Seven Takes and What Should I Be Reading?

1. I was blown away by the support I received on last week’s post. Thank you all, for your support, through the emails or comments you left me. It’s embarrassing to admit it got so bad, that I actually have reached 200 pounds, even. But it feels so wonderful to have such supportive readers. I’m feeling the urge to put a smiley face at the end of that last sentence, but I will RESIST. MUST RESIST!

2. Steve had Fri-Tuesday off from work as he transitions to the 12-hour shifts at work. This means he works four days from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. this month with four days off, then four days of the same, four days off, etc. His work, however, is a two hour bus drive away, so he will be leaving at 5 a.m. and not returning home until 9 p.m. Next month, the same thing except he’s doing the night 12-hour shift (7 p.m. – 7 a.m.). Basically, he’ll be a ghost. He works Halloween day, Thanksgiving night and Christmas day. Ick.

3. He still has not been assigned a unit for National Guard, so we’re going on 3 months of make-ups he’ll have to do. Plus the two-week jaunt he missed when we moved. To add to this, he’s applying for a Special Forces unit, another state away. I really won’t see him once he starts up Guards again, which kind of sucks because I’m pretty isolated at home during the day. That’s what the Internet is for, though, right?

4. Weight Watchers is going well. The thing about dieting for me is that I didn’t want to diet for the sake of losing weight over a stated period of time. I wanted to diet in a way that I could continue these habits for life, so I don’t end up back where I started. I don’t want to deprive myself of the things I like to eat. For example, I’m still having steak, pasta, etc, but I’m doing it in much smaller portions. I think this makes it easier for me, because then I don’t beat myself up over enjoying a cookie, as long as I stop at one.

5. Steve and I are SLOWLY turning our new place into a home. When we moved from Vermont, we decided to start fresh, whereby we got rid of everything we owned, except clothing, my computer, a tv and Dublin’s pack-n-play. It’s amazing, when you start over, all the little things you find you need. For example, spices. Spices are expensive when you have to rebuild your spice cabinet! And little utensils, like whisks. Or a can opener. Tubberware, ice cube trays, muffin pans, pillows, chairs, tables, lamps, towels…it adds up so quickly. We made a trip to Target to pick up a few things with a gift card and came across this rug. The 5′x8′ size had a tag of $24.99, even though all the other rugs in the same size were $99.99. I knew that it was too good to pass up, and it was exactly what I wanted (squares, with a lot of coordinating colors). When the cashier scanned it, however, it came up as $99.99, OF COURSE. I wasn’t up for spending that much money, so I almost passed on it, before the cashier sent someone for a price check. A few minutes later, someone garbled over the radio “the customers are correct, we marked it wrong, give it to them for the $24.99. We’re fixing the price tag now.” DUDES. You should have seen my face. What a steal!

6. Dublin FINALLY rolled over last week, which was a big deal in our house. The kid is in the 95th percentile for weight for his age, and he had a lot of trouble doing the mini-pushup (that’s a lot of weight to support for a little guy) so when he finally succeeded, a month late, it was a joyous occasion. And now, rolling over! I can hardly contain myself.

7. After a year of not reading due to time constraints, I now am reading a TON. I finished the four Twilight books in four days and have devoured another 5 novels by various authors since. I could use some suggestions. I’m open to pretty much anything. My favorite book (or books, I should say) is actually The Once and Future King. I finished The Time Traveler’s Wife a few months ago, and I like books of that genre too. So tell me, what should I be reading? It doesn’t need to be a recent release, as long as I can find it on Amazon or eBay! Thanks in advance, peeps!

On Communication

Steve and I were talking the other night about our marriage and how awesome it is to be with someone who knows you inside and out. In doing so, we talked about former best friends.

Me: My very first best friend was Amber. But after I moved from Virginia, we really didn’t speak again. And I’ve facebooked her, but lo, she is not a facebooker.

Steve: WOAH. Backup. You lived in Virginia????

Me: Um, yeah? Remember, dad in the navy….moved around quite a bit.

Steve: You definitely never mentioned VIRGINIA.

Me: You’re probably confused with all the places I did mention. [Which would be understandable, as I've lived in TEN STATES.]

Steve: I would have remembered Virginia.

–

Okay, so I feel kind of bad that he didn’t know that. But it got worse, during our discussion this evening as we were watching TITANIC. (I know, he will actually watch that with me!)

Steve: I fell asleep when I saw this in the theatres.

Me: I went with my sister, her boyfriend and Danny (my brother).

Steve: Which sister? Both your sisters were born AFTER Titanic was made.

Me: What do you mean, both? I have FOUR SISTERS.

Steve: WHAT.

Me: Erm. Yeah? Heather is the one I grew up with.

Steve: ….

Me: Heidi, Heather, Courtney and Sarah Elizabeth. Those are my sisters.

Steve: THERE’S A HEIDI, TOO??

–

I guess forgetting to mention that I once lived in Virginia is not such a big deal, but not mentioning that I have FOUR sisters? Kind of sad, on my behalf. And we have a KID together.

I also have four brothers, but I don’t think I’ve told him that, either.

Weeks…

10 Things I’m Not Diggin’ This Week:

1. The fact that Grey’s Anatomy and CSI are both premiering on the same night at the SAME TIME.
2. My $$$$$ car bill.
3. My bangs being curly and in my eyes every millisecond so my hair looks like a bad 80′s repeat.
4. Weight Watchers.
5. ^^^And not being able to find my damn rice cakes – the only thing I can fill up on without using all my points for today and this week combined.
6. My house and it’s demands of my time.
7. Dropping novels in toilets.
8. Having no time (because I waste my little free time on here) to hang up my work clothing in the closet. It’s still in the laundry baskets.  From THREE weeks ago.  (I have a lot of clothing.)
9. Nutella being a million and four points on Weight Watchers.
10. Fruit flies.  What the hell?  I can’t afford fruit, WHAT ARE YOU ALL HANGING AROUND HERE FOR?!

