Oh, and BTW. . .

William did NOT post that last entry, I did. I was logged onto the computer under his logon and it appears that he posted it, but it was really me. Sorry for any confusion. (I just know that there are MILLIONS of disappointed readers out there. Not.)

Countdown

It's the Monday before the week of the Tuesday that we close. The appraisal has been completed, the attorney has been scheduled. We're on for the 31st.

I'm on the phone with my grandmother at this very moment. She's stressing out about going to the doctor tomorrow. Supposedly, her doctor at Duke called today and wants her to come in tomorrow--very important, MUST be there to examine the injured hip. No ifs, ands or buts. (Just hips :-)

She has to be there at 2 p.m. Wouldn't be but such a big deal, except that I have to be at a 9 a.m. meeting in RTP. No getting around this one--it's the biggie to find out whether or not I still have a job in my "real" department.

Naturally, Dad says he has a closing and a walk-through at 2 p.m. (he works for this high-end, *sshole builder who cuts him no slack), so the chances of him being able to do it are slim to none (although I am supposed to call him in the a.m. to see if he can get out of it--I think he only says these things to give me some kind of false hope).

Liz says that she can't take off because it's not on the "two week schedule." (Oh, and BTW, since we're on the subject, kiss my big white *ss, Jane the-Yankee-control-freak-ice-queen-ugly-b*tch-waste-of-tax-payer-money Labounty! I can but hope that you and I meet up in a long, dark alley one of these days so I can pummel your pointy, albino, Wicked Witch of the West nose to a pulp! You ought to be taken out and beaten and then forced to attend how-to-be-an-effective-manager-and-NOT-waste-our-hard-earned-tax-payer-dollars classes until you DIE!)

(*Whew* I feel better! I HATE the woman my aunt works for. If you couldn't tell. :-)

Anyway, so it looks like it's going to be up to me to go from Wendell to RTP to Wendell to Durham back to Wendell tomorrow. Either that or Grandma just doesn't go to the doctor.

Did you get that?

From Wendell to RTP (36 miles), back to Wendell (36 miles), back to RTP (36 miles) back to Wendell (36 miles). Almost 150 miles! In one day. And I have already asked to work from home on Wednesday because I plan to take Lizzie to the Carnage open house that afternoon.

Fortunately I still work for Luanne, who seems to understand these things, but even she has her breaking point and I'm afraid I might cross it by asking for two days of understanding back to back. Particularly since I was (still am) so frazzled today by the upcoming ACVA announcement that I couldn't focus and got, essentially, nothing accomplished today. (Not to mention that I took Lizzie to work with me because it was a teacher workday.)

I know that it could be worse. Things can always be worse, no matter the current situation. But jeez, this is getting pretty bad.

What am I going to do?

Do I just let Grandma suffer with her injured hip? Or do I ask for the time off and risk having Luanne unhappy with me and/or having to take precious personal time that I can't really afford because I know I'll need it for the move?

Or, hey, if I'm told tomorrow that I'm being laid off this all works itself out.

Blah. :-P

Happy Birthday to Me

Yes, it's actually my birthday.

My birthday evening now--almost my not birthday anymore, really.

It was a good birthday. I had to go to a swim team meeting at 9 a.m. and I was so dreading it because of the inevitable too-many-women-competing-for-a-little-bit-of-power thing, but it really didn't go so badly. None of us are bitch enough to make it unbearable, thank goodness. Of course, it is early in the season. . .

Then I took Lizzie shopping at a new girl's clothing store called Justice, which is really just Limited Too without the inside the mall prices. We went with Shaile, Morgan and Shanan and had a good time. Lizzie racked up. Naturally.

So then we went to my dad and Carol's house and had a birthday dinner that couldn't be beat (standing rib roast, Italian spinach and cauliflower casserole--mmmmm-mmmm!). For dessert we had panna cotta (sp?) with mango, as well as a big cookie cake thingy from the Nestle Toll House cafe. Then I got to open my presents and guess what I got?! A DVD camcorder!! Woooohoooo! It's so cool. Records right to mini DVDs. It's FABULOUS! I wanted one but I honestly didn't think I'd get one because, well, they're awfully expensive and I also wanted a Roomba but since I'd already gotten one of those I just kinda figured that the camcorder would come later, maybe next year or something. But I got it this year. Yea!!

So what's been happening besides my birthday?

Same old, same old, really. I keep saying that I need to get boxes and start packing but so far saying the words is as far as I've gotten.

