-abbi-

I think I've abandoned this...I just don't have anything to complain about any more. My life is mundane and routine and quite frankly, I'm happy!

We're almost finished building the deck on our house. We have stair railings and a trellis to finish but we've been using it for a couple of weeks and it's oh so nice. Unfotunately, wood is quite expensive, (who knew) and put a dent in my bank account, so I'm in savings mode.

i planted half of the bulbs i ordered and hope to finish the other half next week...then, it's time to plan for all of the spring landscaping...we have a huge deck and lots of area around it to landscape...woohoo.

I'm still knitting, just finished a cabled sweater and still working at the yarn shop...I love it there, gets me out of the house and let'e me do the strange things I love to do that most people hate...paying bills, tracking inventory, putting price tags on stuff...it's like when i used to play store as a kid.

and, i'm cooking...who knew i was so domestic, or that i enjoyed being so domestic...i was trying to find a used bookstore that i could order most of the taste of home annual cookbooks from, for as cheap as possible...it's not going so well...but miss dealfinder is bound to find a great deal somewhere...

ok, i guess i should actually work now.

So, we're getting a new house.

Since the other lady was a bitch and backed out of the contract, we started looking again, and guess what?

Found a house 100x better and brand new...and four houses down from the original. Yep, that's right. Instead of fooling around with her, we decided to just go with one of the others in this development. We even got to pick out our carpet and flooring, etc...it's absolutely wonderful...and HUGE!!! We're crazy, I think. We'll be able to close the same time as the other one, last week of April, first week of May and we'll be moving into our brand new, beautiful house...

I hope we can really afford this!

The house buying process was moving along quite well. We signed all of the papers to start our loan process and had our house inspection on Saturday.

Now, there's a bit of a snag so I hope things don't fall apart on us. Turns out the lady selling the house no longer has a house to move to. The house she was going to buy fell through. In our contract, there are no contingencies on her finding another house. Our settlement isn't until April 29th because she needed that much time but now I think she wants more. We aren't willing to give her more time unless she gives us one heck of a good deal. Everything should be fine since we have a contract with the April 29th date...the only problem is that we're really close on the time to get all of the home inspection stuff back to her. The 15th day is Wednesday. I believe the only thing outstanding is the results of the radon test which our inspector told us he should have on Tueday morning. I don't want there to be problems with this...why can't it just move smoothly? We should have had the inspection earlier but bad weather and Kevin being in Las Vegas caused a few problems in scheduling.

I want this house...hopefully nothing will go wrong. I can't wait until I get the definite word that everything is OK.

Our offer is finally back in our hands. The seller's real estate agent is a bit flaky and we've been concerned he's just trying to sell the house himself. Even after I knew of the verbal acceptance of our offer, it took him this long to fax the offer back to our agent. But, she has it and we'll stop by the office after Kevin gets off work tonight to sign the changes. The seller accepted our original offered price which certainly makes us wonder if we should have offered lower, but oh well, we were happy with what we got and were really expecting a counter offer.

I've spent today searching for new shelves, a new desk, shower curtains and bathroom supplies. We're going to be so broke for awhile, but that's OK, I'm as happy as can be!

Our offer was accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think we're buying a house!!!!!!!!!!


Wanna see?

I'm probably going to jinx myself by starting to write on here, but hopefully it will be OK. Let's just first say that things have been very busy and I've been quiet. Then, let me say that at 9:00 AM this morning, Kevin and I made an offer on a house. Now, we just wait to hear back. It's a practically brand new house about 30 minutes away from where we live now. This is one overwhelming process and I'm really starting to freak out now...I hope we aren't in over our heads.

I'm having one of those restless days where I just cannot get comfortable. I've tried sitting in this desk chair every way possible and it's just not working. I have some sort of shooting pain in my elbow from spending way too much time with a computer mouse in my hand. I just want to lay down on the floor, stretch out completely and take a little nap...work wouldn't know if I did that. Unfortunately, I still have lots of stuff to do today so I guess it won't happen. At least it's Friday.

A whole week of work...amazing. I'm itching to take some time off, but have no real reason. It's when I receive my vacation time balance at the beginning of the month that I start thinking, "oh, I have lots of time, I should take a few days"...(currently, I'm at 97.7 hrs that I could take). I'm still trying to figure out a little weekend trip, just to get away for a little while...can't think of anything. Work is finally caught up, I just got off of a conference call that I was slightly worried about. Luckily, it went fine. Of course, they always go fine, I just get nervous about them. I just stress over the little things. That was going to be my big accomplishment for the day. Now, that it's over with, I don't know what to do with myself, everything else is pretty much caught up. I really have nothing to say...quite boring over here...toodles for now!

We want to take a weekend vacation, but I don't know where to go...hmm...will continue thinking and researching since I'm finally caught up at work!

I didn't vote on Tuesday, isn't that terrible. Neither did my boyfriend, sister and brother-in-law (all for different reasons). I made the point to change my voter registration during the summer and then didn't even go to vote. I didn't have a strong pull toward either candidate and planned on voting for Kerry since he was definitely the better of the two. Since I figured Kerry already had Maryland and I was still in my pissy mood, I didn't bother going to the polling place at 6 PM after I got off work.

I've still been really sleepy. I can't sleep through the entire night and I'm about ready to lose it. I'll crash in the evenings, fall asleep between 9-10 PM and then wake about about 12:30 AM and be restless for the rest of the night. It's really catching up with me. I'm picking fights with Kevin just because I'm tired. I'm frustrated that he doesn't appreciate what I try to do around the apartment and it's driving me nuts. All because I'm tired and cannot sleep.

