I signed up for November NaBloPoMo this morning. Why? Well, certainly not because I have a great deal to say. But I've done it the past two years, and November is the real NaBloPoMo, so I'd hate to miss it. Plus, there's prizes (that I've never won).
Right now, I'm toying with the idea of forcing myself to sit down every day and write a full paragraph of only positive things. It's like therapy. I'm so miserable at work that I have to force myself out the door every morning. And I cry almost every night. I'm not blaming work for all of that. I'm tired. My sleep cycle is messed up - every other morning my body wants to be awake before 7, and then I sleep 12 hours the next night. I've still got moving related stress (primarily the knowledge that we're not going to be able to put off forever the lugging of old cat pee-stained furniture down 3 flights of stairs for much longer).
But you know what? My job really is sucking the life out of me. From the same manager, I get "you need to scale back to your normal job responsibilities and stop taking on extra projects," AND "you need to find and schedule competent people to work overtime in here." Hey dude...I'm not the draft board. And right now I can't in good conscience ask anyone to come into this rabbit hole and work in the world where you keep changing the rules every 10 minutes.
I'm stuck. There's still no comparable jobs opening within the company, and my job on the outside world would probably result in a $4/hour pay cut. We can't afford that with the mortgage over our heads.
So like I was saying, maybe forcing myself to spend 10 minutes a day thinking about something good isn't such a bad idea. Plus, we've got 2 plays to see and an open house to host coming up... at least I'll have something to talk about!
27 October, 2009
24 October, 2009
Casa ParkHopper
A Tour by Scott*
Hi there! Welcome to our new home! Pardon me while I finish installing this incredibly frustrating ceiling fan. While I do this, please feel free to take a look around. 
Downstairs you will also find the kitchen, powder room, laundry room, and garage. Those aren't part of the current tour.
Hi there! Welcome to our new home! Pardon me while I finish installing this incredibly frustrating ceiling fan. While I do this, please feel free to take a look around. From where you are standing now, you can see our living room and dining room. During our tour you will also see all of the cats. Keep your eyes peeled! Also, please excuse the boxes and other displaced items. We're still unpacking.
Downstairs you will also find the kitchen, powder room, laundry room, and garage. Those aren't part of the current tour. At the top of the steps, the first room you come to is the guest bathroom. This is where the orange shower curtain ended up. If you can't find a cat, this is usually a pretty good place to look. They find the area behind the toilet a quiet and comforting place to hide.
Next up is the office/game room. The blue chair is where you could find Jamie and at least one cat in the dark days between move-in and furniture/cable install.
The cats' room is basically empty, except for some fun toys. None of us really spends much time in here. Elphie brings out whichever toy she wants to play with and likes to leave them on the stairs for us to find!
The picture of the bedroom was taken right around 8 am. The light coming in through the CLOSED blinds should give you some idea why we were in such a hurry to buy curtains. They don't really match the quilt-of-many-colors, but I defy you to do better!!
And here is the master bath. We're short one towel bar, so we're using a hook on the back of the door right now. 
Next up is the office/game room. The blue chair is where you could find Jamie and at least one cat in the dark days between move-in and furniture/cable install.The cats' room is basically empty, except for some fun toys. None of us really spends much time in here. Elphie brings out whichever toy she wants to play with and likes to leave them on the stairs for us to find!The picture of the bedroom was taken right around 8 am. The light coming in through the CLOSED blinds should give you some idea why we were in such a hurry to buy curtains. They don't really match the quilt-of-many-colors, but I defy you to do better!!And here is the master bath. We're short one towel bar, so we're using a hook on the back of the door right now. This concludes the tour. Please come back once the boxes are gone from the kitchen. There's still more to see as we continue to settle in and make our house our home. Thanks for visiting!
*not really by Scott, but I took some artistic license with the pictures. It's like historical fiction...or something like that!
23 October, 2009
Oh Hi...I'm Here!
