Happy New Year's Eve

Another year over, a new one just begun.

Well, almost.

Happy New Year's Eve.

I finally fell asleep around 5 a.m. but I woke back up at 9:30 a.m. I was dreaming of decorating the bedroom. Man, I've got it bad! And I'm going to be such a joy to be around later tonight if I don't get to take a nap today.

So let's reflect a little on the past year. What did I accomplish? What can I vow to do better next year? Let's see. . .

Well, the year started out quietly enough. I can't recall a single interesting or out of the ordinary event happening near the beginning of last year. Not a thing.

Oh, wait, yes I can.

My shins. I had stress fractures in my shins from this running program I had started the previous fall. I guess it was April before all that was taken care of. Or was it June? I'm awful at remembering dates. I have tried to run again since, off and on. More off than on, though. Stress fractures are no fun.

Hmmmm, so what else?

Oh, yeah, we found Amanda's father, Thomas. Not sure that was such a great discovery, in retrospect, since it would seem that Thomas never did manage to shed himself of his low-life, white trash ways, but at least Amanda got to meet him and now she knows for herself who and what he is. And I got a new roof on the house out of it. Although that took a lot of patience on my part and more than a little harassment of Thomas to get the job finished (after he finally managed to get it started).*

*Note to anyone reading who doesn't know who I'm talking about: NEVER contract Thomas Bugbee to do anything for you. You WILL regret it. Not the he does bad work because he doesn't. He does pretty good work--it's just getting him to do it that is the hard part. That and you end up feeling a great desire to take a shower after spending any time around him.

Other accomplishments?

Well, I'm officially only one year away from finishing my degree! Can I get a big "WOOHOO" for that one?! And this past semester was actually hard. The entire time I've been taking classes (and that's been, what, seven years now?) I've been amazed at how dumbed down they are and I've never really broken a sweat over any class. Never, that is, until Intermediate Accounting. *Shiver* Just the thought of that class gives me chills. It was hard. Truly hard. Because unlike a math class steeped in logic where you have a definite outcome and you're either right or you're totally wrong, and unlike liberal arts classes where as long as you can substantiate your opinion with something that sounds semi-intelligent you're OK, accounting is not intuitive at all whatsoever and, while there is some modicum of logic in the fact that your pluses have to equal your minuses, where you put those pluses and minuses is usually open for debate, although not too much debate--unless, that is, you have a good attorney. I just can't put into words how glad I am to have that class over.

Only 27 more credit hours to go.

Career-wise I feel as though I've grown a lot. Although I'm not terribly happy with the group I'm in--officially in, I mean, not the group I'm currently working in while on this "secondment," that group is great and I wish I could stay there--I think that my talents are more or less appreciated and will, hopefully, be rewarded and utilized even more this coming year. It's either that or I'm going to be out of a job. (The whole GMS finance department is undergoing a review--something called ACVA, which I cannot for the life of me remember what that stands for, but it essentially means reorganization and we all know that usually means layoffs.) I'm trying not to stress about my job at all, though. I figure either something will work out for me there at GSK in 2006 or they'll let me go. If the latter, I'll get three months compensation and that's plenty of time to find something else. Billy can insure the kids. It'll work out. One way or the other.

Other than those things, though, I guess the biggest thing that I'll remember 2005 for is it was the year that we lost our minds and decided to go into major debt by buying a new house in which to house my grandmother.

Yep, that's the biggie.

So what do you suppose 2006 will have in store for me?

William will get his license and will be driving independently come June. Will all my hair turn white with worry when that happens?

Even though I'm not worrying too much about it, I still have to wonder what will happen with my job. Will I stay where I am in some capacity or will I return to my "real" group. If I return, what will I be doing?

Will my upcoming classes be as difficult and time consuming as the classes this past fall were? If so, can I manage without completely losing my mind? And will I actually pull off a December graduation?

And last, but definitely not least, will we successfully close on this house and get all moved in and live happily ever after?

Lots of unknowns lurking just around the corner!

In the meantime, what can I vow to work on/do differently in the new year?

