haven't used this in a while, and don't really intend to anymore. took me forever to find the stupid "write in journal" button. decided I should get the friends-list and what not squared away so if I come back I won't be confused as all heck. "see you in another life brother."

Interesting that "User Journal" was not the default topic this go-around.

So, it's been a while since I updated. And I'm banking on having some free time in the evenings for a few days, so journal time it is. Wow, had to go back and check to see where I left off. But, now for the reader's digest version of the past couple of months.

After my parent's left from bringing Puppy back home, husband and I ended up getting rear ended pretty badly. No injuries, but significant damage to car. More below.

We went to husband's older sister's sort of wedding reception (they got married in Bonaire, we didn't go). It was held at her ex-husband's sister's house. Awkward. It was a really nice house though.

After jumping through hoops, the insurance company decides my car is totaled. Sad day. I never thought I would be emotional about a car, but I was. Tow company came and took it away. Husband ramped up my manual driving lessons, since his car would be the only one for a while.

More hoops later, and we have a new(er) car. Nicer than my old car. Ok, way nicer than my old car, and we got a pretty good deal I think. Still not used to it, and can't find it in the parking lots.

Oh, at some point during the summer, husband actually got the pool fixed and usable. It was really nice to have. Puppy loves swimming too, so it helped her to get all her exercise in on the days it was too hot to walk. She's too short (who would have thought) to reach the bottom, so we had to get her a super cute life-vest so that she can rest without us having to hold her up and get all scratched to crap by her toenails.

Well, I guess that's about all that's different since the last time I wrote. Hope everyone else is doing well!

Well, as per usual, I write a journal entry because I am currently upset and have no one to talk to. Husband is busy, and I don't feel as though I should really be calling my mom. And since I have no friends that will answer the phone when I call, I fall back on the good old slashdot journal.

I never really know what I should say when I write here. I'm always afraid that people who know me "in real life" will find this place. And I know that one person already knows of this place, although hopefully boredom has lead them away by now.

Went to the wedding of a highschool friend who hasn't been a friend since our own wedding. We basically went to show her that even though she screwed us over by agreeing to help out at our wedding and then deciding the day of not to show... I guess to show her we're better people than she is. Both of her parents made a point of saying how important it was to her that we came, and she almost sounded relieved when she said she was "really glad [we] could make it." I know it is petty, but I hope she lost sleep over it.

Their wedding was as fancy as ours was not. I'm glad that we got married 2 years apart. That helps to ease some of the embarrassment, but not the heartache and hard feelings. The one good thing that came of that entire fiasco (including the no-clothes-to-wear part) was that I got to reconnect with my Maid of Honor a bit. They say that time heals all wounds. The problem is that I like to pick the scabs.

Anyways, we took Puppy with us, since we were staying at my parents' house for the wedding and left her there while we went on a too short vacation. She's still there, even though we've been back a few days, and my parents aren't going to be bringing her back until Monday. Originally they wanted us to come back and get her, even though that would add 10 hours of drive time to our trip, but we talked them out of that.

I kind of wish that we did go back for her though. As much as I hate that dog sometimes, I miss her terribly. And I know that she is not doing well there, even though my mom keeps trying to make her emails sound positive. Puppy thinks that we abandoned her there. And a well-meaning neighbor is "dog whispering" her because she isn't very well trained for walking and meeting people yet. While I am grateful for the progress it sounds like she is making in those areas, all of these changes are really upsetting her, and she's developed 2 habits in the past few days that she did not have when we brought her there -- poop eating, and biting.

I feel absolutely terrible and like the worst "puppy-mama" in the world. Not only did I fail to train my dog well in the first place (despite my best efforts) but now I've left her some place she wasn't comfortable and caused her to develop stress related problems. I guess I'm going to have to start researching dog-friendly vacation spots and lodgings for next year, because I don't think I can do this to her again.

At least the barrier spray finally started working, considering our house wasn't over-run while we were gone, and the number of ants in the kitchen has been drastically reduced. Will probably end up getting some more to finish treating the outside of the house around the windows and probably will do the shed too. I'd like to get this done before Puppy gets home, since this stuff isn't good for pets while it's still wet, but we'll see if I am able.