We finally got our cable and internet installed yesterday. Our furniture also came. That means that, though the internet was RIGHT HERE all day yesterday, I was busy finally unpacking all of those boxes labeled "BOOKS" and "Living Room Fragile" (knick knacks). Amazingly enough, even with the addition of two new bookcases, all of the books didn't make it onto the shelves. Really, all that's left are crappy $3 library books I've gotten from Books A Million and some other random books that don't deserve a home. And The Joy of Sex, which isn't really a living room book anyway!
There are still more boxes down there. The boxes of board games need to move up to the office/game room (it was just an office, but then we decided to store the games on the bookshelf in here, so I rechristened it), and the boxes of leftover books need to be stored in a closet somewhere.
The house is almost photo-worthy. Though if you have been on my Facebook profile, you may have seen some camera phone pictures already.
So in case you were wondering what we did yesterday, here's a list:
* watched cable and furniture delivery guys do their work
* installed most frustrating ceiling fan ever in living room
* basked in the cool air of said ceiling fan
* unpacked 12-15 boxes
* organized DVDs into the following categories: Musicals, Cartoons, and Harry Potter; Scott's Movies, Action, and Man-Comedy; and Cry Movies and Romantic Comedies
* dinner at TooJay's, because neither of us had eaten during the day
* bought new computer desk and chair
* bought UV film for living room window (blocks 70% of the sun's heat...though I wonder how much the plain glass blocks)
* bought curtain and rod for bedroom window (remind me to tell you about our first morning here*)
* put together desk and chair
* hung curtain and rod
Yeah. It was one long-ass day. Today we're supposed to be out the door to the apartment by noon. I don't see that happening. At this point, I'm seriously regretting not trusting the movers with my Christmas ornament boxes. They're not heavy, but they're bulky, and are going to require probably 10 trips up and down the stairs to load into the car. We also need to vacuum so that we can bring the vacuum here. Oh, and finish packing up our cooking vessels. Who knows when we'll be finished? Well, definitely some time before November 30!
* Thanks for reminding me! I'm not sure whether I mentioned before that our bedroom and living room have southern exposure. And we overlook that cute little retention pond with the fountain in it. Well, it turns out that though we don't really get a whole lot of direct sunlight, we do get THE SURFACE OF THE SUN around 8:00 every morning. Quite a surprise on our first morning when we were both unbelievably sore and tired! The sun comes up and reflects off the pond and shines in on us from two directions at once. This results in the sun shining directly in our eyes no matter which way the blinds are turned, and also results in the bedroom (which is closed to keep the cats out) being at least 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. So we got the ugly curtains from Target, which keep the direct sun out, but it's still really bright. We're going to have to invest in some serious black-out curtains before next summer.
Umm...gotta run and clean up some cat puke. TTFN...hopefully next time there will be pictures to show!
There are still more boxes down there. The boxes of board games need to move up to the office/game room (it was just an office, but then we decided to store the games on the bookshelf in here, so I rechristened it), and the boxes of leftover books need to be stored in a closet somewhere.
The house is almost photo-worthy. Though if you have been on my Facebook profile, you may have seen some camera phone pictures already.
So in case you were wondering what we did yesterday, here's a list:
* watched cable and furniture delivery guys do their work
* installed most frustrating ceiling fan ever in living room
* basked in the cool air of said ceiling fan
* unpacked 12-15 boxes
* organized DVDs into the following categories: Musicals, Cartoons, and Harry Potter; Scott's Movies, Action, and Man-Comedy; and Cry Movies and Romantic Comedies
* dinner at TooJay's, because neither of us had eaten during the day
* bought new computer desk and chair
* bought UV film for living room window (blocks 70% of the sun's heat...though I wonder how much the plain glass blocks)
* bought curtain and rod for bedroom window (remind me to tell you about our first morning here*)
* put together desk and chair
* hung curtain and rod
Yeah. It was one long-ass day. Today we're supposed to be out the door to the apartment by noon. I don't see that happening. At this point, I'm seriously regretting not trusting the movers with my Christmas ornament boxes. They're not heavy, but they're bulky, and are going to require probably 10 trips up and down the stairs to load into the car. We also need to vacuum so that we can bring the vacuum here. Oh, and finish packing up our cooking vessels. Who knows when we'll be finished? Well, definitely some time before November 30!
