The Return

I haven't blogged or written in a very long time. Since being laid off, they only typing I do is in little blurbs on Facebook. I've noticed that my typing abilities have become atrocious. So, I thought to myself, self, you need to type more because in your job search you might have to take a typing test. At the moment you're riding the fail-boat on that skill set. So I've dusted off this old blog and I'm going to put it back to use.

Will started his new job in the warehouse today with his new schedule. We set the alarms to go off early because of the pending snow that decided to never show up. I guess I fell back to sleep, because when I woke up at 6:45 he was gone. I was dreaming about a run down bakery with terrible Christmas babka that I was trying to figure out how to turn into a living room. Yeah, I have no idea where that came from either. I hope he made it to work on time. It looks like the 1-3" of snow might fall tonight instead, so we will have a repeat of this morning tomorrow.

Monday is laundry day, but I'm having trouble getting moving today. I plan to do that as soon as I get done here. I also need to clean up the kitchen. We have left over ham and 15 bean soup from yesterday for dinner, so that's nice and easy. Will gets home at around 3:30 now. So many schedule changes. He was promoted twice last week with 2 different schedules. I need to figure this all out and adjust. Until last Monday he was working second shift and we were eating dinner at midnight. I'm so glad that his hard work was noticed and that he's been hired on full time. We can get health insurance again!

Tomorrow I am going to start looking into applying for a civil service office job. The pay looks good, and it's supposed to come with benefits. I need to start somewhere getting back to work. I might not be able to take the tests for the job until April in Harrisburg, so I might be cutting it close on losing my unemployment benefits before this happens. I wanted to do this sooner, but I was still recovering from the 2 surgeries when the last round of tests was available. I'm smart, organized and a hard worker. I learn quickly, I'm polite and I always try to make improvements. I'm a wonderful worker and someone needs to snatch me up and pay me well. I've been watching The Office on Netflix to help remind me of working in an office. Silly, but it works for me.

Someday I hope to move to Celebration, Florida. Will doesn't want to move into that development, so we may just move nearby. I love their little Victorian cottages, except that they are new construction instead of falling apart old houses. I suppose this is a retirement dream. One thing I do know, I want out of this city and to live in a suburb again. I'm ready for some peace and quiet. I'm so worn down from my noisy neighbors and car alarms and sirens driving by.

Getting Back to Blogging

I've left off the blogging for a while. I've been busy doing things, keeping up with the holidays and all that fun. It was a lot of work for me. I had my grandparents and my Hunny visit. I made about a billion snowflakes from paper to hang all over and I did a ton of cooking. I don't think I have ever been as sleep deprived as I was over the 3 weeks around the holidays this year.




Now I'm wishing I wasn't so productive today. My back is aching! After work I did my every night breakfast/lunch/dinner cooking. Dinner was mac & cheese with peas and hot dogs. I'll be working on eating healthier later.

I also did a load of laundry, vacuumed and mopped the kitchen, cleaned the 1st bath, and started packing. Busy! All this was done before 8!

I watched a History Channel program on the garden of Eden also.

I've started reading A Course in Miracles at bedtime. I had a dream last night that involved being given a gold ring that had a snake and a ruby on it. According to dream dictionaries these are all symbols of enlightenment. Maybe I'm actually learning something from the book? I found it profoundly odd.

I'm trying to get ready to spend Valentine's Day with my Hunny. Sachi will not be pleased about the trip, but she will love it once we get there.

Moving Forward

Will was here this weekend and we worked on the house. And we worked on the house and worked on the house. We also made steak on the grill. I cleaned up around the outside of the house and Will worked on repairs inside. Will sanded down the tops and sides of a bunch of doors and then sealed them. I still have 2 more to take care of this week. He also managed to unseal almost all of the windows! After 6 years I can finally open windows in this house! He also helped me by doing the trim for the lawn and shot weed killer along the fence.

I mowed the lawn (I'm getting pretty good at this) then I raked up all the destruction from the shredded vines and grass. I swept up the front porch and sidewalk, the back porch and the walkways around the house. There were a million billion trillion of those helicopter seed pods from the trees. Then I dejunked the back porch.

Will had brought me flowers and Shawn was over and her and I got to throw dirt around an put them in the planters. So far they are still alive. I don't know for how much longer though.

It doesn't sound like all that much, but it took all weekend to do. I am exhausted. I couldn't even force myself to do anything today. So I had tea and read a book on my newly cleaned back porch.

All I've really been doing is working on the house. I clean and clean and work on projects and I still feel like I'm getting nowhere. Gah!

Quickie

Yesterday I managed to mow "vacuum" the lawn. I find it easier to deal with if I pretend I am just vacuuming rather than doing yard work. Picture this: I was wearing a fluffy skirt, tee shirt, a newsboy cap, black and white striped socks and ballet flats. That's proper lawn mowing attire, right?

