. In place of nails, you could definitely utilize a nail gun, but either way works. I didn't want to use too many nails since I didn't want the cats to get their paws stuck and hurt themselves, but thankfully, I haven't had any issues.

If you try this project, I would love to see how it turns out, as well as any feedback or questions in the comments!

Blogtember 6: Describe a distinct moment when your life took a turn.

While I sat and thought about this prompt, I really couldn't think of anything. I did other stuff for a few minutes, and then it came to me: my life took a turn when I decided to stop drinking myself into a stupor each and every weekend.  I was at a very, very stupid time in my life a few years ago. I didn't want to meet people in Milwaukee, so I stopped trying and just opted to go home to Green Bay every weekend. I would go out to the bar, hang out with people who didn't give a shit about me, treat my family like garbage, and all around just feel stupid when I finally got my head back on straight. But did that stop me? Of course not. I decided to just keep going, and going, and going, until finally, it hit me.  It was 3 AM, I had just gotten home from the bar and was eating some kind of leftovers in my dad's recliner, with a true crime show playing on the TV in front of me. I wasn't drunk, but I also wasn't sober, either. It hit me like a ton of bricks: you haven't done anything constructive in months. And it was true! I hadn't been making anything, writing, or doing anything good. I was pissing all of my money away every weekend to hang out in a shithole of a bar two hours away from Milwaukee with people who could care less about me. What a horrible way to live. And it just hit me from there. I had to pick up, do something, anything, that wasn't what I was doing. Since then, I've been living a lot differently. I focus on positive things, like creating. And writing. My job, that I love more than anything. And friends. And building up a great life, just because that's what I'm supposed to do.  To be honest? I haven't ever looked back to that life.