* Thanks for reminding me! I'm not sure whether I mentioned before that our bedroom and living room have southern exposure. And we overlook that cute little retention pond with the fountain in it. Well, it turns out that though we don't really get a whole lot of direct sunlight, we do get THE SURFACE OF THE SUN around 8:00 every morning. Quite a surprise on our first morning when we were both unbelievably sore and tired! The sun comes up and reflects off the pond and shines in on us from two directions at once. This results in the sun shining directly in our eyes no matter which way the blinds are turned, and also results in the bedroom (which is closed to keep the cats out) being at least 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. So we got the ugly curtains from Target, which keep the direct sun out, but it's still really bright. We're going to have to invest in some serious black-out curtains before next summer.
Umm...gotta run and clean up some cat puke. TTFN...hopefully next time there will be pictures to show!
16 October, 2009
Last Night
Owning a house, so far, is a lot like getting married. There's all this hype, all this crazy build-up, and then at the end of the day you don't actually feel any different. Right now that's especially the case because we're still here in the apartment.
We were over there earlier, having moved two carloads of random stuff, and found ourselves lounging in the empty "great room." Scott was sitting on the stairs, and I was laying where the dining table will be, and we were plotting where things were going to go. We don't know where the silverware will live, but the glasses and plates have assigned seating. It's still weird to look at the kitchen and think, "ours." It's so nice!
Scott's car is spending the night in the new house (I still think Frances is going to get claustrophobic without reclaimed water spraying up into her bits), but we're still here. Garages are cool...and will be even cooler when there's an automatic opener.
At closing, we didn't get handed keys. We got an envelope. In the envelope were our house keys, our mailbox keys (though no one has told us which mailbox is ours...that ought to be a fun little learning process!), and two key chains that looked a lot like a car alarm remote control. "We get a car???" didn't go over so well with the girl on the other side of the table, but I thought it was funny. The remote is actually for the gate, which is closed at night...except when it's open. *shrug*
We got our master bathroom set up, and I'm not in love with it. I think I need to steam the wrinkles out of the shower curtain. But really, I think I'm going to miss waking up to neon orange! The muted colors might be a little too grown-up for me after all!
I also got the cats' room set with a new litter box, scratching post, and area rug. The ZPMPZ will be rebuilt in a few days, and their climbing tree will be moved tomorrow (we couldn't get it apart to fit into the car, or it would already be there). We're taking them over first thing in the morning and leaving them in the one room until the movers are gone. They're going to be angry no matter what, but at least this way they won't be under foot all day.
You've probably already noticed that I'm pretty tired. Sorry for the stream of consciousness. I think it's time to fall asleep for the last time in my bedroom, so that tomorrow I can move and be all tired out to fall asleep for the first time in a new bedroom.
We were over there earlier, having moved two carloads of random stuff, and found ourselves lounging in the empty "great room." Scott was sitting on the stairs, and I was laying where the dining table will be, and we were plotting where things were going to go. We don't know where the silverware will live, but the glasses and plates have assigned seating. It's still weird to look at the kitchen and think, "ours." It's so nice!
Scott's car is spending the night in the new house (I still think Frances is going to get claustrophobic without reclaimed water spraying up into her bits), but we're still here. Garages are cool...and will be even cooler when there's an automatic opener.
At closing, we didn't get handed keys. We got an envelope. In the envelope were our house keys, our mailbox keys (though no one has told us which mailbox is ours...that ought to be a fun little learning process!), and two key chains that looked a lot like a car alarm remote control. "We get a car???" didn't go over so well with the girl on the other side of the table, but I thought it was funny. The remote is actually for the gate, which is closed at night...except when it's open. *shrug*
We got our master bathroom set up, and I'm not in love with it. I think I need to steam the wrinkles out of the shower curtain. But really, I think I'm going to miss waking up to neon orange! The muted colors might be a little too grown-up for me after all!
