wacky hijinks at the holla house

WANTED: Dead or alive

2006-09-14T21:59:00.000-04:00

WANTED: Dead or alive. Actually, only dead. If found alive, please kill and dispose of.

I am sure many of you have heard the stories of our unwanted creatures here in the Holla House. The raccoon, tried once, wasn't a fan of our bagels and hasn't returned (of course, having no entrance hole helps). But spider crickets, camel crickets, sprickets, evil creatures with abnormally long antenneas, far too many legs and a thorax that spills out gross insides when smashed, are gross, gross, gross bugs that frequent our home too often.

I somehow became Captain Camel Cricket Ciller (I know how to spell Killer, but I am a big fan of alliteration and while it is present without the misspelling, it is more fun with it). Since these bugs tend to like the cold, dark spaces they are most often found in the bottom two levels, which also inhabit Meg, Becky and myself. It is not uncommon to hear, "Erin....(in an unsteady, scared voice) eeeeee. Oh, gross." This is when I take the flip-flop off my foot or search for one of the many sets of Reef sandals in the house (this weapon has been proven most successful in completing the task at hand, in the least amount of swats). I creep slowly towards the prey and bring the sandal as close the 6-legged creature so it doesn't sense it's impending death. With one quick *SMACK* I smush the ugly sucker. If I was successful with the first shot, I rewind my swing and go again with ten times more speed, often causing bug juice to spew on Meg's floor, hehehe. I like to make sure this thing doesn't come back to life or do that gross thing chickens do when their heads get cut off. If I am off my game and miss the ugly sucker with my first shot, it usually jumps and starts going crazy. I regain my composure and attempt again. This gameplan changes if there are perhaps multiple spider crickets in one area so I have a better chance of killing all of them.

Again, these creatures are apparently blind, but they seem to find the most inappropriate places to be, i.e. my pillow, Meg's bed, our bathroom, our shower, our new couch, closets and any place on bottom two levels.

With six ladies and two months behind us we continue to find these unwelcomed visitors. So, if any of our loyal readers come for a visit....feel free to bring wine and your weapon of choice in the war against spider crickets. But if you are a winner and kill one of gross suckers....next glass is on us :) erin

quirky.

2006-09-06T22:38:00.000-04:00

A few items of interest at Chez Holla. Trivia for the bored.

- Grenadine ends up on our shopping list almost as much as a gallon of skim milk...we have a good amount of Shirley Temple drinking going on.

- We've turned our driveway around to make it easier to get out onto the street in the morning...it makes sense to us but not as much to everyone else.

- Everyone in the house owns some sort of Vera Bradley bag. When we are all home and have left our bag on the chest in the front room, it looks like a VB display table.

- We all have the same notepad because Meg and Becky got them on deep discount and decided all the roomies needed one. And they are so super cute.

- We also have three different magnetic notepads on the fridge.

- And, due to the last two items, this will surprise no one: Most every morning, one roommate or another has left some sort of note to the house on the front table. Sometimes about house business and sometimes just out of niceness.

We're the cuteness. It is true.

Christine

add to the list.

2006-08-20T13:42:00.001-04:00

A quick re-organization of the cupboard brought to our attention a few more things we do not need more of in the Holla House at the time being:

- peanut butter
- honey (it could be YEARS before this is a need)
- jelly
- cake mix
- tea
- hot chocolate mix

Hmm. We might need to revise the menu at the housewarming party. Forget a barbecue. I think we need to have a sammich and cake party. Your choice: peanut butter and jelly or peanut butter and honey. For dessert, let them eat cake. With tea and hot chocolate.

Sounds good to me.

Christine

a few morsels to tide you over

2006-08-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

It has been a busy month in the Holla House, and unfortunately for our adoring fans (all two of you), the bloggin' has been slow.

I thought I'd throw you a bone and share a few amusing/interesting things about the Holla House in the past month.