The three "Ps" are what come to my mind first: Patience, procrastination and physical fitness (phitness?:-).

I definitely, absolutely, without a doubt need to work on developing more patience. Particularly patience while driving, standing in lines, dealing with rude and lazy store personnel, and during any conversation I have with my grandmother (or anyone, for that matter, who doesn't understand immediately what I'm talking about, even when I'm not being particularly clear about things; i. e. anyone who can't read my mind). If I don't, I'm going to give myself a heart attack. I get way too worked up dealing with illogical, asinine people and that is folly because the world consists primarily of illogical, asinine people and, by not just accepting this as fact and stopping myself from getting all tied in knots because of it, I become the illogical, asinine one.

And I for sure need to work on my tendency (desire?) to procrastinate when faced with doing anything that doesn't really interest me much. When I'm truly interested in something--whether that something is a book I am reading or a project at work or home that I'm really into--I have no problem getting the job done. But when I have to accomplish something that I have no interest in at all, I will without fail put it off until the very last minute. I haven't yet gotten into too much trouble doing this--I can usually pull whatever it is off when faced with an absolute deadline--but this behavior has caused me quite a bit of undue stress and it's definitely an area that needs some work. Case in point: The remainder of the xmas decorations need to be put away today, I have some work-work that I need to get done, and I need to take a shower and straighten the house, all within the next four and one-half hours. But what am I doing? Sitting here typing away on this stupid blog. But this is much more fun than cleaning and working. . .and exercising.

I was so good there for such a long time. I was going to the gym three, four times a week. I had worked myself up to running three+ consecutive miles (although I had not yet worked myself up to LIKING to run three+ consecutive miles). I was a paradigm of good fitness habits. And then. . .*poof*. . .all that desire was gone and I've become a sloth again. Gotta change this.

When you come from a long line of thick and sturdy peasant stock that is prone to heart disease and diabetes, you really have to work hard to keep yourself from fulfilling your genetic destiny. And I was working hard there for awhile. But I've stopped and I've gotta get back into it. The irony, of course--and I think it's like this for most people--is that my biggest obstacle to staying active and exercising is I simply don't feel like it. The thought of running and jumping and sweating and spending mindless hours on exercise equipment does absolutely nothing for me. Nothing, that is, until I do it. And then I feel GREAT. So why is it that the "great" feeling I get after exercise isn't enough to keep my mind from recoiling in horror at the thought of doing those exercises again the next time? I mean, it works that way for sex and drinking and drugs, right? Or is that those things actually have the opposite effect? That is, you usually feel really good when you're doing them, it's afterwards that they (oftentimes--at least in the case of the drugs and the booze) make you feel lousy. I dunno. All I know is that it takes an enormous amount of willpower and self-motivation to get myself out the door and down the street walking or running, even though I always, without fail, feel much better when I'm done than when I left. Meanwhile, it takes hardly any effort at all to talk myself into putting it off until. . .later. And of course later often never comes, at least not for finding time to exercise.

Something to definitely work on.

And that being said, I vow at this moment to put this computer away, straighten up the living room, put away the xmas decorations, go running and then get some of my work-work done.

Wish me luck!

Sleepless in Wendell

Yarg. Can't sleep. Again. This time instead of going to sleep and waking up at some ungodly hour, I'm just not going to go to sleep at all. That's how it would seem right now, anyway.

So what's keeping me up? First guess is the cup of coffee I consumed after dinner. Second guess though is the house.

The inspection report has been written up and will be sent to the sellers in the a.m. There are two big issues that need to be taken care of, either by them paying for the repairs or by dropping the price some: moisture problems in the crawl space and some water damage over by the back door. I'm truly hoping that they decide to just fix things because I know how it'll go if they decide to come down on the price instead: we'll say we're going to take care of it but we'll never get around to it until visible damage has been done and then it'll be a really big, expensive deal.

Of course they could also say that they aren't going to do anything at all, that we can either take it or leave it. In that case we'd have to decide what we'd do. And would we take it, or leave it? I honestly can't say right now what I'd be inclined to do. I truly hope that I'm not faced with such a decision. I like this house and I'd hate to lose it at this point. (This point being the point at which I can imagine us being in it, which was the same point I was at with the Olde Wendell house when I had to realize that it wasn't going to be.)