Grandma fell a couple of weeks ago and bruised her hip and she's been really complaining about the pain and is walking more slowly than ever (her speed can only be recorded using negative numbers). The doctor at the urgent care place who did the x-ray and determined that nothing was broken gave her Tylenol with codeine but that doesn't seem to help her any. The pain is making her feel even more lonely and miserable and so she's taken to crying and lamenting about how she can't stand to be where she is even more than usual. I keep telling her that it's only going to be a few more weeks and to just hang in there but that doesn't seem to help much.

I had a dream last week--my first living-with-Grandma nightmare, really. I don't recall specifics, just that we were all together in the house and Grandma was being belligerent and obstinate, refusing to cooperate and no matter what I said to her she just wouldn't stop and I was getting angrier and angrier and I felt so hopeless and miserable.

Just anxiety, do you suppose? Or more of a sign of things to come?

Ho-hum

Not a lot going on lately.

Strange how calm I am, actually. I mean, there I was all keyed up for weeks about so much stuff. Whether we'd buy the house, what if something happened and we couldn't buy the house, what if we bought the house, what kind of furniture would I get, etc. etc.

But now that we're actually, really, truly going to buy the house (unless something completely unforeseen happens within the next two weeks) and I'm just as cool as a cucumber. Nothing bothering me. Decorating? Yeah, so what, it'll work out. Furniture buying? Plenty of time for that. Packing? It'll get done eventually.

What is WRONG with me?!

Here it is the (what day is it? let me look. . .) 13th of January. We're closing in 18 days. I need to call and schedule the movers, I need to start collecting boxes and packing the stuff that we don't want the movers to pack, I need to decide upon and price blinds (the house has zero window coverings--how can people live like that?!), I need to start shopping for furniture and make some decisions on what we're buying. I really should be going nuts. But for some reason 18 days seems like a really long time and I'm feeling no pressure.

Oh, yeah, I forget to mention that classes have started again and I have this gigundo project due in five weeks for this computer course I'm taking.

Oh, oh, AND that the whole ACVA thing that my "real" group at work has been undergoing is done and announcements will be made the week of the 23rd. I'm not even worried about THAT.

Have I taken too many Wellbutrins or something?

This just isn't like me.

Maybe it's the weather. It's been so nice and mild outside lately that it's been really hard for me to focus on anything at all, much less let the unknown and the uncontrollable upset me. So maybe this will all change this weekend when the cold front comes in.

Or maybe it's that whole procrastination problem I wrote about before. I'm in self-preservation mode (a.k.a. denial) right now and my instinct to procrastinate and kid myself into thinking that all is well is kicking in. In a week or so, once the deadline is truly LOOMING, I'll be back to my old neurotic self again.

*YAWN*

Whatever.

Until then I'm going to enjoy myself.

In fact I think I'll go grab my newest book (NOT my text book) and lie on the couch like a big ol' slug for a few hours!

Resolutions

I must admit that I haven't been doing so well re: my New Year's resolutions.

I have managed to exercise more--three to four times a week so far. And I'm eating a lot better than I did during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Xmas, for sure, but as far as the patience thing, well. . .

I have tried. Really I have. But I can't seem to not get all upset with stupid people. Particularly stupid people in traffic.

Yeah, yeah, I know, anyone who is driving slower than you is an idiot and anyone driving faster a maniac (George Carlin). But. . . Gosh darnit! I just can't stand inconsiderate *ssholes and it seems that our highways are absolutely teeming with them. It's as though people get into their cars, lock their doors, buckle up and *poof* they are transported to another dimension--a world in which they are the only person in existence. Not all people, of course, but a lot.

You know what I'm talking about.

So what goes through the minds of these folks?

I think it's something along the lines of: "Oh, gee, there are four lanes to choose from on this highway? How wonderful! I think this fourth, leftmost lane is the prettiest and since there is absolutely no one else in the world in existence I will drive in this leftmost, prettiest lane. Even though there are three other lanes to choose from and I don't really feel safe going over 55 mph.--this lane seems like the best place for me to be. Besides, driving in this lane will give me a chance to catch up on my reading/flossing/makeup application/shaving, etc. What's that in my rearview mirror? Another car? Surely that can't be because I have already determined that I am the only person in the universe! So la-la-la-la-la I'll just keep right on driving out here and reading this book."

OK, so if it's not something like that then what? What else can explain why otherwise nice, polite, civilized people morph into self-centered, self-righteous, inconsiderate morons once they strap themselves into their vehicles?

I try to take deep breaths and tell myself to "just let it go." But so far I'm not having much luck. I swear one of these days I'm either going to a) have a heart attack from the stress and anger, b) be the leading story on the 6 o'clock news for some atrocious act of road rage or c) die in a fiery, Kamikaze-like auto crash having decided that enough is enough, that the gods will surely reward me greatly for eliminating several *sshole drivers in one fell swoop.

