Long time no see, I'm busy, but I am back!

It's been awhile. Not having a home whether it be apartment, house, or what have you, really took its toll on me. It took a toll on Amanda as well. We sofa hopped between two friend's house and her parents'.  Things were especially hard when we weren't with the cats. And, we were busy. Amanda was working, we were looking at houses and signing documents, shopping, helping with the family Xmas party, and really the list goes on. Then there was the signing and closing of our house and the big move! We are exhausted. We have a lot of stuff still to do, for instance, we need to finish painting. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The photo above is a picture of our little house. When my parents showed my Grandma, she said it looks like a Ginger Bread house. I suppose it does. It has a bedroom upstairs. Living, dinning, small kitchen and bath with a small bedroom are on the main floor. The basement is partial finished with a family room, an extra bedroom, laundry area and small storage area. The house itself is 81 years old and has good bones, an old coal shoot that's been sealed off, and a small entry way. Oh we have a garage and a nice, small, back yard. We're planning to do a  little gardening this year, if we can manage it. There are a lot of little things to fix within the house; a lot of big things too. We'll need to replace the washer and dryer- we can get some at the ding and dent center. We'll also need a lawn mower- can pick one up from a thrift store, hopefully. And we will need a garden hose. Our bathroom needs a little work, we need to paint some more, fix the broken window sills, and repair the stair rails for both sets of stairs. Eventually we will tear out the stairs and build new, redo the bathroom, and Amanda would like to build onto the back of the house to give me a bigger kitchen.  It will take us years, I expect. But first, I'm cleaning out cabinets, tearing out the old contact paper, and putting fresh down so that I may feel secure in knowing there is a clean place for my dishes. 

There was a great deal of stress before and during the move. There is still a lot of stress. I think we are trying to settle in and having trouble doing so. Point of fact, we have to unpack and arrange our house, do minor repairs, and we are simply and utterly exhausted. Amanda parents aren't even fully moved in. They are living in the basement. Her Mom is sick and her Dad is not exactly the most helpful of people, certainly a grump, but still lovable. Sorry, I'm a bit numb and tried, and well exhausted and my day has hardly begun. I have the first tinges of being sick and that's kind of pissing me off.

In other news, my Grandma turned 90 this December 1st. Then she tripped in her bedroom and fell, breaking her shoulder blade and three of her upper ribs. My parents have been staying with them to help around the house and help Grandma with things, mostly Grandpa. One of the jobs my parents took care of for my Grandparents this weekend was to cut wood and pile it near the back door. Grandma needed to be able to get to it easier for when they aren't there. Anyway, they worked for two hours and got at least a cord of wood cut. However, Dad also almost cut my Mom's hand off with the chain saw. He got a little close and thankfully, only nicked the back of her hand. She is okay and Grandma sewed up the glove, but my Dad is a little stressed, I could tell, even though he didn't say it. My parents are tired too. We've all just been going and going and going. Apparently my Aunt Laura isn't doing so well either. 

On top of that, we've had a broken toilet, which is thankfully now fixed, since it is the only one in the house. (We plan to put in a second one in the basement) And my cell phone died. Literally.  It has had problems for awhile and I have been patient with it. But last week it decided to fight me when I tried to charge it. Then one day, it simply wouldn't turn on or charge at all. Well, I bought it refurbished and had it for two years. It is time to take it to be recycled and order a new one. We can't do that just yet, we have to wait until Amanda gets paid again. I don't mind that much. 

In all of this you'd think I could be content to try to work on the house, unpack, and recuperate, get some writing done, but I decided to go back to school again. No, it's not a creative writing MFA, although I would like to pursue that eventually. I am attending the Woolston-Steen Wiccan Seminary.  I've been thinking about this for a while, a couple of years actually. Tuition is much cheaper than I thought it was going to be and I got a full scholarship in turn for service. So, I work for the school for 15 hours a week in lieu of paying tuition and if and when I am able to pay it myself, I will do so. They also have a sliding payment scale. anyway, my classes begin January 2nd and I am looking forward to them. I don't get to take an elective class until after my 30 day probationary period, but that's okay with me. 