Another house subject keeping me awake is the financing. I can't decide if it's better to put a large amount down and live with nearly zero dollars in savings or if it's better to live with a slightly higher payment, less of a down payment and a second mortgage in the form of a home equity loan that will result in keeping a larger chunk of change in the bank. I've called a financial advisor here in town and left a message, but with today being Friday. . .no, it's Saturday now, technically, and with Monday being a holiday for most people, I'll bet that it will be sometime towards to middle of next week before he calls me back. And then I'll be caught up in month-end close stuff at work and won't have any opportunity to meet and talk until the end of the week and by then the mortgage broker will be hassling me about locking in to a rate and into deciding which route we're going to go re: financing.

Blah.

And I know it's premature, but another issue keeping my mind busy is decorating. I hope that we'll be in this house (once we actually get in the house) for a long time. I really don't see myself moving again for quite a while--probably not until both William and Elizabeth are grown and gone and I need to downsize; therefore, I want to furnish the house and decorate it with items that I'm going to be happy with for an extended period of time. And I want to do it right; i. e. purchase quality items that will last. But I can't do that without any money and so if I want to keep some money then I have to do the financing deal that let's us put the least amount down but yet avoid PMI. But is that the most financially savvy way to go? And of course none of this matters at all if the sellers refuse to make repairs and/or concessions in price.

Round and round and round the issues go. . .

Froggy Foreshadowing

Grandma and Amanda came by to visit me today. I nearly escaped the whole ordeal--Lizzie and I had gone out for a walk around town when they came by the first time, and I'd left my cell phone at the house--but they spotted us walking up the street. Drat!

So they caught us and decided to come in and sit a spell. Grandma, of course, immediately proceeded to launch into her usual litany of complaints and ailments. "My knees/side/back/head/feet/hips hurt. . ." And I sat there thinking OF COURSE you feel bad Grandma, you have arthritis and you're overweight and you have heart disease. I mean, c'mon, tell me something I don't know. But all I actually said was, "Mmmm-hmmm, I know you don't feel good, you never feel good." Usually that puts an end to the complaining--at least for a few minutes--and fortunately it worked that time. But then she started in on the house. Specifically, the potential of having a bathroom decorated in a frog motif (something Lizzie has expressed a desire to have).

For whatever the reason, the thought of friendly little frog faces in the bathroom is just more than Grandma can bear. A week or so ago--whenever it was that we decided to make an offer on this house--Grandma announced that she would be decorating the bathroom in--take a wild guess here. . . Yep, BLUE stuff! But I told her that I was sorry, Lizzie had first dibs (she had already asked) on the bathroom theme and she wanted frogs. Well, Grandma had a fit. "I can't have a child's decoy in the bathroom." "I don't want a child's decoy in a bathroom that I have to use."

Child's decoy?

"Yes, a child's decoy!"

Do you mean a child's decor, maybe?

"Yes, that's what I said, a child's decoy."

Well, at that time all I said about it was that I would see to it that the bathroom was tastefully decorated in a manner that I deemed appropriate.

Obviously, though, that wasn't a good enough response for Grandma and so she decided to add the issue to her collection of things to obsess about. Which was why the subject was brought up again.

"I have a solution for the bathroom," she announced.

"Oh yeah?" says I.

The solution: she would have a shower curtain that she would use whenever she was in the bathroom and I could hang a second shower curtain for Lizzie to use whenever she used the bathroom because, again, she (Grandma) just can't look at frogs all day.

Um, no.

First off, having two shower curtains is ugly and tacky and I'm just not going to do that. Second off, it's MY bathroom and if I decide that I want to decorate it with a frog motif--excuse me, in a frog decoy--well, I will. Mess with me and I'll not only use frogs but little yellow duckies, too! Third off, while it's a well known fact that Grandma uses the bathroom a lot, she doesn't spend all damn day in there and having to look at frogs (and/or duckies :-) won't kill her, no more time than she'll be in the room. We can even get her blinders for her glasses so she doesn't even have to see the shower curtain, at least when she's using the potty.

