Did you know it’s possible to roll our eyes so far into the back of your head it actually kind of hurts a little? I am a champion eye roller and I just found this out yesterday.

Rich and I are on speaking terms (we hadn’t been due to our disagreement over when he should have gone back to work) but there was a lot of hashing and bickering before we got there.

He still thinks he’s right. I still think he’s wrong. And the fact that he can’t produce a doctor’s note for his boss stating that it’s OK for him to go back to work, which his boss has requested a couple of times already, allows me to feel a great amount of righteous indignation. But that’s neither here nor there…he did what he did and there’s no taking it back. And the fact that I know he’d do it again the same way if he had the choice makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a spork.

He has a doctor appointment today, which is when he will be officially released to go back to work. His incision is healing well and he can sort of bend over now. I learned this last night as well when Jezzy chewed up one of his only pair of work shoes. We had to get him some new ones and he had to try a few pairs on, which takes a good amount of bending.

Rich and I have learned a couple of things about each other in the last few weeks. I’ve learned that he will not do anything until/unless he’s good and ready. He’s learned that I do not back down. Ever. When I have it in my head that something is right there is no changing my mind and I will hound him until I drive us both insane. Unfortunately for us he waits too long to be ready. Fortunately for us I pick my battles and only worry him tenaciously over important issues. Most of which are health related.

Let’s all hope this is the end of health problems for a good, long while.

Jezebel hurt herself. Again. Somehow.

On Sunday night she was zooming around the living room. Rich said she ran into a chair. I don’t see how that would cause her to hurt her left hind leg but it’s the only “trauma” we can think of.

I called the vet yesterday when she wouldn’t put any weight on it. She was just letting it dangle, which is never good, especially for her because she’s stoic and will never show signs of pain. We tested her for Lyme first, since I pulled a tick off of her at the end of last week but that was negative.

We took two x-rays, which showed nothing out of the ordinary. My poor puppy’s legs look like directions for putting something together with all the screws and plates and stuff in her bones. The hardware is holding up and her hips look really good. When you’ve seen as many effed up sets of hips as I have you tend to appreciate what a healthy set looks like. She’s getting some arthritis in both knees, the left side more than the right, but not enough to be debilitating yet. I’m gonna have to start her back on glucosamine. I stopped giving it to her because she was spitting it out…but I’ll have to get some that tastes good. Or else get the granular kind and mix it with something in her food.

In anticipation of spending extra money on the mortgage I finally brought myself to get cheaper dog food. They’ve been eating Natural Balance, which is $45/bag, three times a month. I switched them to Pro Plan, which is crap in my opinion but I decided that I can’t be more picky about what I feed my dogs than I am about what I eat myself and feed my kids. The good food wasn’t keeping Chuck from getting ear infections and Jezzy really seems to like the taste of the Pro Plan (thanks to the artificial flavor they spray all over it). She was looking pretty thin, she wasn’t scrawny by any means but you could see her ribs when she turned a certain way and you could feel (but not see) her backbone when you petter her. She’s gained five pounds in the last two weeks, which puts her at a healthy 57 instead of a “willowy” 52.

I’m just not meant to have any money. Every cent I intended to save for house stuff has gone to the vet in the past two months. But, hopefully this will be the end of the vet visits for a good long time. If they’re going to need vet care it’s definately better to do it now than after we move and I have to adhere to the budget.

I gave Jezzy some deramaxx last night. This morning her limp was noticibly better. Hopefully at the end of the week when the medicine runs out she’ll be good as new.

She is a much better patient than someone else I know.

He’s not gonna make it off my bad list very easily this time.

Richard…drove himself into work today. Should he be driving? No. Especially not on a rainy Monday morning where the chances of having to drive defensively are pretty high. His range of motion isn’t anywhere near normal yet. Has he demonstrated his ability to make it through an entire day without needing to lay down? No. He still needs his pain meds and even with them he’s sore enough for everyone in the house to know he’s not feeling good. He just said last night that he can’t even sit in his recliner.

So what the fuck? What is SO important that he needed to go to work? He doesn’t even LIKE his job, he’s got a legal reason not to go…so why be such an asshole about this?

I’ll tell you what’s so important. He can’t stand to be told that he CAN’T do something. The more he’s told he can’t the more likely it is that he will, whether common sense tells everyone else that he shouldn’t.

So fine. Have your way. I didn’t argue with you this morning but I DID call your mother.