I also got the cats' room set with a new litter box, scratching post, and area rug. The ZPMPZ will be rebuilt in a few days, and their climbing tree will be moved tomorrow (we couldn't get it apart to fit into the car, or it would already be there). We're taking them over first thing in the morning and leaving them in the one room until the movers are gone. They're going to be angry no matter what, but at least this way they won't be under foot all day.
You've probably already noticed that I'm pretty tired. Sorry for the stream of consciousness. I think it's time to fall asleep for the last time in my bedroom, so that tomorrow I can move and be all tired out to fall asleep for the first time in a new bedroom.
08 October, 2009
Between the Alarms
Yesterday morning, between the alarm and the snooze, I dreamed that there was a roach crawling on the toilet seat. Of course, I made Scott go and check the bathroom before I would even get out of bed.
This morning between alarms, Scott and I were at the house for the walk-through, and it was obvious that some work had been done: the majority of the house had been painted yellow. The shade of yellow was actually fairly neutral and unoffensive. The problem was it looked like the painters had worked in the dark. Whole patches of the wall were still white. The kitchen was worse. They had painted the walls robin's egg blue, given us white appliances, and white-washed my beautiful dark wood cabinets! I started to cry. Scott took out two pieces of bread and shook the crumbs into the carpet. I guess we all handle frustration differently.
Of course, I woke up realizing that it had only been a dream. But I found myself in the shower daydreaming about how many things could go wrong today and tomorrow. I still haven't shaken myself out of it. Hopefully the cinnamon rolls Scott's currently icing will make it all better. If not, he's driving today, so I'll be doing deep breathing exercises in the car.
Namaste...
This morning between alarms, Scott and I were at the house for the walk-through, and it was obvious that some work had been done: the majority of the house had been painted yellow. The shade of yellow was actually fairly neutral and unoffensive. The problem was it looked like the painters had worked in the dark. Whole patches of the wall were still white. The kitchen was worse. They had painted the walls robin's egg blue, given us white appliances, and white-washed my beautiful dark wood cabinets! I started to cry. Scott took out two pieces of bread and shook the crumbs into the carpet. I guess we all handle frustration differently.
Of course, I woke up realizing that it had only been a dream. But I found myself in the shower daydreaming about how many things could go wrong today and tomorrow. I still haven't shaken myself out of it. Hopefully the cinnamon rolls Scott's currently icing will make it all better. If not, he's driving today, so I'll be doing deep breathing exercises in the car.
Namaste...
03 October, 2009
Salt
We're out of salt here at Apartamente de ParkHopper (as opposed to Casa ParkHopper, which is not where we currently live). This is particularly troublesome for Scott, because he's a good traditional cook and as such salts EVERYTHING.
We were starting to run really low on salt about two weeks ago, and when Scott brought it to my attention, I told him he wasn't allowed to buy more.
[insert Tim Allen "aaarrooogh?" noise here]
See, I have this weird memory of either my grandmother or great-grandmother having a superstition that you can't bring old salt into a new house. I've tried Googling it, and the closest I've come is an Irish housewarming gift of salt, bread and a broom. Just the same, I thought it was best to not tempt fate, so we're holding off on buying a box.
We ran out completely a few days ago.
For now, we've got Lowry's, we've got garlic salt, and we've got pepper (and a zillion other jars of spices - whole coriander, anyone?). Scott is getting twitchy, but making the best of things. And a week from yesterday, I'll let him buy a new box of salt!
We were starting to run really low on salt about two weeks ago, and when Scott brought it to my attention, I told him he wasn't allowed to buy more.
[insert Tim Allen "aaarrooogh?" noise here]
See, I have this weird memory of either my grandmother or great-grandmother having a superstition that you can't bring old salt into a new house. I've tried Googling it, and the closest I've come is an Irish housewarming gift of salt, bread and a broom. Just the same, I thought it was best to not tempt fate, so we're holding off on buying a box.
We ran out completely a few days ago.
For now, we've got Lowry's, we've got garlic salt, and we've got pepper (and a zillion other jars of spices - whole coriander, anyone?). Scott is getting twitchy, but making the best of things. And a week from yesterday, I'll let him buy a new box of salt!
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