All right, that's about all I can manage today. I have a list of stuff to do today and its looking like I may need a nap somewhere in there. Pictures of the inside of the house will come eventually. I'm not sure where my camera is and we're not unpacked and settled yet. It will take me some time, but I am hoping to get caught up on blog reading as well. I've missed you guys.  

Finally! Conflicted. Where I have been lately.

It doesn't seem like a whole hell of a lot has been going on lately and yet... 

First, my bank really dropped the ball. Not only did they lie about when the document they were supposed to be sending out would arrive, but now they seem to be ending free checking. That's fine, I was closing with them anyway. 

Second, the housing authority came through for us, voided the other check, and cut us a new one. So, we've gotten our friend Rachel paid back and mostly paid back Amanda's parents. We still owe them a little, but it will be taken care of shortly.  

Third, the housing inspection went well, the owners are going to fix basically everything, and the loan officer has already made arrangements for an appraiser to head out and look at the house. So far it looks like every thing is on schedule. However, December 13th, our closing date, can't seem to come soon enough. My plan is to get the painting done right away, let it dry, then move in. This is so we don't have to deal with the cats and paint. That's if every thing works out and we get the house. I am a little worried, the universe has thrown me some heavy slaps lately, so I am cautious. 

Speaking of, my panic attacks have gotten a little worse. I had one the other day that lasted half a hour. Amanda wanted to take me to the hospital. I am really getting sick of this. 

To keep my mind off things, I have been binge watching stuff on netflix. Total avoidance, I know, but it's what I can do right now. Between Voltron, Grey's Anatomy, and trouble getting to sleep at night, I managed to cook up a Voltron fanfic and I'm not too happy about it. Well, no, a fanfic is fine, but I want to focus on writing novels not fanfic, and I didn't want to start anything until after I was moved into a house. I tend to get obsessive about writing and don't like interruptions or distractions when I get going, and sometimes get a little cranky. And while there is a little privacy in two of the places we are bouncing between, there isn't really any place comfortable for me to set up- comfort as in my desk chair. However, it seems that no matter how resistant I am to writing this fanfic, it is that much more determined to make me write it. So, after much hemming and hawing, I finally broke down and wrote up a character bio for an OC, did a little research, and today I am going to start it. As Amanda keeps reminding me "all writing is practice". Yeah, I know that, but I'm not going to make a career out of fanfic. It is just frustrating. 

Aside from that, I've had some pretty awful dreams lately, two of which involved my mother either being seriously hurt or her dying. Another was an unsettling dream to begin with but only grew worse when I saw Amanda at a bus depot and the relief and safety I had in seeing her was ripped away when she came up to me and introduced me to a woman she was replacing me with. As if that wasn't bad enough, she said she was going to keep me to be the companion animal to this new wife and that I was going to be their cook and maid. Dream Amanda is a hoochie-mama-heffer-head-bitch! 

Well, that's about it for now. I'm rather tired, didn't sleep well last night, so I might take a small power nap. I'll catch up on blog reading a little later. 

I screwed up so bad, limbo, pain.

We are visiting our cats today. They are staying with the in laws until we have a house. 

Speaking of which, we made an offer on a cute little green house that our cousin Kitty Kat said looks like a fairy cottage. The offer was rejected and the owners asked for full price but they will pay closing costs and repairs. We are okay with that. That will work. So we have to put down our earnest money and then pay for a housing inspector to check foundations, wiring, ect... But, I fucked up royally. 

When Valley 206 gave us the relocation check, it had Amanda's and my name on it. We don't have a joint bank account. So when I signed and deposited the check into my account, my bank posted it then removed it and destroyed the check and sent out some legal document that we both have to sign, in person, in front of a teller, at the bank. Um, okay. That's fine, it really screwed us up, but okay. Except that we moved and our change of address- where we are getting our mail- hadn't yet kicked in. So if they sent it out like they said they did, then it would have gone to our old apartment- which had a vacancy sticker in it. So the letter would have gone back to Seattle, to the postal hub, to be rerouted to our forwarding address. Except it hasn't shown up and it has had plenty of time to come twice. 

We have been to the damned bank and the bank won't do shit for us. Not a Gods damned thing. We keep trying to get a hold of the Spokane Housing Authority to get them to cancel that check and reissue another one but we can't get a hold of them for shit and we aren't even sure if they will do it. 