And don’t come to me later telling me that your doctor said you could drive to work today. I won’t believe a word of it. I didn’t hear him say it so as far as I’m concerned he didn’t. You have a tendancy to hear what you want to hear, not what’s actually said. Your version of anything relating to your health is always gonna be fabricated.

I hope you have a good day. Your evening isn’t going to be pleasant.

Now: Rich and the girls are watching a movie that I haven’t paid any attention to…but now I’m sitting here feeling sorry for some kind of sea dragon thing that just pulled a Free Willy maneuver, saving himself from death by cannon ball.

Earlier: The girls and I went to church and Sunday School today. Amie was tickled to find one of her friends from her old school in her Sunday School class. I let her sit with that girl and her family during church. Amber loved church today because two babies got baptized and the pastor invited all of the kids in the congregation up to the font so they could see the ceremony.

After church the girls and I went to the storage unit. I ran out of checks and had to find more. Of course they were in the least convenient place in the entire unit. At the BOTTOM of a tall stack of large boxes, which wasn’t within easy reach to unstack. After much struggling and an impressively limited amount of cussing on my part I found what I needed and we were able to head back home.

Rich is stir crazy. He can’t stand to not be able to come and go as he pleases. He asked if we could go to the mall so he could find some thingamabob. We went, he located some thingamabobs, but he didn’t like any of them so we left. Amber decided she wanted to get her hair cut so we went and did that. Her head of hair is now about six inches lighter and she’s been prancing around, flipping her hair around every chance she gets.

That sums up my Sunday. Tomorrow at work I have a class for half of the day and a nice stack of work to do after that. I’m anticipating a quiet week for me housewise. I’m not calling anyone, I’m not emailing anyone. I don’t want to hear from anyone unless they’re telling me when and where to be to sign the papers.

There might not be anything blog-worthy to report for the next few days. Don’t be suprised if I don’t update.

I did not want to pay for another month on my storage unit. However, since I am still homeless I didn’t have a choice.

I did not want to rent a P.O. Box. However, since I am still homeless AND addressless I didn’t have a choice.

I am so over all of this house buying bullshit. We missed the contract deadline for closing. We missed MY deadline for closing. I now have another month to keep my stuff in storage. Hopefully Rich can stand having us live with him for a while (notice I didn’t use the word “little” before the word “while”) longer. At this point I’m about ready to forget the whole thing, walk away from my earnest money deposit, and tell everyone working on my deal (except for my realtor) to go fuck themselves. The settlement company and my mortgage lender are the two sorriest excuses for businesses I think I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.

Although I would love to walk away from this whole mess I can’t. I’m relatively certain my last landlord wouldn’t give me a good reference (since I chose to give up my security deposit in favor of not filling the oil tank AGAIN and not cleaning the carpets as requested) and my prior rental was about five years ago. There’s no history to check. Although I suppose I could omit that last landlord…I’m pretty certain my realtor wouldn’t be down with that.
Then there’s the fact that I really, really like the house. I LOVE the house. Once I get in there I will be all warm and fuzzy, and probably sweaty too since the AC is fried…

I’ve decided that I won’t be calling anyone to check the status of my closing. That got me exactly nowhere for the past month. Plus I kind of pissed a bunch of folks off during a string of emails between me, my realtor, the other side’s realtor, and the loan officer and processor.

Me: Should I assume it would be wise to cancel my moving truck reservation for tomorrow?

Loan Officer: Kristie, I advise that you not schedule anything until you have a confirmed closing date and time.

Me: My mistake for thinking that a contract stating “on or before April 21″ meant that moving on April 26 wouldn’t be a problem.

Rich’s surgery went well yesterday. He’s home and, being Rich, not relaxing as much as he should be.

Last night was pretty rough; he wasfeeling green from the anesthesia despite the four anti-nausea “cocktails” they gave him. He hung out on the recliner for a little while but took his pain medicine and went to bed pretty early.

He slept well, waking up at about 3:30 starving. He ate a banana, took another pain pill, and slept until the alarm went off at 6:00. He’s in good spirits and made a point of cooking breakfast. Oh, and he’s a happy, happy man now that he has some coffee.

I’m at work. His mom works right down the street (we walk past her building when we walk the dogs all the time) and will pop in a couple times a day to check on him. I called her already to let her know how he was doing and to tell he what time he needs his next pain pill.

The hard part is over. The rest is down hill from here.

My nerves have effectively been plucked. Plucked to the point that they’re starting to fray.

I did manage to down three cups of hot chocolate today. Two from the new machine and one from my standby box of Swiss Miss. That might have had a little bit to do with my jitters. My boss wasn’t there for most of the day and I ran through my work pretty fast. I wound up inventing some busy work for myself in between phone calls to the realtor and the mortgage guy.

