Red Label Bud

Me: "We're Rednecks, aren't we?"
Hub: "Ah...No. We definitely are not Rednecks."
Me: "Are you sure? Because it seems to me like we're Rednecks, and maybe I'm just in denial."
Hub: - garbled sound -
Me: "If you KNOW we're Rednecks, but you're keeping it from me, you need to come clean...because I'm pretty sure we're Rednecks.
Hub: "I have no words."
Me: "Because we're Rednecks and I've finally figured it out and now you're dumbstruck."
Hub: - more garbled noises -

So, you know how some days you look in the mirror and think, "My GAWD, I'm ugly. How did I get like this? I think, at some point, I used to be cute. What the hell happened?"

I call these Ugly Days and they are usually remedied by throwing away all of my old makeup and helping someone at the Clinique counter make her daily sales quota, or by completely changing the color of my hair, or by buying several pairs of new shoes.

I had my first Ugly House Day the other day.

The kitchen renovation - 19 months later - STILL is not complete.

The windows need reglazing. How can I tell? Panes of freaking glass are falling out of our 60-year-old six-over-sixes. I get a breeze without opening the window. THAT's how.

The yard is a DISASTER: unmulched beds filling with poison ivy. Untrimmed hedges growing out into the street, unpruned shrubs growing up over windows. Our house looks like a hermit lives there. Of course, it has rained every freaking weekend for the past two months, so it's been tough to do yard work, but...don't Rednecks always have excuses?

Note to Mel: I did remove the tape from the windows we painted two months ago. You shamed me. Thanks for the intervention. I needed that.

This is not right. My sister would not live like this. My mother would not live like this. Granted, they are stay-at-home sorts of people, which is wonderful, but while I mostly work from home that doesn't mean that I can just run outside and trim the hedge in the middle of the day. Because I'm, you know, working.

During the week I rarely have enough free time to beat down the cobwebs let alone paint the garage - the NAKED garage. The poor garage whose cheap, crappy paint was slopped on by previous owners and has long since washed away. I am convinced this house was inhabited by gypsies before we moved in.

So today I checked into the Venetian in Las Vegas - see previous posts if you are confused as to how I truly feel about Vegas (ugh). Except that this time, when the hotel room door closed behind me, I said - out loud and to no one - Holy SHIT!

The room...the suite...for I am in a King Suite is to. die. for. Those pictures above? My hand to God, they were taken with my telephone camera, not downloaded from the Interwebs.

Hell, if every room I had in Vegas looked like this, I'd like this place a WHOLE a lot more.

So this is how "the other half" lives. Except that the other half is actually only The Other Twelve Percent. Especially in this economy - which is how my company could afford such kick-ass rooms. Apparently hotels are giving them away.

I am here for a week. A Week. This room is amazing. I may never leave.

The bad news is this: the problem at home, clearly, is NOT that I've forgotten how to appreciate my surroundings. I clearly am still able to recognize and appreciate beauty and luxury. Which just reinforces for me that Hub and I live like freakin' hillbillies.

Something. Must. Be. Done.