So Amanda and I are sitting here, praying for the damned document to show before we lose out on this house. I've been so stressed out over all of this, over this one simple, yet colossal mistake of trying to take care of business while in the midst of moving out of our apartment, looking at houses, figuring out whose house I am going to be sleeping at this night or the next night, and going to the doctor, to therapy, and so on, that I can hardly stand it. I've cried every day over it. I've had panic attacks every day over it. Why can't we catch a break? 

A lot of people say its no the end of the world, but then they have never been in this situation. 

In other news, I went to the doctor today to get my blood drawn so she can check my thyroid. She made me pee in a cup too, to check my kidneys. I want to see what she says about my labs but I'm pretty sure we are going to change doctors soon. But I will talk about the why later. Oh and I have tendentious in both my Achilles tendons and carpal tunnel in both wrists. I now have to sleep with wrist braces for awhile. I also have had consistently high blood pressure for almost a year so I get to start taking blood pressure meds. Part of that is genetics, part of that is stress, and yes, part of that is my weight, but since every single person in my family, on my Dad's side, for the last several generations has had high blood pressure, um, yeah, it's probably mostly genetics. 

At the moment we are in limbo and the last several days I have been sleeping a lot and have been in a lot of pain. I have some big knots in my back that feel like knives. Amanda rubbed my back a little bit ago, but I might have her do some more later.

Honeymoon adventures and moving

We are back from our honeymoon. We are moved out of our apartment. We are living out of suitcases and couch surfing because we are officially homeless. There's a numbness to it, on the surface and maybe even a little under. Or perhaps I've shut down again to keep myself from crying. I am not okay and yet there is plenty to be thankful for. Staying positive, trying to look at things positively, I admit is exhausting, but I'm putting in the effort. A new chapter in our lives is beginning and I am fighting tooth and tangled hair to see excitement and the silver lining. So I'll go in order. 

We went to Seattle for our honeymoon. Amanda;s cousin graciously paid for our entire hotel stay in a lovely hotel in Issaquah. The bed was amazing and for the first time in years, I awoke in the mornings with little or no back pain. I felt spoiled. 

We were both sick the entire honeymoon but we got did not let it stop us. We went to the Northwest Railroad Museum and I rode a real train for the first time in my life. I loved it. All of the cars were from different trains and different time periods. We also got to see Snoqualmie falls on the ride, drank fresh, warm hot apple cider, and the train had to make an emergency stop because some jack ass tried to race the train and nearly got hit. Afterward, Amanda and I ate a picnic lunch in the rain by a river. 

Uwajimaya, a huge Asian food and gift store, in Seattle, was our next stop. We splurged a little and I'm still a little shocked that I spent 20 dollars on a bottle of Sakura Sake, which I am saving to drink in our new house (when we get it and are moved in). We spent so much in the grocery part of the store that we opted out of going to the book/anime shop nestled inside. A travesty to be sure, but I was really tired, aching, and we had one more place to go. Thankfully, Daiso, another Asian store on our list, was across the street. It is a very neat shop with interesting things from Japan. I would love to share our haul from both places but most of it is packed and in storage. After we finished there, we went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

On another day, we took a ferry from Seattle to Bremerton. I stood on the front deck the whole hour long ride and enjoyed the breeze and water. I saw jellyfish, loons, seaguls, and seals. It was amazing! As we pulled into port, I noticed that there is a naval port there and saw the ship Kitty Hawk, which I thought was pretty cool. From there we drove down to Tacoma to a little shop called Crescent Moon Gifts. Largely a pagan store, they also had a tea room, and some fantasy stuff too. I was in pain when we arrived and there was so much to look at. The staff was so nice and I enjoyed talking with them. The store is also very peaceful and despite being in pain, I relaxed while we were there. 

