It's official!

So I don't have any interesting pics to post this time around... But it's official, we've completely moved out of our apartment and back in with my parents! Yay!!! Most people would be wondering how that's a cause for celebration since that seems like a step backward in the progression of life. However, for us it is a step backward to move forward. We moved back in to save some money so we could buy into the same townhouses my parents live in. We have to save up half the down payment + first month's rent and some utility money to get into these townhouses. Doesn't seem like much fun since we had our own place before. However, with these townhouses we can really make it a home. We can paint, if the basement's not finished we can finish it, and we can pretty much do anything we want with the place (once we get one) aside from knocking down walls. Plus when we move out we'll get our down payment back and charge for any remodeling we've done. So in the end it's an investment.

Also with moving back in with my parents, we won't have to worry about slap happy maintenance with the air conditioner and heater. It seemed every time the season changed there was something wrong with our heater or our air conditioner. And we don't have to worry about the water being shut off without notice and my favorite thing of all, no more brown recluse infestation!

Since I had limited time in packing and moving and while we had lots of help, it took awhile to get out of our old place due to the heat. It's been in the triple digits (Fahrenheit) here in the Midwest and according to the weather guys, it's not looking like it will cool down anytime soon. In fact, yesterday while we were trying to finish up moving out and cleaning the old place, we had to leave early because I got heat sick. I had to come back to my parents, drink lots of water, take a cool shower, and rest. It was pretty scary and worse I heard one news cast report that 30 people had already died this summer from heat stroke.

But all is well. The cats are settling in nicely, we're getting ready to get up and work on my mom's pantry. We have to get rid of some things of mom's to make room for the food we brought from our house. Don't worry, anything we don't need or will use, will be shipped to a food pantry.

Last night Dad, my girlfriend and I sat and talked about the couple of years when my family was vegetarian and all the interesting food we made from various cookbooks. We have a friend who is vegetarian coming for a visit. And of course we talked about other food we'd like to make for after she leaves. Looks like I will be expanding my recipe box again and finally, I'll get to have cauliflower cheese pie again. Num!

Well, gotta get up and get moving...

An early morning farewell, a door opens, and some tid bits.

Aside from this piece of art being one of my favorites, I thought it was an appropriate image for how I feel at the moment. If one were to turn the Knight into the apartment my girlfriend and I are vacating, the Lady would be myself saying a soft and sweet farewell. Yet somehow I feel as if I could be the Knight riding off to said apartment to battle the task of moving out. However, for us we will not be returning to the happy and relieved arms of our apartment when all is said and done.

For the last week I have been scrambling and packing with a firm, unrelenting and dreaded deadline in fast approach. My back is still giving me much grief, my knees have decided to join the pain parade, and due to the extreme heat here in the mid-west, this moving experience has not been a pleasant one. In fact, I have been so frustrated and so stressed from lack of boxes, lack of time, or this or that, that I have quite literally tossed any sense of organization out the window and am just packing things as I go along in plastic sacks, trash bags, luggage ect... But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We have very little left to pack and just have a little cleaning to do and come Friday afternoon, we'll turn in our keys and say "So long and thanks for all the fish".

My one class this quarter isn't going as well as I had hoped. I just got an update on my grade for the class and nearly cried. After all the work I put into making sure I had my book work done, I have a big, whopping F for the class and that's due to me not being caught up on the labs (which I am still in the process of doing). On top of that we just had a test with a study guide of over 100 questions and I studied and I looked over the study guide before the test and when I got the damned test it was only 15 questions long. Then my instructor went over the test after everyone had it handed in. I am pretty sure I only got 3 questions right. So, since my back was really giving me trouble and I was depressed, I left school during the second break.

However, despite all the negative, harrowing, and depressing things going on in my life right now, I had my first therapy session yesterday. I decided that I was going to see if I could get a therapist through social services program just so I could talk to someone outside my network of people and see if I couldn't get some other ideas on how to cope with stuff yada yada yada. Anyway, her diagnosis of me was that I have severe depression (I already knew that) and I have some social phobias. The session went well, I really like her, and she had some interesting things to say. I go back in two weeks and she said that she would have some things outlined for me to help me better deal with some of the problems I am dealing with. Leaving her office felt like a door opening to something really good. I really felt better.

Fun tidbits, my Dad helped me get the Dragon mask for this year's Dragon festival in Guild Wars. It;s pretty cool and eventually I'll log on and get a screen shot of it. My Mom and I are going to play with some of the gemstones she's been collecting and make some jewelry together and she's excited to show me some new TV series she's been watching. In a week or two we will have a friend from Idaho coming down to visit us, which will be awesome since we haven't seen her in almost two years! We really want to see her sister too, but they don't have anyone to take care of their animals so she's staying behind and will come later this year.

And lastly, I started watching this anime on Hulu while waiting for my Girlfriend to get off work one night last week. So far so good. I've only seen 4 episodes but it's interesting and when I get some more time I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

Down is never a pleasant way to be.

For the last couple of weeks my forced perch has been at the end of my sofa by day and sleeping on the sofa by night. One afternoon I was in Gander Mountain with my girlfriend and her parents who were visiting from out of town and somehow or someway, I managed to throw my back out of sync. For the last couple of years I have had back issues and once even had to have it realigned. Normally I simply have a day or two where it hurts and I rest a little and then I am back to my usual self. However this time it wasn't so simple.

So, I took a trip to the doctor. I was put on pain pills and muscle relaxers but they only help a little. In fact this time the pain has been so debilitating that I couldn't walk, take a shower without assistance much less go to the bathroom alone. Needless to say to be 27 years old and so dependent on others when you take pride in making meals, having a clean house, and helping to take care of others has left me feeling guilty, useless, and such a burden.

Also, because of my back, I have had to drop out of two of my classes at ITT and the Chair of my Department is doing what he can to help me have some success this quarter by keeping me in one class. I have about half of my homework for that class finished but I will need to use all the time I have to finish catching up so that I may be caught up enough (at least book work wise) with the rest of the class. The labs I will have to schedule another time to go in and complete.

This physical hindrance has also had more than a few minor emotional repercussions. I have been worried about school, worried about others (family, friends, my cats), to be frank, I've had some pretty awful panic attacks. Since I haven't been able to do much, I've felt like I have lost a sense of purpose and meaning. I find myself constantly saying 'I'm sorry' and feeling so guilty and even clingy and yet withdrawn. I know a lot of that playing into the fact that I have depression and anxiety. However, when it takes you an hour to clean a small kitchen having to stop every ten minutes because your back is screaming agony, it makes it difficult to be A-okay. I've kind of been an emotional mess.

But there is a little more good news, per se. My girlfriend and I will be moving back in with my parents by July 15 and we will be saving up the money to get a really nice place of our own. One we can paint and really play with designing. It's a town house but one we can paint and make home improvements to.