But initially I didn't say any of this. All I said was that having two shower curtains was not something that I cared for and that her solution just wouldn't work for me.

Needless to say, Grandma was not pleased with my response and she continued to express her displeasure until I put an end to it by pulling rank: It's MY house and I'm going to decorate MY bathroom with whatever theme and decorations I see fit and if you don't like it you don't have to move in. You (Grandma) will have a room that you can decorate to your heart's content, but the rest of the house is MINE. Capiche?

I hated to be so blunt about it, but she left me no choice.

And while the subject was dropped then, she didn't really capiche at all. She just let it go. For the time being. The issue will rear its ugly head again, though, I have no doubt. Because, of course, there is a much bigger issue here than whether or not a few frogs hang out on the shower curtain: This is about how Grandma doesn't view herself as moving into my house and having to concede to what I want and live by my rules, Grandma views herself as moving into OUR house--essentially hers, mine and Donald's, with emphasis on the "hers" part.

Grandma just doesn't get--or, rather, doesn't want to get--what it is that she's getting herself into. I truly think that she thinks that this house is as much her house and it is anybodies and that she'll have just as much say as both Donald and I have. And that's just not the case. And I'm afraid. I'm very afraid. Because the whole reason I'm doing this is to help her out, to keep her from living alone, to give her another option besides her empty little blue house out in the country but if she refuses to cooperate and come to grips with the reality of the whole situation, I'll no choice but to have her move out. To Robin Wood or to an apartment or somewhere. She'll HAVE to get along or she'll HAVE to get out. And I don't want that to happen. I truly don't. But neither do I want to live the next however many years battling her attempts at trying to run roughshod over the way that Donald and I run our household.

What's the magic word?!

My grandmother refuses to say please.

She will say it, occasionally, but only when one of us makes her say it by refusing to do what she's asked--no, not asked, demanded--until she says it. And there are many instances where she'd rather just do without whatever it was that she wanted than say that one little word. Seriously. She is THAT determined sometimes to not be pleasant. Often, actually, not just sometimes.

And nearly every time we're together and insist that she use her manners, she asks us why she has to. Can you believe that? My 74 year-old grandmother asks why she should use good manners! And she asks the same question over and over, each time, as though she's never asked it before.

So why is it that she a) won't say please and b) asks the same question about WHY we want her to say please?

Donald says it's just a control issue. Like a toddler. It's an area where she has complete control and since there are very few such areas left in her life she has to take it where and when she can get it. I'm sure Donald is right. It makes sense.

But still. . .

You'd think that someone who longs for nothing other than companionship--specifically companionship in the form of one of her children/grandchildren--would do whatever it took to make those people happy and interested in being around her. But noooooooo, grandma logic doesn't work that way. Grandma logic seems to be treat your loved ones as if they were your servants and make 'em really good and pissed off with you and then act totally clueless as to why they don't come around you more often.

Oh, and about the reason for the lack of a please: it's because her parents didn't teach her to say please. HER parents didn't say please, they said 'thank you' after the fact, and that's the way it's supposed to be done. Now her brother denies this. But that's grandma's story and she's stickin' to it.

Now the big question is: will she continue down this path of common courtesy resistance when she moves in with us? Or will she eventually acquiesce and behave herself? I hope, of course, that she chooses the latter option, but I have the feeling that it will be a long, hard road before (if) she gets to that point.

I suppose what I need to do is record myself:

"Grandma, you say 'please' when you ask for something because it's the polite thing to do and, besides, it turns a demand into a request and makes the person you've requested something from feel kindly towards you and, thus, more likely to carry out the request."

Also. . .

"Grandma, I am truly sorry that your parents taught you to believe that it was OK to be demanding and unpleasant and that people would respond positively to such treatment. That is just simply not true. It's not the way the world works. And even if it were, it's not the way that WE work and you simply will not get what you want if you don't ask for it nicely."

Maybe that would make the process a little easier? If nothing else, it would save me a lot of effort not having to repeat myself over and over and over and over and over. . .