We were supposed to catch dinner with Amanda's cousin and his family back in Issaquah but we didn't make it. One of our tires went flat and we discovered that we had forgotten to buy a tire iron. So, with a dying cell phone, we messaged Amanda's cousin and knocked on the doors of three houses for help. House two didnt have a tire iron but lent us a cell phone charger. House three had a tire iron and while we changed the tire, the man's daughter asked if she could help. Of course! We weren't in a hurry and it was a learning experience for her. After we put the doughnut tire on, we thanked everyone, returned the phone charger, and headed to Costco so see about getting a new tire or repairing ours. Our tire was toast! Apparently in losing air, it got hot and shredded from the inside, and sadly Costco didn't have one to replace it. So we drove from Tacoma to Issaquah at 45 mph because the doughnut tire couldn't go above 50 mph, on the I-5 and I-90. We were only honked at 3 three times. The next day we spent milling about a small shopping center while Firestone changed our tire. 

Coming home was hard. We had a good time but we missed the kitties. We also dreaded the thought of moving out of our apartment.

Two of our friend had packed the majority of our apartment while we were away. I can't even begin to express how much of a help that was. We still had a lot to pack and we were both still sick. We took a day to rest and visit with Amanda's cousin Kitty Kat before she flew back to Tulsa. She'd come up to visit family and see us. 

In the scant few days following we were a chaotic rush and mess of packing. We've made several trips back and forth between Spokane WA and Post Falls ID- where Amanda's parent's live. We are storing our stuff in a garage they are renting at their apartment complex and they are watching our cats. A couple of friends pitched in and helped up load and unload the u-haul and also helped me when Amanda was at work. Because Amanda needs to be in Spokane to work and because we are looking for houses and I have a few doctor's appointments, and because of rental agreements of the people we are staying with, we are couch surfing. We can stay with Rachel a couple nights a week and stay with Amanda's parents a couple nights a week, and to finish out the rest of the time, we are staying with another friend a few nights a week. We are taking our mail at one of our friend's houses in Spokane because that's where we will be a majority of the time and it is one of the places we are staying at. 

This is all very stressful. I feel so lost and displaced. Some other things have happened, good and bad but I haven't processed them all. When I do, I will share. However, we are house hunting and trying to get well, and just trying to enjoy time with our friends, family, and kitties.            

Well, that happened, the paint is crying, and sick

Amanda and I. 

Well, it happened. We are married! Finally! The day of was pretty intense. Amanda was freaking out and I was trying to take it easy. Of course part was that as because I twisted both ankles and fell at Scarrywood the night before and the other part was because I wanted to be as calm as possible. Everyone else was freaking out and I'm not going to go into it, its done and over. 

The ceremony was beautiful, what I remember of it. It seemed to happen fast and a lot from that day is a blur and I was in a lot of pain. Thankfully, people recorded it. We never got to dance, never even got to listen to the music that wasn't in the ceremony itself. We basically got to eat dinner and a little cake and then the pavilion lights went out and it was time to clean up. Only, I didn't. I was cold and hurting, and went to warm up in the car. 

We had a small after party at a friend's house. I was planning to get drunk only I hung in long enough to sit by the fire for a few minutes, drink non-alcoholic hot cocoa, and then fell asleep on my friend's sofa. Another friend scared me awake to give me a hug goodbye. Amanda and another friend, both drunk, woke me up to go join the coven they were making in the back yard, but I was too sleepy. I do remember my friend nuzzling my boobs and pulling on my arm, but that was it. Apparently they made me drink some alcohol too. I missed all the vomiting excitement too, for which I am thankful.

The next morning when we walked to our car, parked around the corner from my friend's house, we found this gem:

Since Our car was parked facing away from the road and the damage as done on the passenger side, I can only assume that someone walking by threw something or hit the windshield as they were passing by. That's at least a 300 dollar fix and it will just have to wait until after we get back from the honeymoon. We have far too much shit to do at the moment. 

Speaking of which. I am sick and Amanda is feeling the first of it. I think it is a combination of stress, us being out in the cold rain the night before our wedding, and the mildew- mold smell permeating our apartment.

Two weeks or so ago we had what looked like a lactating tit dripping water down into our shower. I called maintenance about it. They came and slashed it and told us that they needed to let it dry out and that they weren't going to fix it until after we moved out since we are moving out on the 30th of this month. Lovely, how kind of them to leave us with this over our heads while we shower and while our out of town wedding guests shower. Fuckers.