Right now husband and one of his work buddies are attempting to fix our piece-of-shit pool. I'd much rather it was just gone as I do not think it is salvageable. Whatever. His pool. His house. His time. His money.

I feel like I haven't gotten to relax since before Easter. Since my parents will be staying a week when they bring Puppy back so that my dad can do some work, I have at least one more full week before I can relax again. And husband just sprung surprise dinner plans with one of his cousins on me for tonight, so I won't even get a respite today once I finish all my chores. I suppose that I could have just said no, but I think the stress of spousal fall-out would be greater than the stress of spending a couple hours with a complete stranger talking about how much I fail at life.

This is starting to sound like the old queen again. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to cancel my doctors appointment with Specialist 2 for Tuesday, but I wasn't really sure how that would work out with my parents being in town. But I may end up having to bite the bullet and just ditch out while they are here and hope that the awkwardness will not ruin the rest of the week.

I don't know why I am posting this. And such a downer on a "holiday weekend." I guess I am just lonely right now. Well, I guess I better go and try to figure out why F-spot is fucking up right now so that I can finish archiving the vacaneymoon and zoo pictures.

It's on bitch. Tonight I am going to discuss the nuclear option with husband. I don't appreciate it when entities do the complete opposite of what I ask of them. On the other hand, I'm quite happy we didn't waste time/money/effort on a jumbotron container of the barrier treatment. Either it doesn't work or you are much craftier than I gave you credit for.

See you in hell. ~Queen

I don't really know how to say this to you, but I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. We've been together a long time. Remember our agreement? The line? Well, in case you forgot the line consists of the walls of my house. I was generous, I gave you the big half.

I even invited parts of you into my home to live in pots on my window sills. I've been trying to help keep you groomed. I recycle, even though in my area it isn't the easiest thing to do.

But that spider in my kitchen was the last straw. I'm tired of all the uninvited guests you keep sending into my home. Even though I kill every one of them that I can find, you aren't getting the hint. This weekend we are going to be buying some of that Ortho Max stuff to force you to comply with the line. Please note that if this doesn't work, I will be forced to get really nasty.

Love, Queen

PS: As an additional favor, perhaps to show that you still have some good will towards me, it would be nice if you could keep all the dead animals out of my yard. Oh, and those poisonous berry plants I keep trying to get rid of. I really would prefer to keep my dog healthy. Thanks.

So I didn't really realize that it was April Fools until I checked my gmail and saw the new Autopilot feature. Kind of wish that comcast had it because it would make emailing my parents a little easier.

I'll admit that I logged in just to see what all my achievements were once I saw that it was the joke for today. I have been meaning to do an update for a while now, so I suppose it is a good excuse. (Awesome, puppy just turned my speakers off for me by licking the power button.)

Survived the winter, only just barely. Had to resort to taping all windows with plastic to keep heating bill less than outrageous. Our pipes froze 4 times, but thanks be to God they did not burst.

Puppy is technically still a puppy I guess. She's 10.5 mos old now, and 60 lbs, but still insanely energetic. After one of husband's coworkers brought their dog over to play, I decided I'm glad I don't have a border collie. Although perhaps the shedding problem would have been worse.

Trick training got us through the long winter, especially that horrendous ice storm. It was so cold that even puppy didn't want to be outside, but still had tons of energy. Thank goodness bro gave us the 101 dog tricks book for Christmas.

Me? Health has been ok. Generally improved over last year. I did a couple of blender tutorials, and intend to start working on that more seriously again. I'm writing again, and it feels awesome. Since I'm apparently unemployable, I intend to finish my book and get it in finalized form by the end of the year. We'll see how that goes.

Not sure how many people are still around the dot anymore, but I have a request. Does anyone know where I can get DVD's of the ORIGINAL Star Wars that won't look like crap? I've been researching, but I'm not sure which set would be the best to get. And if I see the ghost of Hayden Christenson at the end of Jedi, I will be pissed.

So past couple of weeks have been hectic for me. I survived the birthday.

Ever since though, it seems like a non-stop stressfest. The day we left to visit the fam, Puppy got diarrhea. Which continued off and on for like 2 weeks. Every time I thought she was finally better (for real this time) she would get it again. I figured she was eating one of the plethora of poisonous plants in our suburban backyard, and basically destroyed it trying to figure out what was wrong.