Still awake

It's now 7:00 a.m. (What's with the time on this blog site? It said that my last post was published at midnight or something crazy like that. )

I never did go to sleep. The Graduate was on (still is, actually) and it's just such a good movie. Dustin Hoffman is a fantastic actor. He's so young in this film. He looks just like Tom Cruise--or Tom Cruise looks just like him, I suppose.

I have eaten a half-dozen chocolate covered pretzels, a half of a peanut butter cookie, the remnants of a bag of Frito Scoops and leftover refried beans. What in the hell is wrong with me?! I mean, it hasn't been that long ago that I consumed most of an entire goose. I'm not hungry.

Poor Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman). He can't win for losing. I forget how the movie ends. . .he gets the girl, right?

Speaking of forgetting, I forgot earlier in my last post to mention my ace in the hole with regards to my grandmother: Robin Wood (Robinwood?) Assisted Living Community.

My grandmother applied for a spot at Robin Wood back in. . .April? of 2004, sometime right after Mr. Bennett died. She was told then that it might be six months to a year of waiting but here we are nearly two years later and she's still 12 on the list. Current residents have to die or get carted off to a nursing home in order for others to go down on the list, which is kinda depressing and morbid to think about. But no matter, Grandma will remain on the list. Just in case.

Just in case I absolutely, positively, simply cannot deal with her. Just in case she torments me to the point that I feel homicidal. Just in case it comes down to a choice between my husband and my grandmother. Just in case her presence causes the children to cry hysterically at the thought of coming home. Just in case. We still have Robin Wood.

If you know my grandmother you know that there's a really good chance that any of the above-mentioned scenarios could actually play out. That's the sad part. I'm not making it up, the woman is THAT difficult and insufferable. Or, rather, she can be. A lot of the time. Often. But hopefully not too often. I'm crossing my fingers that this is really not going to be that bad. There is a chance that maybe, just maybe, moving her in with us is going to result in a whole new grandma. A grandma who is at least moderately happy with her life. Happy enough that she'll manage to talk about something other than herself and how bad she feels and how much she hurts, because right now that's all we ever hear from her and it gets old fast. But hopefully living with us will help with that.

I'm such an optimist.

Ugh, now there's an Elvis movie on. Blech. Where's the remote. . .

(Yes, Dustin got the girl in the end. That was a great movie!)

I have got to get some sleep! I have so much to do today. Lizzie's birthday is tomorrow and I have to take the Christmas tree down so that I can move the dining table back into the dining room so that she and her girlfriends can have the back room during the sleepover. I also have to take her to Party City to buy supplies for the party. And then I have to purchase a birthday cookie for her, as well as other junk food for the sleepover. And it looks like I'm going to have to accomplish all of that while being sleep deprived.

Wow, it's going to be in the 60s this week! I guess winter is over. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Insomnia

It's 3:30 a.m. and I'm wide awake.

I went to sleep with no problem, it's just staying asleep that I can't seem to do here lately.

I was dreaming about signing contracts, spending too much money, and moving furniture. In one part of my dream--the part right before I woke up--I had written a letter to Blaise? Liz? (it was interchangeable) about putting Grandma's house on the market, finding a house for Liz (Ha! THAT'LL never happen! Liz move?! Crazy!), and selling my mother's house. House, house, house, house. Realtors, contracts, mortgages, oh my!

Gee, I think that this whole buying a house/moving thing is stressing me out just a little.

Just a tiny little bit.

*YAWN*

There's a rerun of SNL on E! But it's one from the era of Colin Quinn Weekend Update--i. e. not funny just stupid.

The smell of goose grease still lingers in the air. Mmmmm, boy, that was some good goose! Supper was a success all the way around, actually. We got the house straightened out, the food cooked, everyone fed, and the dishes washed all before 10 p.m. Quite a feat for us, really.

Ya know, I'll really miss my little house in Wendell. I think that's one of the primary stress factors. I am truly going to miss living in downtown Wendell. Hell, living in Wendell period. The new house has a Raleigh address.