Satellite radio is helping. I looooove my new satellite radio. But even that has its issues. There are so many (absolutely crappy) radio stations in this area that the receiver thingy doesn't always get good reception because all the (crappy) radio stations bleed into the frequencies that aren't already spoken for. When that happens the satellite radio is fuzzy and hard to listen to and I become angry and frustrated. Then I risk my life trying to find a "good" station to get reception on while driving like a bat out of hell down the freeway. But it's either that or get upset at my fellow drivers. Not sure yet which is worse.

I guess the answer is that I need to just forget the receiver thingy and buy a satellite radio equipped head unit.

But until then. . .

I will keep working on developing patience and love for all the bozos out there cutting me off and driving like snails in the fast lane. I promise I will.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. . .

Turn and face the strain.

It's finally sinking in: we're moving.

My whole life is getting ready to be turned upside down and inside out and then packed into little brown boxes.

Just the thought of it makes me feel ill.

Yes, obviously I have known all along that house hunting and buying results in moving, but the enormity of it all didn't hit me until last night. I was tucking Elizabeth into bed and suddenly it struck me that in a matter of weeks everything comfortable and familiar about our little house will be. . .gone. No more tiny bathroom sharing, no more downtown Wendell walking, no more playing in the churchyard across the street, no more jumping over Weasel gates to get to any room in the back of the house. All that will become a part of my past. And the children's pasts.

Probably that's what bums me out the most, I think. Knowing that Elizabeth will feel the same way about this house as I feel about the house on Whitaker Mill Rd. and that in just a few weeks this house will go from being her home to a place she only remembers as her home. Yes, she'll make new memories in the new house and it will soon become home to her (home is where the heart is, after all) but still. . . To this day I still pine for the Whitaker Mill house. And of course it's not the house so much, it's what the house represented. But at the same time it is still the house.

It's complicated.

Anyway, long and short is that I'm sad.

I'm sad to be moving. I'm sad for myself and for the kids.

This won't affect William so much because I moved him around a lot when he was younger, but it will still affect him, I know. Even if he his chomping at the bit to get into the "teen suite" that's awaiting him at the new place, this house has been his home since he was. . .10? 11? In kids years that's a long time ago, and a long time to have lived in one place.

And of course I'm attached to this house. You would think that someone who has moved 20 times in the span of 33 years would be immune to moving, but that's not the case. And this move will be especially difficult because for once in my adult life I feel fairly settled and secure and, while I am looking forward to a bigger and newer house, I like my dinky little house and I'm going to miss it.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, indeed.

So We're Buying a House

It's official.

The sellers didn't want to fix the inspection issues themselves, so they said they give a $1100 credit at closing instead. I countered with a $1500 credit and they accepted. I should have gone for $2000. . .

C'est la guerre.

Anyway, so we're buying a house!

I can't wait!

As much as I love my little 1940s bungalow here in the middle of Wendell, I'm so looking forward to: More space! A dish washer! A laundry room (instead of the washer and dryer in the kitchen)! Three, count 'em, THREE bathrooms! And a garage! A real live drive-your-car-into-it garage!

I'm excited, if you couldn't tell.

I have two moving companies scheduled to come out on Tuesday to give us an estimate for packing and moving.

And now I gotta go decide on paint colors and furniture for the living room. No more just speculating, I get to GO SHOPPING! WoooHooo!

So Dad was on the phone with Grandma when I called to tell him the good news, so I had him call me on three-way so I could tell her at the same time. What do you think she had to say? Go ahead, guess. It's multiple choice.

Did she say, "That's great news! I'm so happy for you"?

Did she say, "Congratulations!"?

Or did she say, "I want you to move me in just as soon as you can. I don't want to stay in Wendell if you aren't in Wendell so you get me out of here just as soon as possible"?

Gee, wonder which it was?

Dad jumped her case for being self-centered, but she just got aggravated with him that he was yet again "finding fault."

But hey, we found out that she is now number SEVEN on the Robin Wood list, which is really perfect timing. At the rate the numbers change at that place we'll have a good three months together before they offer her a spot. That'll be plenty of time for all of us to decide which is the best way to go. It may very well turn out that she'd rather be in Robin Wood.

Either way, I'm moving and I can't wait!

The Water Gods Must Be Angry

I must've done something awful in a past life--some type of water karma transgression somewhere along the way--for the water gods certainly seem out to get me.