There is something stuck on the back deck, I got most of it off but I think I'm going to need to scrub it. I also noticed that the primer is not holding up and I am going to need to use paint very soon. I should start that this weekend if possible before it gets too hot out. There is a possibility that the paint I used for the front might be ok still, but I'm really not so sure. I also need to get some gloves so I can take down the vines that are growing like crazy, as well as get out the weed whacker to do the edges.

With everything I need to do inside, it's hard to fit in the outside stuff too! The only inside work I did yesterday was to get a shower with Sachi and to do the dishes. I am committed to getting the tables done today. They are really getting on my nerves. Little by little things are improving. I am almost to the point where I can get to finish up the empty rooms and shut the doors on them until it is time to do the repairs.

I'm feeling pretty sinus-y today, but I think it's because of all the blooming and lawn mowing going on.

Tons and tons of work to do at the job today. I just cannot get ahead of it. I'm drowning in paper now for weeks. This is adding to my exhaustion and taking away from my home work time.

I still have some meatloaf left for dinner tonight, but I'm going to have to defrost something for dinner tomorrow to go with the mashed potatoes. I'm leaning toward stopping to get some hot dogs, frying the mashed potatoes and eating them with baked beans.

I'm still working on it...

Dropping in a post now, because I have a few moments where I feel relatively calm right now. These past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of bad luck. The kind where it leaves you wondering what you could have done to deserve this. But, I know myself and I know that I have been through difficult times in the past and I will land on my feet. I always do. Really there is no other option.

A small outline of what turmoil I'm going through is:

M is moving out. She is going to live with S. This is seriously bad for me. Selfish I know. I brought her into my home to help her out of a bad situation and myself as well. However, since she has been here she has not held up her end of the bargain at all. Not responsibilities, not financial, not personal growth. It will hurt me for her to leave, but in many ways it will make some things easier. I do need to figure out how to stretch my money better in light of this though. I am also dismayed at all the bad choices she makes in her life. But it is her life, not mine. I offer gentle advice at times, but only she can make her own way.

I messed up my bank account to the tune of $500. This is the first time in my 32 years of life this has happened. I'm ok with it because I'm human and bound to make a mistake a some point. It's just happened at a very inconvenient time. I've been struggling to get my finances under control and this felt like a huge failure. It was nearly a month ago, and I am still not recovered from it, not even close.

Things with Will are wonderful as always. He has been really helping me work on the house in his visits. I really wish we had more time together. He holds my heart completely. I have so much respect for him and everything he does. It's rare to find such a genuinely good person.

My toilet on the 3rd floor backed up and is backing into the tub, so says M. I had a horrible row with the home warranty company and the plumbing company they were sending out to do the work. I won't go into all the painful details, but by the end I was crying at my desk at work at how they were treating me. The warranty company is not making me pay the $55 service fee for this ordeal and my Realtor is looking for a new plumber to do the work now. It may end up costing me upwards of $600. Very difficult for me to pay, but I have no choice, as I need to shower on a regular basis.

All the gages on my car have stopped working. It's very hard to drive when you don't know how much gas you have or what speed you are going. This happened about a week and a half ago. I took it into the shop and they said it was a pinched wire and fixed it for $20. Since then, it happened again and again. I dropped it off this morning so they can look into in detail. I await a phone call and the bill, for an unknown amount.

The computers keep not working at work. I fall further and further behind on a daily basis. It's so stressful to not be able to meet all my deadlines. I know there is not a single thing I can do about this situation, it's completely out of my hands. But with everything else going on, I just don't have any patience in reserve at this point. I worked until 8pm on Friday to try to catch up and it didn't even make a dent.

I'm sure there is more that I am leaving out, but those are the big ones. I've been head achy, sleepless, back pained and high strung. It's a terrible feeling like everywhere I turn, everything is crashing in on me.

But I always land on my feet. Because I have to, there is no other option.

Work In Progress

This will probably be a blog in parts today. I feel some momentum coming on. Here's the problem though. At work, I feel so darn tired! Brain fuzzy, I just want to crawl under my desk and snooze. However, when I get home I feel all wound up. The joy and exuberance of being home. I find it hard to go to bed. I don't want my home time to end and my work time to begin.

Being tired at work is not an ideal situation. There are too many things going on. I need to be on top of things. It also causes me to make bad food choices. Like today, I ate McDonald's, even though I had packed a lunch. I felt mentally that I needed a lift for being somewhere I didn't want to be. This cannot continue. It is destructive to my waistline and my wallet. I need to find strength.

I did my Small Thing today. Organize your baubles! I pulled down the jewelry hanger my grandparents had gotten me for Christmas and put my jewelry on it. I've been meaning to do it forever. Now it is done and I actually have my earrings paired! Wooo!

I have a load of laundry in, and next I will be doing the bills. My motivation for the bills is that the Roomie needs the current due balance. She is out applying for some waitressing jobs to help her along. She hasn't been able to pay me anything in over a month and she was already past due at her last payment with a carryover. I love her and I hope she gets this night job. Sadly though, helping her is sticking me financially. This happens to me all the time! I don't know why.