We tried to buy a house in Wendell. Reallly we did. A nice house. In Olde Wendell. It had granite counter tops, a built in wine rack in the kitchen. Stainless steel appliances. Underground fencing. And the best part of all was that it was in Wendell. But after two months of waiting, extremely strange behavior on the part of the current owners and feet dragging by their mortgage lender I gave in.

Of course, this house that we're buying is better laid out. And we actually get to keep the master suite. And William has his own "suite" upstairs. And it has a fenced in yard. And it's in a nice neighborhood--one just as nice if not nicer than Olde Wendell. But still. . .if I coulda actually purchased the Olde Wendell house I would have. I had moved in there already in my mind. If I knew I could really buy the house--within a reasonable amount of time--I still would. I'd give up the earnest money on this house in order to buy the Olde Wendell house. But it's not going to happen. I just need to let it go. And I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm really going to be leaving Wendell.

(I'll always wonder about that house, though. What exactly happened? Or didn't happen, as the case may be. Was it the seller's ex-husband trying to sabotage the deal? Was it the seller's realtor's incompetence? Was it my realtor getting tired of putting out so much effort and not getting anything in return? Was it just one factor or an unfortunate combination of all the above?)

But about Wendell. . . Funny, isn't it? As uptight, straightlaced, conservative, Southern Baptist, backwoods, narrow-minded, redneck as this town is it's MY town and I love it. It's become a part of me. It's Mayberry and I like it because it's Mayberry. It's where Lizzy will think of as the place where she grew up. William, too, actually. They'll miss it. Even William, though it may be years before he'll admit to it.

Gee, you'd think by the way I'm talking that we were moving a couple of states away and not just eleven miles down the road!

*Sigh*

So it's the Wendell factor. It's also the expense. This house was listed at $300K. $300K!!! I always kinda thought that a) being a small house, bungalow-with-a-front-porch lovin' kind of gal, I'd never in my entire life spend that much on a house and b) if I ever did it would be nothing less than a masion because, well, that's a lot of damn money! But I'm here to testify, a quarter of a million dollars just does not buy all that much house. Now of course we're not going to pay a full $300K for the house, but we're not buying it for much less than that. (And in the long run we'll actually pay about twice that if I keep the thing for a full 30 years--but we just won't even think about that little fact.)

That's another thing I'll always wonder about: could I have gotten the house for less? Was I a victim of my realtor wanting to get the most commission he could out of a deal? Of course, even at $300K it comped out low, but still. . .

Oh my! There's an infomercial on for an exercise DVD called "Yoga Booty Ballet" and I thought that it was a SNL skit! But it's a real product! Lord.

Anyway. . .

The expense.

Can we really afford this? I sure hope so. If I can rent this house out we should be OK. If we can't, or when we're between renters, we'll manage one way or the other, I know, but it'll be hard. Worse case scenario, though, is that we sell the place. We're putting 10-20% down, so we're guaranteed that much equity if we have to sell and, hell, the people selling this house are realizing a $20K gain in just a year and a half so I think it's a pretty safe investment.

What else?

Oh, yeah, actually moving.

I don't know if there's anything worse than moving. I think I'd rather take a sharp stick in the eye than pack, haul, move, unpack, rehaul, rearrange, etc. There's nothing at all fun about moving. It's disrupting, it's difficult, it's a complete pain in the tush. Donald says we should seriously contemplate paying a moving company, but that's a lot of money to spend for someone to do something that we're perfectly capable of doing ourselves. Of course, it will eliminate some of the stres--a lot, really--but it will also consume a sizable chunk of our quickly dwindling supply of cash. Decisions, decisions. I guess it can't hurt to get a quote or two and see. But even with a moving company, it won't be fun. It'll still be an ordeal getting this house, our storage sheds, and grandma's stuff succressfully relocated. There's just no getting around it.

So, there's leaving the town that my children and I have lived in for the past seven years, and then there's spending too much money, and added to those two things the chore of packing and moving. Just that combination of things is enough to send most folks right over the edge. (That's like three of the five top causes of depression--all I'm missing is death [I've had my share of that for awhile, thankyouverymuch] and divorce.) But I haven't even scratched the surface of the source of my sleeplessness and stress. Nope, I've not yet touched on. . .dum-duh-dum. . .GRANDMA!