Thursday night, after SScarrywood, we came home to a small puddle in the bathroom and our bathroom wall looking like this:

The next morning, our wedding day, it looked like this:

I went down to talk to the office about it. The apartment managers were gone so I cornered one of the Walker Construction guys and told him. I told him it was my wedding day, we were going to have people in and out of my apartment all day, but that I would be home Saturday. Well they don't work on Saturday, which he neglected to tell me, but he did say he would talk to someone about it. 

I waited all day Saturday and by Sunday morning I had had enough. Especially when I stepped in a wet spot in the hall way. I'm not sure how the water migrated there, I checked the water heater closet and nothing was wet in there and everyone swore they didn't spill anything. So I called Emergency Maintenance. They came out looked, mopped up the floor with some towels and did something with the water upstairs, which was where it was coming from. Our house smells awful. I'v had the dining room window open the last couple of days to try and help air it out. I've also kept the house kind of cold to discourage mold from growing. I don't know if that's doing any good or not. 

Since I have been sick the last few days, I've been resting, sleeping, and downing cold care tea, mucinex, and cough drops. Neither  Amanda no I want to be sick on our honeymoon next week, so I am doing my best to rest and get over whatever crap it is that I have. No, I am not smoking anymore. I quit that the day before I got sick. This doesn't help our efforts to pack up our house to move. In fact, Amanda has been doing most of it. Two of our friends are going to come over while we are on our honeymoon to finish it up for us, that way, when we get back, we can get a truck, and load it all into storage. Man this month fucking sucks! 

On the house hunting front, we have viewed two houses. They weren't us, not really. So we are still looking. 

For today, I am going to take the car back to emissions, finally, and hope it passes. Then I am going to go get car tags, finally. At some point the car needs an oil change and we need to pack for our hoeymoon and pick up our order from Torrid. But, at this very moment, I have a very spoiled and needy orange cat curled up on the table and on my arms wanting more attention, so everything else can wait a damned minute.

Shit heads, kicked out of bed, and good news, finally!

First I'd like to point out that my darling fiance is a bitch. She's happily, loudly, snoring the night away, cozy, and smack dab in the middle of our bed. She got testy with me when I asked her to turn over. Then the next thing I know she's facing me again and gradually pushing me out of the bed. Fine, I'll just go sit on the sofa,, which is where I am. I've only been here since about 3:30 am, wide awake, peckish, and thinking about turning to coffee pot on- since I apparently don't get to sleep. 

Second, the apartment twats strike again. The renovation noise was pretty bad yesterday but I only have to put up with it in the afternoon. They turned off the stair well lights so our entry way is dark, okay no big deal, I guess. But what kind of pissed me off yesterday was the note on my door about cigarette butts littering the stair well that they say clean up or get a 25 dollar fine. The letter was addressed to everyone but only my door received it. 1. Not all of those are mine. 2. I am getting to it but I'm kind of in the middle of moving, because you are kicking me out. 3. Go fuck yourself. They just want more money. They also know that we are pretty tidy with the outdoor stuff, our patio is damned cute. Also, all those cigarette butts at the entrance to our stairwell was from me sweeping them up from the parking lot in the first place. I just got distracted and forgot to grab a bag to put them in for the trash. I've kind of been uber stressed out the last several months, I'm not always on top of everything. The really vindictive side of me wants to sweep up our entire section's parking lot, wait until we move out a couple of weeks and then slip in sometime in November to dump them all on the office door step. However, I won't  because it's not management who will have to clean it up, it the maintenance guys.

There is good news. My friend Rachel bleached and dyed my hair last night. I was going for a darker blue ombre look. The sapphire blue didn't really come out as dark as it was supposed to and I need to do a little touch up for missed spots, I just decided that I am going to take what is left of the sky blue and do an all over application today. I'll catch the missed spots and even out what sort of took and what didn't. I also think that for this ombre effect to really work, with the blue that is, I need get my blues farther apart in color. As in do really dark, a medium, and a really light. I think I got them too close together. No big, it was a learning experience. I'm just happy to have all blue hair again. 

The best piece of good news, and one that makes me feel a large sense of relief, is that we were pre-approved for a home loan yesterday. Our lender is such a nice guy and he is going to send me a list of realtors that his company works with. After talking with some friends who have been through the home buying process, that seems to work the best because both entities know each other's process and can help us fast track when we find a home we like.  