We had what I thought was a breakthrough yesterday. I though we were on our way to finishing this whole mess. But today? When I called the mortgage guy to see if he did the very simple thing that needed to be done he had no idea that it needed to happen.

Communication people. It’s lacking. So yesterday I was happy, today not so much. I’m hearing we “might” sign on “Friday”. The broker will “do everything in his power to make it happen”.

Excuse me, sir, if I’m not confident in your ability to “make it happen”. You’ve already proved to me that you’re pretty powerless.

In other news…I volunteered to work the pet fiesta on May 3rd. I sure hope I’m moved in by then. I’d hate to have to cancel at the last minute. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. I worked it last year for the pet care company. I think I’ll have a much better time this year.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Our Kureig came to the office today! Along with my two boxes of hot chocolate! It didn’t arrive until after 1:00 but that didn’t stop me from firing that puppy up after lunch!

That was the good news.

The bad news is that Rich is exhibiting behavior that pretty much guarantees he’s going te be a very BAD patient when he has his surgery. Twice he sent me links to places he wants to go this weekend.

Go.

Less than 48 hours post op.

Not.

I’m convinced he’s being a butthead for the express purpose of driving me insane. And because I know he’ll read this I will take this opportunity to say IT’S WORKING.

No, you aren’t going to the grand opening of the Apple store at Fair Oaks Mall on Saturday.

No, you aren’t going to the giant flea market at wherever-the-hell that was you showed me on Craigslist today.

No, you aren’t going to work on Monday. Not only will you not be cleared by your doctor…YOU CAN’T DRIVE. And I’m sure as hell not driving you. The office will be there in two weeks when you finish recuperating. The people there will not die without you.

No, there won’t be any of rule #5 if you ignore rules 1-4 and 6-10.

His surgery isn’t until 3:30 (I think, it was supposed to be 2:45 but it got bumped later). The girls will both be home before he has to go in. Even though this is out patient surgery he may wind up staying over night. I kind of hope he does…that way he won’t be able to lie to me and tell me he’s fine and do things he’s not supposed to do. And the nurses can fight with him about taking his meds.

He’ll be good as new in two weeks. I’ll be happy when he’s feeling better. I knwo he will be too.

My dad needed to sign another set of papers. Why they weren’t sent to him before today i have no idea. And the seller still has not signed and returned the “Ameridream” document, which is the paper that says they agreed to “gift back” 3% of the selling price of the house for my down payment.

I’m not even going to try to guess when this will happen. I’m so frustrated right now that I will probably not mention it again until AFTER it’s done.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the big day. The day I close on my house. Will it happen? Shit if I know.

I don’t have a where or what time. I haven’t seen a HUD I. One of the processors at my mortgage company says she doesn’t think it can happen tomorrow. My mortgage guy says it will. All I know is that if this doesn’t happen tomorrow I not only lose the house…I lose my deposit.

I don’t know who’s fault this is. We’ve had almost two months for all of the kinks to be worked out. I keep hearing that our side is ready, it’s the closer that’s holding everything up. But, every time I hear that I get asked for something else to send to underwriting. If we’re ready why the hell is stuff still being sent to underwriting? I don’t know what the closing company’s position is, no one can seem to get in touch with them.

The lady who told me she doesn’t think I’ll close tomorrow said “Well, the good news is…since it’s their fault they have to grant you an extension.”

I told her I don’t want an extension, I want to move into my fucking house.

That statement, while true, didn’t sit well with Rich. “Is living with me really that bad?”

No. It’s not “that bad”. It’s been quite nice actually. But, we have NINE illegal animals crammed into a two bedroom apartment. Walking the dogs is a giant PIA because if there are other animals out they won’t concentrate on doing what we’re out there to do. The ferrets and the rabbit haven’t been out of their cages in a month. And…if I don’t move my stuff out of storage on Saturday I will have to pay for another month, which is right around $200. Not to mention that the girls and I don’t have a physical address.

I have so much that I want to do. Pick out paint. Find some living room furniture. Clean my carpets. Buy a new medicine cabinet to replace the hideous thing in the full bath. Hire someone to fix the busted mixer in my bathtub. My mom, sister, and sister in law are having the house cleaned for me as a housewarming gift.

Everything will work out. I know that. Still, right at this moment there’s a slight chance that it won’t. Then I’ll be back to square one: no place to live and no time to go out and find one.

I hope everything happens the way it’s supposed to. If I never have to think about this process again it will be too soon.