Finally tired of random bouts of the poops, and 4 awakenings in the night for her to make them, I make the appointment with the vet. Turns out that the poisonous plants she ingested weakened her tract so that she was able to contract a protozoic infection from the millions of rabbit turds she snorfs down every time I take her outside. Brilliant. A round of antibiotics later (and two hours of picking up dog poop to make sure she wouldn't reinfect herself on them) I am hoping that I won't have to go through this again any time soon.

Bright spot: At the vet someone told the secretary that her dog was "a little sick". But it sounded like she said "little shit" so I turned to Husband and said, "Yes, my dog is a little shit too."

Health = don't ask. Double dosage is not helping. Still have most of my original symptoms, plus now I am so tired during the day that I can barely function. I haven't taken this many naps in 20 years. And I still conk out at around 8pm every day.

Oh, and the best part is that I've been battling the insurance company for the past 4 months or so to try to get them to actually cover the things they are supposed to cover. The things I asked them pointedly in the beginning if they would cover, and they insisted that they would after a $300 deductible that they are now trying to turn into a $1500 deductible. At this point I question whether the possibility of improved health is worth all this money and frustration.

Sorry for the downer post. Time for my pre-dinner nap.

So this is my third attempt to write something in here today. Going to try to make this one stick. I'm so out of the practice of journaling I never seem to know quite what to write.

Health-wise, things are so-so. Have had 2 appointments with specialist #2. First one, he gave me a prescription that worked really great for about 5 days, and then basically cut out on the 8th day. Not surprising, as I seem to be able to build up tolerances pretty quick. Side-effects abnormal. Second appointment led to a doubling of the dosage. Thus far it has just made me extremely tired. Fortunately the other side-effects have been less prevalent. We'll see how it works out.

My birthday is in 4 days. Not sure how I feel about that anymore. At first I felt old. Then I felt excited. Now I just feel stressed and/or ambivalent because I have to work out how to visit with relatives that I'd rather not visit who are insisting on seeing me for my birthday. I'd rather just keep things low-key, but one thing family is good at is making you worry about things.

Puppy is doing fairly well. She's more than doubled in size (getting closer to triple at this point). For a couple of weeks she was an absolute joy. Obedient, fun. Now she's reverted back to her more rambunctious self. Testing the rules and boundaries. She really makes me appreciate the demeanor of the dog we had when I was growing up a lot more. Of course, she could have been a hellion at this age too, and I just don't remember. Hopefully she'll settle down again soon.

Got the Essential Blender book in the mail yesterday. I am enjoying it so far, but haven't really made it to the procedural sections yet. I'm excited though, because it is more in depth and will cover a lot of things that I've heard people talk about but had no idea how to do it. Seems like it will be a good companion book to my Blender 2.0 manual. Going to try to rededicate myself to my Blender studies as my train kind of derailed earlier in the year.

[Note to self: message people about Blender.]

Still working on getting the house stuff arranged properly. Finally got my desk area set up a little better. Still need to do some cleaning off and finding of things, but it feels much better now. Also, as an added bonus, the area is much more Puppy-proof now. She can no longer stick her head behind my desk and lick the grating where the computer fan blows out. Still not entirely sure why she likes to do that.

Cold and rainy here today. This is an unwanted change from the warmer temperatures we had been enjoying again. Where I come from, this is winter weather. Here, however, this is just the beginning taunts of winter. Not looking forward to visits from Jack Frost. [Note to self: get good jacket out of Husband's car.]

In fangirl goodness: I got the most awesome Darth Vader action figure from walmart. The Legacy collection. Very poseable and his left hand is in the Grip position, which is what I had been waiting for, for years. He now perches on my desk ready to choke anyone who annoys me. Still looking for the perfect Wall-E toy. I want one that can fold all up into a box and have a flap open like his garbage dumper. Not sure they have both in the same toy.

Well, this has gotten pretty long, so I suppose I'll stop here for today. Plus I think it might be naptime now. Hooray for having a cold.

So... it's been a while. I guess now that my computer is once again operational (vid card died in the move) I should make some sort of an update, particularly since my last notice was not so good.

Moved into the house. That went ok. Adopted a baby of the furry four-legged kind. She makes my life interesting.