Explosion, meltdown, thank the gods for Amanda and friends

The last couple of months have difficult and stressful, I've whined, ranted, and bitched enough about on this blog for everyone who reads it to have a very clear picture. 

Well, I have been trying really hard to hold it together, to get things done, and push myself into a positive- more happy state of mind. Amanda is having a hard time too and I want to support her 100% especially because she does so much and works so hard. Try as I could, bits of crying and doom and gloom eked out. It eked out of her too and yesterday I lost it. 

I awoke feeling awful, in pain, and ready to cry the moment I opened my eyes. We watched some anime for a an hour and tried to get started with the house- since it was Amanda's day off after working 8 in a row. Well, neither of us were doing so great and so we were slow to get going. It didn't help that they've already started tearing up the apartment above us there were constant loud bangs, thumps, and stomping. It was starting to drive me nuts. So I left to go get our marriage licence while Amanda began getting the living room ready to move our bed into it. We want to use our bedroom to put all the packed boxes in so they are out of the way. 

Anyway, I drove all the way downtown and when I arrived I realized that Amanda needed to be with me and that I didn't have change for the parking meter. On top of that it seemed like a lot of people were driving erratically n the highway. Which, really doesn't help the dream like feeling I was experiencing. The drive home wasn't good and the closer I got to home, the more angry I became. Stop and go traffic on the highway with people zipping in and out around me doesn't ever help that situation.  

When I finally got in the apartment, I told Amanda not to freak out I needed to scream. Then I just let it out. I realized after that the windows were open and that I'd freaked out the cats. The cats I cared about the neighbors can go fuck themselves. But that seemed to have been the tipping point because I began crying and couldn't stop. It got bad, really bad. I don't know what it is that happens in my brain when I slip into a sobbing session like that, what it is that makes me kind of half panic, but I start scratching. I had chewed my fingernails down just in case, but that didn't seem to matter. I was still scratching a little. Amanda sat me down and held my hands and talked to me, helped me remember to breathe. After awhile I calmed down enough to get up and go to the bathroom.

While I was in there, the panic started to ramp up again but I kind of went half numb. It was very weird. I hear Amanda call her Mom and hear her crying. She was so upset. This is supposed to be a happy time, we're getting married, its shouldn't be like this- this is what I can remember- and at that point everything bottomed out. I can't stand to hear her cry like that. I can't stand for her to be that upset, hurting this much.  I just. I have a problem with self harm. I never attack anyone else, just myself. I punched my legs, I scratched the hell out of my stomach but it was kind of like I wasn't there, only half there. Its hard to describe. Then when I realized what I was doing, I freaked even more because I don't want to be like that, I don't want to do these things. 

I got myself to calm down a little, enough to get out of the bathroom. I told Amanda I was going to put clean sheets on the bed, then make dinner, but I needed to do something first. She said okay. I came out to the living room and got on facebook because I knew we both needed help not just with the wedding and packing up the apartment. Only I sat there for half an hour unable to ask because I am terrified that my negative energy, my negativity and crazy will bog others down. I do not want to be a burden ever. I already feel like one some of the time. The longer I sat, the darker my thoughts became. I was crying again but not so bad per se. 

Amanda came out and wanted to know how I was doing. I told her I was having bad thoughts. She asked if I could share them with her, I did and she went to go change clothes because she was going to take me to the hospital. I freaked out. Mostly because I was afraid that they would just drug me up and send me home or keep me and then not let me leave and then I would be stuck in there and miss my wedding. 

Amanda got me calmed down from that. I decided I needed to talk to my friend Chris and go fora  short drive. I ended up at the gas station to get cigarettes. I felt better by the time I got home. We decided to call and check on another friend and see how she was doing and then twenty minutes later she was here and we talked about so much stuff. I felt so much better afterward. Exhausted, but better. I hope Amanda and our friend did too. 

Today, I feel almost back to normal. The bulk of the weight I was feeling is gone and I can breathe again. I think more clearly and feel more grounded and stable. I'm going to talk to my therapist about what happened. I think I am okay, at least for now and hopefully for a long time. I want to focus on the wedding and be happy, and help Amanda have a good and happy experience. This is an exciting time for us, we should be caught up in it not bogged down with borderline depression.