Seriously. Check it out:

• The end of xmas vacation and the toilet, which has obviously been leaking for some time, decides to show itself and what a good job its done of rotting the floor. We had to spend an unbudgeted $300 to get that fixed and it was a complete pain the @ss. Dad gave up an entire day off of work to help us. (Thanks Dad!)
• The very night after we got the leaky toilet/rotted floor repaired, the washing machine drained and caused icky stuff to bubble up in the bathtub and then the toilet wouldn't flush. Talk about panic! Fortunately it wasn't anything that we could control, it was a block in the line down the road and the Town fixed it. But still, I only knew to call the Town first because we'd had that happen before and we just assumed that it was something that we had done, so we spent $200 on Roto-Rooter only to find out that something two blocks away had caused.
• And now the house buying thing now hinges on high levels of moisture (water!) in the crawlspace.

I have water fears, too. I often dream of tsunamis crashing down on me. (I've had these dreams for a long time--way before last year's devastating tsunami in South-East Asia.) When I was a kid I used to dream that we lived in a giant water tower and I had to swim everywhere I wanted to go. And I could never find my mother.

I honestly think I have some kind of bad water joo-joo going on. Maybe it's the ghost of Uncle Ross? He did say he was going to haunt me. And he did have water issues himself--it'd only be fitting that he choose this way of tormenting me. Or maybe it's my irrational fear and loathing of camel crickets that's doing it. I have washed more than my fair share of bathroom lurking camel crickets down the drain pipes. Maybe god is a camel cricket and she's getting me back?

I dunno. I just hope I've paid whatever penance it takes to appease the angry water powers-that-be and they leave me alone for awhile. The true test though will be the house.

According to MY agent, the seller's agent said that they (the sellers) would put down vapor barrier, but they aren't going to install a French drain. And there was something said about how the woman doesn't really have to sell or something crazy like that. (What's WITH these people who don't really want to sell their homes. Why in the H*LL would you put your house on the market if you're not wanting to sell it?!) Well, fine, I don't really have to buy their house. In fact, I don't have to buy any house. I have a perfectly good house to live in. So there, crazy seller woman. No wonder her homeowner's association wants to sue her and all her neighbor's hate her. (:-P )

It's not true that old dogs can't learn new tricks

They can. It's a proven fact.

And so can old people.

In fact, human beings never get too old to learn how to do something new--that's a proven fact, too. You can be too stupid to learn something new or you can be too physically/mentally handicapped to learn something new but you can't be too old to learn something new, and it's just ridiculous when folks use that tired old platitude as an excuse for not wanting to do something new.

There's a HUGE difference between not being able to do something and not wanting to do it, and I can but assume that everyone who says that I'm crazy if I think my grandmother is going to change is not really talking about my grandmother's ability to change, they're referring to her desire to change.

Am I assuming correctly?

Because if that's the case, then I have to completely disagree with all the naysayers. If my grandmother wants to live with me badly enough she will do what it takes to make that possible for herself. Of course, all I'm talking about her having to do is be considerate and polite. It's not as though I'm insisting that she perform a total personality makeover. As nice as it would be to have that happen, I'm not completely crazy, I know that would be impossible. But it's not impossible for her to use her manners and adhere to a few reasonable expectations necessary for living in the same house with others. If, of course, she wants badly enough to live there.

And I've been honest and straight with her from the beginning about this, so it's not as though these expectations are things that I only talk about here, they're things I talk about with her almost every time I talk to her. And she says she understands and she assures me that she's going to get along just fine. But I'm not so naive as to think that she is going to say anything differently--she's going to say whatever she thinks I want to hear in order to herself moved in with me. I know for a fact that what we talk about in theory is not going to pan out smoothly in reality.

It'll be a challenge.

It'll be a huge adjustment.

It'll be interesting.

It won't be easy.

No doubt.

But lest anyone forget, I've lived with my grandmother for over half of my life. I lived nearly all of my childhood with her and I've lived with her four times since being a married adult with children of my own. If anyone knows how she is to live with, it's me. I'm going into this with lots of past experience to draw one. I know exactly what I'm getting into. I also know exactly what my grandmother is and is not capable of and she is definitely capable of meeting the expectations that we will place upon her.

Whether she'll want to meet those expectations or not is another story and it's something that is outside of my control. All I can do is make the situation possible, give her the options and let her decide if it's something she wants to do. If it isn't, then it just isn't. But it's up to her. And she CAN do it.

P. S. Donald was right, the toilet fixing project was (is) a huge, messy, time-consuming ordeal. The floor had rotted and the subfloor was soaking wet. Dad got here at 10:30 this morning and started on it. It's now 6:30 p.m. and he and Donald are still working on it.

