1. I am sick. I ‘ve had a raging sinus thing going on since Thursday evening. My head has been throbbing and my face has been hurting for the past four days. Yesterday after the cleaning was finally finished at the rental I wanted to go to sleep in the worst way but couldn’t because laying down made my head hurt more. Last night I swigged some Nyquil straight out of the bottle, propped my head up on two pillows, and slept on my back so the snot wouldn’t pool in one side of my face. Isn’t Rich a lucky man?

2. Because I am sick the girls missed their first Sunday School class yesterday. They were upset but my head was hurting so bad when I woke up I could hardly see. Not to mention my inability to go more than five minutes without blowing a gallon of ickyness out of my nose.

3. I reserved a Uhaul truck last Monday. The truck I got was a 14 ft. monstrosity with an illuminated “check engine” light and 189000 miles on it. I drove it a grand total of 10 miles. It took 1/4 tank of gas to go that far. It cost me $19.99 to rent the truck, $1.29 per mile, and $35 to fill the gas tank back up to “F”.

4. I really need my neck cracked. I knew I shouldn’t have started taking advantage of the back cracker at my last job. My neck and shoulders are stiff and I can’t crack them myself.

5. I took Jezzy to the vet on Friday and spent $312.74 for shots, heartworm test, heartworm pills, and antibiotics to clear up a bacterial infection on her belly and her nose (on the nose transferred from the belly via licking most likely).

6. Now I have to go feed the girls, who swear they’re starving.

I’ve had this song stuck in my head all frikkin day.

Today…was a Monday that gives Monday a bad name. Not all Monday’s suck, I of all people understand stereotypes. It’s just like not all Pit Bulls are viscious people eating beasts. It takes a small percentage of bad dogs (or Mondays in this case) to poison peoples’ minds against them.

First I overslept. Yesterday I woke up to my alarm at 9:00 a.m. to go to church. Last night when I set my alarm back to 5:45 I set it for PM instead of AM. What wound up waking me was a text message from Rich letting me know he and Rick were boarding their plane. It was 7:20 according to my clock. I don’t find it all that amusing that I started my day yesterday singing hymns and celebrating Easter and I started today with an exclamation using the “F” word.

I dropped the girls off at school and made it to work 30 minutes late. I explained to my boss what happened, and though he was unhappy with my lateness he couldn’t help but smirk. How many people HAVEN’T made the same mistake I did? Blerg.

Work went well, and I stayed 30 minutes late to make up for my tardiness. What didn’t go so well was news on the house. We definately won’t be able to close this week. Probably not even next week for no other reason than the settlement people are slammed and running behind. If I wanted to pay closing costs I could use my own settlement company and get in there but since I don’t have an extra $1500 laying around I have to wait. I’m also told that the HOA documents include violation notices. Hopefully the violations are cosmetic issues and don’t include fines. If there are fines I’m screwed.

The good and bad news I got today is that FHA requires the HVAC (which I finally learned stands for Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning…I accept that I may have been having a series of blonde moments every time HVAC has been mentioned thus far) to be in working order. That means the bank has to fix it. But that also means that we have to send over an addendum, which needs to be reviewed, which will probably take two weeks in itself. It’s a major inconvenience now but I’ll be thankful for it in May when it gets hot.

I have not heard whether the bank will allow me to rent the house prior to moving in. I’m really, really hoping they agree to that because I don’t want to move twice in less than a month…and I really, REALLY don’t want to board the dogs. They both have a seriously hard time being away from me and the girls and Jezzy may not eat. The last time I boarded her someone had to sit in her kennel and hand feed her, and even then they could only get about 1/4 of her food in her.

I managed to secure a truck for Saturday to I can move all our stuff somewhere. I have an appointment to sign a lease on a storage unit Thursday. I have my brother and Rich’s sister lined up to help me move my woefully small amount of stuff. (This should take about two hours, if that. The storage place is about two miles from the house and the only furniture I have are two chests of drawers, 1 dresser, 1 nightstand, 3 beds, a kitchen table, and four chairs. The rest are boxes and televisions.)

If I have to board the dogs I’ll have to do it at my vet because Chuck is not up to date on his shots. Well, he is and he isn’t. He needs his distemper titer, bordatella, and heartworm pills. Jezzy just needs bordatella. I can drop them off on Monday for boarding and have that stuff done. What I’m hoping is that I can do day-boarding so they can come home at night. The only reason they can’t stay with us at Rich’s is because his maintenance people could walk into the apartment at any time and Rotties and Pit Bulls are illegal there.

I’m not stressing. I’m aggrivated and impatient, but I’m not stressing. Everything will work out. It’s just gonna take its sweet time.

Happy Easter

The house is just about empty. Michele has about a car load of stuff and some things in the fridge left over here and then she’ll be out of my hair…FOREVER! Muahahahahaha!!!!