Today is the first day it has felt like fall (well, second I guess since it was cold and rainy yesterday) which has sparked my soul searching once again. I have that feeling that I need to start figuring stuff out again.

Health has been so-so. Seeing a specialist who is sending me to another specialist, who will hopefully be able to solve the problem. Hopefully it will all be worth it.

Going to try to restart working on my hobbies, since it's been months to a year since I have done anything with them.

I guess that's good for now.

If life had an undo button, I'd be control-z'ing the shit out of it right now.

In the latest episode of "buying a house will be the death of me.... literally."

Sellers want to move the closing date from July 15th to June 30th, obviously to their benefit. No obvious benefit to us, considering we are already paid to August 4th, which is the end of our lease. Thus far, they haven't accepted all of our repairs, and won't even if we make it a stipulation of closing early.

Husband already has verbal agreement with their realtor (who went through our mortgage officer to contact us about this, since our realtor is in Mexico, instead of contacting our realtor's partner). Husband went directly to their realtor to make the deal, instead of going through our realtor's partner.

This leaves the queen grumpy, because she wasn't really taken into consideration. Secondly I talked to my mom today, who gave us more bargaining ideas, but... yeah, bargaining has been done. Going to have to try to figure out some way to do damage control on this.

So what now? I don't know. Still too raw.

We ended up making an offer on the house. Our offer was about 10k lower than the list price. Their realtor said that they had received many offers on it in the past and were not very negotiable so they all were rejected. Some how the accepted our first offer anyways. I guess our realtor played up the "couple of young kids trying to get off to a good start". That and we had a prequalification letter from the bank.

Anyhoo... Just got the contract back from the realtor so taking it to the bank tomorrow I guess in order to start getting the appraisal and whatever else the bank wants. Trying to find good home inspectors. Need to run a radon test.

Does anyone know if the little home radon tests you can buy at Lowes/HomeDepot are accurate enough? Not sure much how else we could have one done. Not sure if that is covered by the home inspection or not.

Other suggestions? Bear in mind the initial contract is already signed...

I know it's been a while. And I know I owe everyone on planet earth at least one email. Lately I have just felt like hiding. I still feel like hiding, but I have questions.

So after months and months of refusing to look at/discuss houses, the mortgage rates dropped and husband was ready to start looking again. So we do a little driving around where there are signs out, do a little browsing of the internet, and husband picks out 2 to go look at and we go see them on Saturday. One was old and not at all what we were looking for. The other one is kind of (gut instinct was to use the word "enigma" here, but I don't know if it is the correct choice).

2250 sqft, .5 acres, and somehow in our budget. Well, I already know the "somehow" is this. For those of you who cannot view the link, it is a giant powerline that goes across the backyard with the two superhuge wooden poles being inside of the fence.

I don't like them. He couldn't care less that they were there. How much would having those giant powerlines in your backyard bother you?

Other questions are: what percentage of your savings did you throw down into a downpayment? What type of mortgage do you have?

One that renters can answer too: how many places did you look at before you decided on your current place of residence (if you consider this to be a place you will be living for at least a few years)?

Aside from the powerline issue, it just seems wasteful to buy such a huge house, for just the 2 of us, with no children on the (at the very least immediate) horizon. Really, what will we do with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms? We have enough furniture for a 800 sqft apartment, and pretty much maxed out donations from relatives to have this much. So probably at least half of the house will go empty for a few years while we figure out what to do with it, and build our funds back up again before we can really buy anything.

Ok, so I guess it's time for my monthly update, as it would seem.

The car situation is undoubtedly aging me. Still not resolved, this marks nearly 2 months. I tried to call my local agent again today, and of course she is not in. She is never in when I call, and usually takes a couple of additional phone messages on the days that she is in before she will call me back.

Since my last posting I received a second claim number. Left messages with 2 different people in the claims corporate departments, neither of which called me back. I got a mailing from my local agent that was a form to fill out about how I liked my service and the speed of the solution of my claim. I've decided to give her one last chance to get this rolling before I give her bad marks on everything. Assuming she calls me back.