- There was a meeting taking place in the main room of the house, and Erin and I were back in my room talking. We got a little restless, fired up the iTunes, and had our own little singalong. First we rocked out to Natasha Bedingfield, howling that our lives are still unwritten and ensuring all within earshot that I love you I love you I love you. Oh, and the water bottle became percussion as we did not have an egg shaker on hand. We finished out the evening with Sacred Silence, in homage to our WorkCamp experience. I sang the leader part and Erin sang the group part. I do have to admit that it was neither sacred, nor silent. I do not think we hit any proper notes, and I do believe there was just as much giggling as there was singing. My favorite part of this is that somehow the folks at the meeting had tuned us out, but Meg's super sonic hearing locked us in. The thought of her trying to seriously participate in a meeting while Erin and I are singing "saints and angels....all in heaaaaaven," not quite properly hitting that high note...well, I wish I could have seen her face. What can I say? We keep things interesting.

- You can probably count on one hand the number of nights all six of us have been at the house. Between vacations, family emergencies, retreats, and other such craziness, we've been all over the place. The good thing is that even when one or two people are gone, there are still a few of us here. Never a dull moment in this house!

- When Heather moved in, she brought a papasan with her. That brings the count to three in the house, one that could have been in the house but was given to Sarah's sister. If you feel the need to give us something, please know that we are fine in the papasan category. On the other hand, wine and chocolate is always readily accepted.

- After five (count 'em...1, 2, 3, 4, 5) appointments, Cox finally fixed things for us and we have cable, internet, and phone. All working properly. That was an ordeal. But, let it be known...don't mess with Christine. I managed to get us somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 taken off of our bill because of all of the hassle. I really am good like that.

- We're gearing up for our housewarming party. We checked out the party-ability of the house on my birthday at the end of last month, and it fared well. Even my nephew, who at the time was a week old, made an appearance. It is really the place to be.

That's all I've got right now. Much love from the HH, my friends!

Christine

H2 olla!

2006-07-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

So the wacky hijinks continue at the Holla House. On Sunday, I returned from the hospital early after discharging all my patients so I was a happy surprise to Christine. We sat and chatted for a while about the amazing-ness of our new home, workcamp and the holla hotties. Time flew and Christine ran to jump into the shower before Mass at George Mason. As I picked up things in my room I hear in the distance,
"Erin!"
I went to the steps, "Yeah?"
"Erin! I can't turn the water off."
"What?"
I run up the stairs and laugh as Christine is standing in the hallway in her bathrobe with sopping, wet hair and a very sad face. I thought she was being silly and playing a joke on me.

No. The shower would not stop. I turned the faucet, thinking in my head, "Righty tighty, lefty loosy." Nope. No good. Water is still going. I run down to the basement to turn off the water to the house...um...there are far too many knobs for me to choose from so I didn't. Christine tried one, no go. We called our landlord who drove here as fast as he could. He attempted again to turn the water off in the bathroom. The faucet had apparently been stripped. The rest of the story ends with me playing scrub nurse, handing our landlord tools as he yelled from the shower, Christine and Erin being late for Mass and eventually the shower working properly.

On another funny note. I am learning how to cook. To give background, I have burned rice, messed up ground beef and can not put spices together to save my life. So I am a sous-chef (called 'sue' for fun) for the roomies that actually have talent in the kitchen. Meg and I were preparing a Chicken and Artichoke Casserole, Meg giving me instructions and little tid-bits of info to broaden my knowledge in the hopes that I will one day make a meal on my own. Vegetable cut, rice cooked, artichokes thawed and salad prepared. Timer goes off and our guest are here. After grace, Meg begins to tell everyone what we are serving, "Chicken and ..." She stops and whispers to me, "Erin, where are the artichokes?" I kinda mutter under my breath, "In the microwave." Everyone begins to laugh except Meg who was unable to hear. "Where are the artichokes?" "In the microwave." So after much laughter and pointed of fingers of who's fault it was for the Chicken and Artichoke Casserole merely being a tasty Chicken Casserole we had Chicken Casserole with a side of artichokes.

Just to clarify, a sous-chef takes orders. I was told to thaw the artichokes....not put them in the casserole ;)

Never a dull moment...
erin

the downfall of community living...