The girls are thrilled. The dogs are happy. Jezebel was actually smiling as she walked freely through the house without getting yelled at.

It kind of sucks that I don’t have any livingroom furniture but it’s only for a week. We’ll survive.

I did get some crappy news about my house. The home inspection went well, the house is in really decent shape, until the end. When the inspector checked the AC. And the compresser was siezed.

This did not make me happy.

But, I love this house and after some initial freaking out my realtor called and suggested that when it starts to get warm I should file a claim through the warranty to have it fixed. I don’t know if it’ll work since I’ll be starting out the season with it being broken but it doesn’t hurt to try. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to pull some kind of miracle out of my butt because you cannot survive in this area without AC. It gets WAY too humid, which is usually worse than heat itself.

Crappy news item number two came today. My realtor was talking to my father, keeping him up to speed on everything since my dad is the co-borrower on my loan, and he made a comment about how the closing was not gonna happen this week.

WTF? I’ve been believing for the last two weeks that my closing would be on the 27th. Now the realtor is telling me he thinks the bank will take their sweet time until we get down to the wire on the April 21 deadline.

I freaked out. Big time.

I know things always work out. Every snag I’ve hit has been overcome with relatively little effort.

Of course I’m hoping and praying that this closing will happen like I thought it would. I even shot the realtor an email asking him to find out if the sellers will allow me to rent the house from them until the closing. But, if that doesn’t work I have a plan, which I will leave me owing Rich huge for helping me with. His apartment is about four minutes from my house. The girls’ schools are in that boundary. We will stay with Rich until the closing, the dogs will be boarded, and I already have a reservation for a storage unit.

So see? The outcome will be the same, the road to get there may just be a little different.

For now I’m not stressing over the house issue. It won’t do any good and besides…I’ve got faith.

Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. Psalm 55:22

There are people here hauling her stuff outside and loading it in a truck!!!!

This is a happy, happy day.

Thought of the day, courtesy of Rich: “Once you start to kill something…kill it til it’s dead.”

This is advice he gave to Amie while he watched her play some pirate game online.

My skin is angry with me. My face has broken out like a teenager’s and not only looks hideous…it also hurts. I have one of those giant underground zit deals that is about the size of a dime and is fire engine red. It’s icky. Icky I say!

It could be because lately I’ve been eating like crap. Crap tastes good and it’s cheap and it’s usually quick and easy. Healthy takes so much more effort and planning. Or it could be because I’ve mostly just been watching and learning at work, during which I prop my chin on my hand and my fingers touch my face. Oils from the hands are not conducive to keeping the skin on the face clear. Or it could just be stress. With so much going on at one time it’s impossible not to have some kind of negative effect.

Do you guys realize that I will be moving into MY VERY OWN HOUSE in EIGHT DAYS?!?!?!?!?!?! So close! And yet so far! I’m so excited and I want to get started NOW!!!

I’m talking to my realtor now and he said when he went to the house today to let the appraiser in…he saw that the house has been cleaned! And one of the windows has been repaired! And he said the heat works, all of the appliances work…and pretty much all I’m gonna need to do is paint the downstairs and put up some curtains! Woot!!!!!

I’m gonna end this on a happy note. Bye!

It was brought to my attention yesterday that when I’m feeling sorry for myself I blog every day. But…when things are going OK (things won’t be fabulous until either Michele leaves, which may be soon because she’s packing…woot!…or we do) I’m “sporadic”.

Honestly…there’s not much change in the way things are going. Although it’s been quiet in the house I’m still in avoidance mode. Michele is packing and I hope that means she’s moving this weekend. Anyway, I just figured that since I’m tired of complaining about her that you folks are most definately tired of hearing about her. What’s the point of writing if the audience is going to decide to skip the entry?

The job is going well. I love it! I work with people who are fabulous, the work itself at this point has just enough variety to keep me from getting bored, and the atmosphere is better than anywhere I’ve been since I worked for Toyota. I adored my job at Toyota and I’m happy to be in a position that I think I’ll love just as much.

Rich and I are doing well. As a matter of fact, I’m not at all uneasy about my relationship with him. I don’t have questions any more about whether or not we’re right for each other. We’ve been able to enjoy each other’s company the way couples are meant to and it’s been wonderful.

The house. We’re in the home stretch! Right now the closing is forecasted to be on the 27th but I’m hoping for the possibility of doing it sooner…like early next week. The appraisal is scheduled for tomorrow at 3:00. The inspection will happen some time this week. I went and signed a bunch of papers today, my father will sign his as soon as I send them down to him, and he will come here for the closing. The girls and I will be packing Saturday and pretty much living out of boxes next week. They’re excited and I’m relieved.