Yes, beyond the expense, the stresses of moving, the fears of the unknown there's the hard, cold reality of living with my grandmother to face.

I love her. I do. She raised me. I've spent over half of my life living in the same house with her already but no matter, I do not relish living with her again. She's inconsiderate, ill-mannered, self-centered, rude, crude and often completely, on purpose, obnoxious. Most people think little old lady, grandma types are sweet, loving, gentle souls. Not my grandma. Oh, yeah, sure, she's loving. She loves us all, I know she does, but sweet and gentle she is not. She's whiny and demanding and totally self-absorbed. It's all about Grandma. ALL. And that's going to be hard to live with. I mean, I can barely bring myself to travel the five miles down the road to her house and spend even an hour with her now, I'm not real sure how I'm going to survive spending every single day with her. I guess I'll just work a lot. :-)

I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that with my master suite retreat and bonus-room-cum-den upstairs hideaway I'll be able to escape from a lot of the unpleasantness that is my granmother. Well, and I'm also holding out hope that Donald, with his infinite patience and his amazing ability to apply sarcasm and insightful commentary such that it can cause even the most thickheaded, boorish person to feel slighted and ashamed, will cause some positive change--however small it might be--in Grandma's behavior. She DOES, for whatever reason, respond to him and his reprimands much better than she does to me and mine. Bless his heart, he'll have to play interference a lot, I'm betting.

Oh well, I'm finally getting sleepy (now that's it 5:00 a.m. and just an hour or so before most decent folk wake up for the day). Time to go find something totally boring and inane to put on the TV and try to catch a few more hours of sleep. I have so much to do today. . .

And so it begins. . .

The night after Christmas and all through the house. . .

Goose grease in the air and family due over any ol' time now. (Mom is already here, but does she really count? :-)

We signed the revised contract today for the house. Closing is set for January 31 and we'll take possession the next day. (What IS that about anyway? The realtor has explained it to me at least twice that the delay is due to the current owner being "scared" that closing won't go according to plan and so she needs an extra day just in case but I really don't understand what that all really means. . . Very strange.)

We drove through the neighborhood today. Ours is probably the smallest looking house in the entire development. No kidding. But it's all an optical illusion. With the attic finished it's actually bigger than several neighboring houses, it just doesn't have an "official" second floor. Donald says it's better that way--all the big, impressive houses just serve to drive up our property value.

For those who don't know (And just who might you be, anyway? Will anyone who doesn't know me EVER read this? I can't imagine that anyone at all--whether you know me or not--would actually WANT to read this, but I suppose there may be someone. It takes all kinds and all.), my husband and I are buying a bigger house in order to move my elderly, nearly invalid, pain in the ass--bless her heart--grandmother in with us.

My grandmother's husband died of a massive heart attack in March of 2004. He woke up one morning, went into the bathroom to wash his face and *BAM* had a heart attack. According to my grandmother, he was breathing and semi-conscious when she went to see what all the noise was about (he fell and was lying on the floor in front of the bathtub). She yelled at him to get up. He didn't. She called her brother and told him that "William fell," which naturally my uncle interpreted to mean, well, that he fell, not that he'd had a massive heart attack and was dying. Grandma didn't mention any of that. So my uncle rounded up his son-in-law and they headed over to my grandmother's house, which is a good 15 minute drive away. In the meantime, my grandmother got dressed. Needless to say, by the time my uncle got to her house my step-grandfather had died. When asked later why she hadn't bothered to call 911 my grandmother replied that she hadn't wanted EMS to come while she was in her bedclothes. Seriously. That's what she said.

So did my grandmother purposefully contribute to the demise of her husband by not alerting the appropriate authorities? Or did she honestly not know it was as big of a deal as it was? We'll never know. All I know is that Mr. Bennett is dead, my grandmother is living "all by herself" in a crappy house in Johnston county, her children absolutely will not, cannot live with her and I am going to try and rescue her by letting her live with me.

Here we go. . .