2006-07-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

....is that we enjoy each other so much it is hard to leave sometimes!!! Especially right now, as this is so new and fresh, it is a lot of fun to be at the house and the outside world (especially responsibilities, like work) is so much less exciting! We're really loving getting to hang out with each other, set the house up, and just be silly.

A lot of people have been shocked to hear that six women are going to manage to live together under one roof. I honestly think our house is the best setup for this situation. It's a split level house, so there are three of us upstairs, one on the middle level, and two downstairs. There are three common areas (living room, dining room, and "Florida room") on the main level (and there are no bedrooms on that level) and one on the middle level (the library). This means there are great places to gather if you want to be around the roommates but also a plethora of places to escape to if you want some time to yourself. It is hard to decide which room is the favorite thus far, but the library is probably the front runner. I think so far we've spread our time over the rooms pretty equally, we like them all so much.

Alright...I have to go grab the last (hopefully) of my stuff from the old place. Just wanted to check in and let you know the Holla is still hoppin!

Christine

The unexpected visitor

2006-07-05T14:14:00.000-04:00

Day two at the Holla House proved to be just as adventurous as the first day. Upon move-in our landlord was unable to finish all the projects that he had hoped to complete. One of these projects was replacing the doors. He was unable to fit the back door into the frame which left us with a big hole in our house! Anyone who wanted to come over could just walk through the back door and wander around the house. Well, that actually happened!

Being the early bird in the group, I woke up on Monday morning at about 6:30, shortly after we got our electricity back. I went up to the kitchen to get a bagel and coffee. The only food in our whole house was a bag of bagels, four to be exact. Upon arrival in the kitchen, I noticed that two of the bagels were gone and that the rest were thrown about the kitchen. There were holes in the bagel bag. Oh my, we have mice! Well, at least I thought we had mice. I immediately called my Dad and then the landlord to insist that the door be fixed immediately.

Later in the day, once the fear of rodents had subsided, I studied the evidence a bit further. At about the same time, my father called. Here's what he told me, "Good news, Meg, you don't have a mice problem! Mice can't carry whole bagels. Bad news is that you have a raccoon problem!" OH MY! Yes, that's right. The first official visitor after move-in to the holla house was a raccoon. Nice. You've all missed your chance to sneak in the back door because it is now bolted shut, no one can enter or exit our house through this door!

Until the next visitor arrives... It's just the four of us!

Meg ;)

day one....so much fun.

2006-07-03T12:33:00.001-04:00

Four out of the six holla hotties have now taken residence at the Holla House. In great thanks to the kindness of an army of moving maniacs, we managed to move in countless bins of clothing, boxes of books, and a dozen papasan chairs. Many hands definitely made light work -- the house is starting to look like home and it is neat to see how everyone's stuff works together.

After the u-hauls were unloaded and all of the big stuff was in the house, the heavens decided to pour forth their praise and jubilation in the form of thunder and lightning. Nearly immediately after the storms began, we lost electricity. Adventure!!

We continued to go about the business of settling in to our new living space for as long as we could as the house grew darker and warmer. Candles and flashlights were located and put to good use. Meg and I giggled through the end of Evening Prayer as the closing prayer read "Free us from darkness and keep us in the radiance of your truth." Once we were done, I think I yelled, "GOD, FREE US FROM DARKNESS!"

Clearly the pioneer spirit started to fizzle. Erin headed out for dinner with her folks, Sarah drove home in search of electricity to dry her mattress pad, and Meg and I went to Bennigans to get fed as we basked in the light and air conditioning. We held out great hope that the electricity would be back on once we returned but unfortunately that was not the case.

Tired from the move, we went to our rooms and snuggled into our beds, sure that the electricity would return in the middle of the night. That was a prediction that did come true. Of course. At about 6:00 in the morning, the power returned and now we sit in a well lit, pleasently cooled house. The adventure continues in the Holla House, but I'll let Meg fill you in on the latest as far as that is concerned.

Christine