DCSE has already kicked in and I got a check in the mail today, which I was very happy to see. Shawn didn’t say anything to me on Friday about child support and when he didn’t hand over a check I figured he must have been notified about the payroll deduction. Just one less thing to worry about, until the trial, and once that’s over it should be smooth sailing for the next three years at least (since that’s how long DCSE likes to wait before reviewing support amounts).

That’s pretty much all I’ve got. A lot on the boring side, I know. Just wait until I move. I won’t ever have anything to say. This blog will turn into an Animal Planet Review site.

Now I’m off to kick some dogs off my bed so I can sleep.

Rich: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Amie: The egg. There had to be an egg for the chicken to hatch from.

Rich: But didn’t there have to be a chicken to lay the egg?

Amie: No…

Rich: Well then where did the egg come from?

Amber: heavy sigh Don’t you know anything? The chicken came first.

Amie: Well where did it come from?

Amber: God just POOFED one up!

we all laugh, which encourages Amber to continue

Amber: It went: T-Rexes, wolves…and CHICKENS!

I guess she was paying attention in church.

This week has been full of ups and downs. Luckily it’s ending on an “up” note but I wasn’t sure it would.

Monday through Wednesday was pretty normal, with the exception of the threat of the lawsuit. Honestly though, I’m not at all concerned about that. The girls and I have just avoided Michele. Things have been pretty quiet since the night of the screaming.

Thursday my day started out bad and only got worse. It started at 6:15 a.m. when my mom called crying. My grandmother had died at 2:00 a.m. I personally haven’t spoken to my grandmother in almost 10 years. She wasn’t a nice lady. But I was sad for my mom. She and my dad headed up to PA shortly after they called me. My brother and sister-in-law drove up last night and my sister and brother-in-law went up this morning. There was a memorial service this morning and everyone will be coming home tomorrow.

I went to work and things were going fine until I got an email from the mortgage broker. My lender? Changed the loan requirements the day before mine went into underwriting. I was given three choices. 1~find a cosigner 2~let him broker the deal out and possibly take too long to find another lender, resulting in the loss of my depsoit or 3~back out. Options two and three are out of the question. And, since my family is out of town dealing with the funeral and everything I told the broker option 1 was also out of the question.

How did I handle it? I freaked out, IM’d my sister and called Rich. I won’t go into the details of those conversations but the conversation with my sister resulted in her calling my parents to tell them what was going on. I was not going to call them and bother them with my problem. I was wracking my brain trying to come up with something that would work when my mom called. She told me she knew about the mortgage and my father agreed to co-sign. In one year, when my credit score has a chance to heal from the beating it took over the last couple of months I can refinance and get my dad off of the loan. So, crisis averted but I’m not happy that I’m no longer getting the house on my own. I saw it as a huge accomplishment and now…it’s not. Not that I’m not grateful…I am. I just really wanted to do this on my own.

On a lighter note I had a fabulous lunch. The people in my office took me to Logans as a “welcome to the county”. Rich met us there and we all had a good time.

Now Rich and I are relaxing on the couch watching CSI Miami. We just finished dinner and we’ll probably head to bed shortly.

We have some plans this weekend that will keep us just busy enough to keep us from being bored. It’s gonna be a good couple of days.

It has been drama central at my house the past few days.

Saturday night the girls and I were home. Michele invited her friend, Ronnie (female) over to our house. Before Ronnie arrived I heard a phone conversation:

Michele: Sure, I have the whole living room to myself. Yeah, bring it over. It’s being used constantly, not by me, but we’ll probably be able to sneak it in.

She was talking about the washing machine. I was doing laundry, Ronnie needed to do laundry, so natrually Michele decided it was fine to interrupt my laundry in favor of Ronnies.

Michele: Well, everyone’s here tonight…(she starts humming a circus music tune)

breif pause

Michele: Great! We’ll see you then!

Fabulous. Ian and Adam (Ronnie’s son) would be running around like little monsters while the mommies sat on their asses and ignored them.

The girls and I went to the book store to pick up the book she ordered for her friend’s birthday. We then stopped by three stores to see if they had the belt to my vaccuum cleaner. Mine busted. We were out of luck in that department but we did manage to pick up an outfit for Amie to wear to church on Sunday. She looked all grown up and I drove home wondering where this teenager came from.

We stopped by Popeyes and got chicken for dinner and ate it in the kitchen. I let the dogs out of their crates as soon as we got home and that’s when the fun started.

Ronnie is afraid of dogs. Chuck stayed in the kitchen with us but Jezzy went into the living room to see if anyone needed to have their face licked off. No one did and Michele was bitchy to her, stamping her foot and yelling at her to go away while Ronnie was yelling “No Adam! Stay where you are and don’t move!” I walked down the hallway to see what was going on and Jezzy was just standing there looking at everyone, wagging her tail. I looked at Michele, gave her an amused look, and went to finish my dinner. Jezzy wasn’t hurting anything and I’m sick and tired of accommodating that bitch.
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