It's Simple Really

Either it'll work, or it won't.

"It" being The Grandma Project, of course.

As I understand it, there's been a recent upswing in the amount of concern and general familial angst surrounding the impending move. In particular, whether my grandmother will be happy moving into my house. Scuttlebutt has it that no one thinks it's going to work out, and my impression from what Scuttlebutt has said is that this prediction partially stems from concern over whether I'm going to be too mean and nasty towards her for her to ever be happy living with me.

So if I'm hearing Scuttlebutt right then let's get one thing straight and put it to rest here and now: I love my grandmother and would never in a trillion, million, gazillion years do anything to purposefully hurt her. But anyone who knows me at all knows that. In fact, of all of the members of this family I'm the one who has the most patience with her and who expresses the least amount of animosity towards her.

Now that doesn't mean that I don't think she's rude, ill-mannered and self-centered because I do. And I do because, well, she is. Anyone who knows my grandmother well knows these things about her. I'm not saying anything that isn't true. And I'm certainly not saying anything that I wouldn't say or haven't already said to her.

Neither does it mean that I won't have certain expectations of her once we're living together, because I most certainly will. She will definintely, without a doubt, no ifs ands or buts be expected to be polite, considerate and pleasant towards all other members of the family. These are the same expectations I have of my children, my husband and, well, hell, anyone who wants to receive the same in return from me. Now if for some reason my grandmother chooses not to fulfill these expectations--and she certainly has a choice in the matter--then she won't be able to live with us. No big deal. If her house hasn't sold yet then she'll move back into it. If it has and Robin Wood still isn't available then we'll rent her an apartment. Or she can live in my house in Wendell.

I'm truly not sweating it. There isn't anything to sweat. Either this will work, or it won't work. Hopefully it will. But if it doesn't, at least I can say that I tried.

Happy New Year!

I have a leaky, broken toilet to start the year off! Yippee.

Yep, went to go potty yesterday and stepped on the little rug thingy there in front of the commode and it was soaking wet. I naturally assumed that one of our myriad animals had something to do with it and started cursing the closest cat, but then I realized that the entire carpet thingy, as well as the surrounding floor, was wet.

If it's not one thing it's another.

Dad and Donald have determined that it's a leaky seal and will tackle the problem tomorrow. Dad doesn't think it's a big deal, but Donald is afraid that there's going to be rotten subflooring involved and that it's going to be a very big deal and we should either wait and do it when we can "do it right" or hire someone.

Talk about a role reversal!

Usually it's my father who sees Armageddon in the smallest problem and Donald who is laissez-faire almost to a fault, but not this time. This time they decided to swap personalities. It's probably a conspiracy to drive me crazy.

No, seriously, I'm guessing that most likely Donald is right this time, that it will be a big deal (the floor is all spongy and swollen and mushy), but no matter it has to be fixed and fixed now so we may as well get started because that's the only way it'll ever get done period and I don't really want to pay someone to do something we can do ourselves.

So there.

I didn't have enough problems with all this holiday stress and house buying stress and Grandma moving in stress. Nooooooo, the !#$%ed toilet had to go and leak and rot the floor and stuff. Stupid toilet.

Anyway. . .

I did manage to get all the xmas decorations put away yesterday and the house all cleaned and straightened and stuff (Roomba ROCKS!) and I did take a shower and got some of my work-work stuff done. What I didn't do was go running. But in my defense, my Dad did cut into a fair chunk of time when he came over to look at the toilet, so it really wasn't my fault that I didn't get to going yesterday. And I made up for it today: Donald and I went for an hour long walk around Wendell.

We followed the railroad tracks west out of town for awhile. Until we got to the back of Carver Elementary, actually. It was a very nice walk. I had no idea all that farm land and stuff was over there. Lived here for, what, a long time if you count that Billy and I lived in Wendell when William was a baby and today I discovered something new in town. Great stuff.

I'll miss Wendell.

But I'll get over it.

And it's not like I won't have plenty of reason to come to town, what with the store being downtown and all. . .

Oh, let's not go there now. Let's stick to happy thoughts. . .

Hey, I bought a computer program at Office Max today. It's called FloorPlan 3D. I haven't played with it yet but supposedly you can virtually decorate your house so you can get a plan in place before you go buy furniture.

I had something like this once that was for landscaping and I was sorely disappointed in it but maybe this one will be different.

Mmmmm, Donald is cooking stuffed filet thingys and they smell soooo good.

I think I'll go steal some. . .