I don't really know what to say about the grandmother situation that would be entirely appropriate, other than she decided to have the surgery that she insisted that she didn't want to have (unless everyone else wanted her to or something?). It sounds like she'll make a recovery. I don't really want to talk about it.

Mostly I'm just mentioning that much to set the stage for this bit: I'm pretty much avoiding my family right now, because the stress of dealing with them has gotten to great, probably as a result of the added strain of my grandmother. My mother sends me emails that not so subtly aim guilt in my direction. My father sends lonely sounding emails because he is stuck in NJ with grandmother, and she's never been a very nice person. Basically I feel like I'm failing at my familial obligations, I think that they are accusing me of that.

I can't take care of them anymore. Especially right now. I had decided that this year I needed to start putting myself first so that I can heal. It got to the point in the first couple weeks of this year to where any and every conversation I would have with them (particularly my mother, but if I talk to my father, she'll get persistent about why I am avoiding her, so he gets pushed out too) would make me so stressed and upset that I would feel physically ill, and it was probably a contributing factor in why I got sick so much.

But the guilt...

The fact that they're all online (including my brother, who is never online) makes me feel worse. I'm currently signed in as invisible, otherwise I'm sure I'd probably would have had to leave the computer by now entirely due to the stress and sickness. Well, brother needs the brownie points right now anyways, to make up for his other behaviours. And they might all be visiting in a few days, so I'm not sure how I'll weather that, especially when my mother brings the inevitable "where have you been" accusation to the table.

I could probably go on many more paragraphs about it.

Had my first GI specialist appointment. Essentially it was a waste of time. She gave me 2 OTC med samples. One worked, but not the way I thought it would, and the other I am too scared to try due to the high risk of dependency associated with it, and the possible side effect of crapping one's pants at random. Would have been nice if she mentioned those things in the office. I'm glad I can research online.

On the good things side: I adore my husband, and he adores me. He gave me a brand new project to work on as what he wanted for his Valentine's present. It's going better than I thought it would, but still trying to get everything to go together. Edited the first 3 chapters of the novel I started ages ago. Husband is helping me with a new line of studies. I am trying hard.

Sorry if this is all TMI or inappropriate or whatever. I really need someone to talk to, and sadly this journal is my only way to do it anymore. My one good friend is in Italy right now, and the girl who is local never messaged me back. Sadly, everyone else I know seems more distant than a bunch of strangers I know on the internet.

Addendum: local agent called me back, and started giving me the business about how she doesn't handle this stuff and I need to talk to the other people who never call me back. Well, I out-bitched her, and now she said that she will call the claims people and get them to tell her what is going on. I think that as soon as we get this settled, we might be switching companies.

I'm in a rather bitchy mood right now. That's a forewarning.

Car problem not solved yet. Playing fun phone tag with various people and everyone tells me I need to call someone else. The adjustor is in theory looking at my paperwork now, and was supposed to call me back. Has not yet, so I will be calling again this afternoon, probably to be told I need to be more patient. It's been a month. My car is rusting in the snow. I'm annoyed.

In new apartment. Found out after we signed the lease that Towlie (the bad upstairs neighbor) got evicted for his felony charges. So in theory he has to be moved out in less than 2 weeks at this point. Glad we don't live there anymore though.

Christmas was ok. I just don't much get into it anymore. Especially since by the time Christmas was here, we had already had 2, and all the presents were distributed.

New year's was kind of made to suck by my mom who called on the eve to say "you're one surviving grandparent is in the hospital and 'it doesn't look good'. oh yeah, happy new year." so now I'm kind of more mad at my mom than I was before, and I cringe every time my phone rings thinking it's her and she's going to bug me about this some more.

Why does everyone have to die around the holidays?

And while I'm already upset about various other things, I find out today that this girl I used to be friends with until the whole bridal shower issues finally set her wedding date. (Don't think I mentioned her Stockholm syndrome fiance before, but anyways...) It annoys me that she chose May 16 for her wedding date. We chose May 18 because it had significance to us. She chose 16 because it's the first Sat after her graduation. I doubt she gave us a passing thought though. We probably won't be invited anyways, so it won't matter.

Yes I am petty.

So combined with all of my other worries and health problems, I'm pretty bummed out at this point. Dreading the 'what next' in some of these situations, because I know there just isn't a way for them to end well.

Sorry.