I started weight watchers.  Yep.  And since it’s something I actually have to PAY for, I better stick to it.  Last night I was so hungry from eating toast and two lean pockets all day that I ate an entire can of black olives because nothing else in my pantry would satisfy me without ODing on points. 

 Basically, I’m ALWAYS hungry.  This is bad.  VERY bad.

Sixteen signatures do a dream make Pt. 2

Of course, I TOTALLY jinxed everything!  Every-freaking-thing.  First of all, it was a hell of a lot more signatures than merely 16.  With all the addendums and changes, it feels like ten times that amount.  Secondly, it’s almost been three months and are we moved in yet?  Of course not.  Do we even have a closing date? Pfft…in our dreams. 

No, we found out a week before closing (yes, just one week), that our loan officer made a teeny mistake on our original loan application.  He sent me an email from the lender that basically said, “Your clients are not married – therefore they no longer qualify for this loan.”  Yes, he put that we were married.  After he made a joke about us not being married early in our correspondence.  After I had been on a first-name basis with him, speaking with him via phone, fax or email on a sometimes-daily basis for no less than six months.  Instead of apologizing to us, after we’d put $3,000 on fees and deposits to get into the house, he suggested we get hitched that weekend. 

Um.  If we wanted to do it that way, we would have two years ago! 

He apologized nonetheless later, and said this loan would be his priority.  A month later, I finally hear that we’re approved for another loan, from a different lender.  And I have to re-fax every thing I faxed to him months ago.  Luckily, in one of the boxes I packed up for our new house lies the folder that holds everything, our W-2s from the last several years, our sales agreement, contract, addendums, bank pages, copies of all the checks we’ve written out, paystubs, rent checks, property information sheets - the whole thing is a whopping 64pages.  At about $0.50/page to fax, I’m going to have to pull more money out of my…. to pay for this, when I sent all this information repeatedly, a month ago.

In two weeks, Shane and I leave for Idaho for 15 days.  I have no clue when we’re supposed to close (the dates were May 16, then June 16, then June 29, then July 6th, then July 16th…) this time, but we’re both at the point of “Should we try to continue this?”  The house is great and all, but we can always find another.  I don’t know. 

Sorry for the pity party.

Responsibilities

Seeing as wordpress.com isn’t in my cache anymore, I’d say it’s been a while since I posted.

I’m so stressed, so completely annoyed right now.  I was showing some pictures to someone and they totally misinterpreted everything I was doing, and yelled at me for something totally unrelated.  Well, it was semi-related, but not at all related to the subjects in the photo itself. After yelling at me, they ignored me (“blocked”) on msn.  PMS times a bagillion.

I haven’t been able to eat for two days.  I’ve been having weird stomach pain, not like pms pain, but something else.  It’s caused me to vomit each time I try to take a couple ES Tylenol.  Perhaps taking those Tylenol was stupid in the first place, as I had nothing in my stomach to absorb it and the acid that it stimulates only made me worse.  My ulcer doesn’t seem to be the problem, but it definitely isn’t helping the situation.

 Instead, I’ve been lying awake at night, every night, thinking about this house, and how the mortgage alone will be a grand.  I still need to calculate taxes, insurance, utilities, oil (eeeek) and that extra chunk for when something horrible happens to the house. (Great, now that I’ve said that, I’ve probably jinxed myself.)  I’m so used to having all this spending, “fun” money now, and to have it all go away will be difficult, I have to say. (Rhyming, I know.) And why do I have so many of these: “(“, “)”…Gah!

I just want life to go slower, for me to enjoy being a twenty-year old while I can. To enjoy not having obligations that entail babysitting siblings constantly.  I don’t know what it is like to be on my own, and frankly, it’s mildly daunting. I’ve always been responsible of at least one sibling, morning and night from the age of 10, and after ten years, it’s so natural for me to make plans around the child, forgoing vacations because I need to babysit. I can’t imagine what it will be like to go to the store without having to make sure that my sibling is cared for.  I don’t even know if I’m ready for that.

Sixteen signatures do a dream make

You know something nuts?  I mean, seriously nuts? The what-the-heck-was-I-thinking, gulping-for-air-with-anxiety, clammy-palms kind of nuts?  Yeah, I’m all too familiar with that kind of nuts. 

I’m buying a house.

Woah! NUTS!  I’m 20, I can’t legally enjoy an alcoholic beverage in this country, but I can sign my life away in a matter of minutes (well, the whole process took about three hours), quite possibly sinking myself into a deep, dark credit hole.  I could have purchased 37 cars identical to the one I own now, but then again, where would I park them all?  Exactly.

I mean, the deal isn’t closed yet, and I could very well be getting my hopes up by saying this too soon, but hey, I’m freaking excited.  And nuts, apparently.

So, I’m joyful, neurotic, confounded, eager.  Maybe I’ll stop being capricious when I wake up and realize what I’m getting myself into.

Sure, 20 seems too young to take on such a huge responsibility.  I was taking care of my brother and sister at age 12, and they turned out all right, right?  I mean, sure, my little brother doesn’t always make the best decisions, but that’s because he doesn’t listen.  A house, on the other hand, will.  It better.

Also, something new.  I got a dog.  Not just any dog, a really weird one that humps my other dog (both males) when the other dog isn’t on top of him.  His name is Guido and rhymes with my other dog, Alberto. 

Man, this is all intense and rushing into my brain at rapid speeds!

More on the house thing as it develops…but sheesh!