I've been eating very unhealthy the past few weeks as well. I've made cookies, pumpkin pies (with a cream cheese layer I might add), pepperoni rolls, and more. Last night there was a trip to the grocery store for sticky buns and pumpkin tarts. I'm still very obsessed with anything pumpkin. We're heading to my parents over the weekend to take them out to dinner. Hopefully I'll get back on track for next week with both sleep and eating after the weekend.

I just went downstairs to switch my laundry around. I absolutely hate using shared laundry facilities. I want my own washer and dryer so bad - I don't think that's really too much to ask. Anyway, I found just another thing to add on to the list of "why we need to move out of this freaking apartment as soon as possible":

There are three washers and dryers in in our building. I used all three washers this morning. Timed it perfectly so I was downstairs the minute they shut off (I hate it when people leave their stuff sitting too long). There's an older lady in there starting to throw clothes in the dryers. I look at her very puzzled and just asked what she was doing. She tells me she is going to use two of the machines...still puzzled, I just keep staring at her. Why in the world is she putting clothes in the dryer without washing them first? I ask her if she is washing them first? Long story short she thinks the dryers are washers? Don't ask me how the hell she can confuse a washer and a dryer, but I suppose it's possible. Plus, if she thinks all 6 of those machines are washers, then where in the hell does she think the dryers are?

Anyway, I'm really going to have to start a physical list of the ridiculous things with this apartment complex. It's getting out of hand, the people are fucking nutcases that live here...really, it's time to leave.

***

In other news, I completely freaked out this weekend and was bawling like an idiot after attending a very uncomfortable wedding. After the wedding, I know Kevin wanted to hang out some more with his friends and make an entire night of it but I just wasn't really sane at that point. He agreed to come home with me (I offered to leave and then come pick him the next morning) and everything is fine but I really wish I wasn't such an emotional mess all the time. Really, I just wish I could act normally around his friend and not have such difficulties with social situations, but I can't...or at least I don't know how.

It's 9:15 and it's already been a productive day which makes me quite happy

I'm working and have already finished pretty much everything I need to do for the day. I'll still be "working" for the rest of the day, but I doubt much will get accomplished. In my down times, so far I have:

-washed, folded and put away all laundry
-cleaned bathroom
-washed dishes
-took out trash
-knit a little
-called and begged dry cleaners to take Kevin's suit and have it ready tomorrow
-ran suit to dry cleaners who finally felt sorry for me


what I still need to do today:
-return dress
-buy black shoes
-vacuum
-finish cleaning kitchen
-scrub floors

I'm glad this weekend is almost over...it's been a busy one.

I don't know what in the world they are doing next door, but they have been pounding on the walls and it sounds like sawing something for over an hour. Plus, it's been nonstop. If they are trying to fix something, I don't think they are being very successful. It sounds more like they are demolishing something. I'm also quite sleepy so this is driving me more nuts than usual. I'm getting house fever again. It's stuff like this that makes me want our own house so desperately. I'm trying to be cool about it though, it'll come in time. We're saving up as fast as we can. This weekend, to add to the apartment annoyances, our neighbor (same one where there is all the pounding this morning) left their alarm clock on when they were gone for the weekend. That's lovely. Reminds of college dorm room days when all of those idiots set their alarm and then left for the weekend.

Another thing making my house fever start up again is the cooling weather. There's something about fall that makes me want my own place so bad. Plus, I went shopping on Friday and just kept seeing all kinds of fun stuff I wanted to buy to decorate a place, but couldn't. Well, I could, but the last thing we need in this tiny apartment is more of my crap filling the place up. It's starting to overflow now. Friday - yes, I went shopping all day. From about 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM. I usually hate shopping with a passion because I can never find anything and the process just wears me out. I was supposed to be working but the cable internet was down so I couldn't work - such a shame. I called up work and said I would just take the whole day off and then headed out. First stop was the dreaded Wal-Mart to pick up some essentials, like soda. I decided to browse the cheap clothes and found the racks with just marked down shirts for $1. I had to pick up a few even if they look like they came from Wal-Mart. The rest of the day was spent between the Outlets, Target and the mall. I came back with loads of stuff. Lately, I've been having a major dilemma where I have no idea where to shop. Juniors stuff is certainly too young and everything else is certainly too old, but Friday things just seemed to work out. I hit some decent sales and picked stuff up at J Crew, Gap and some other stores. When I got home, my season 3 Felicity DVDs arrived in the mail and I figured I was set for the weekend. My wallet a little lighter, but I felt good.

On the relationship front, there were a few battles this weekend, but all is well now...we're both much better. It all started Friday night when I got the word that he needed to drive a package to Washington, DC the next morning for work. Why he needed to deliver this package is still beyond me. Anyway, I rode down with him and we tried to make the best of the day by hitting some of the museums. It turned out pretty well. His family came down on Sunday so there was more shopping and running around with them. Before we knew it Sunday night was here and another work week began. I didn't even get to start watching Felicity.

I'm struggling with eating well. It's been a battle for the past two weeks. The pumpkin pie blizzards are back at Dairy Queen and the Dairy Queen is located at the road leading into our apartment complex - bad combination. Doritos were buy one get one free last week at the supermarket - bad idea. Monday, when I went grocery shopping by myself (usually there's more control if I'm by myself), I ended up with some sort of pumpkin cookies, brownie mix and cake mix...not sure how that happened. I haven't had much energy for exercise either, but I still do aerobics 5 x per week for at least 40 minutes. Next weekend, I'm signed up for a 3 mile run with my sister. It's actually I dog jog...she's loaning me one of her dogs to run with. I'm taking Jake, the little one, who is fairly calm. I'm not sure I'd want to try running with Jessie who is big, still a puppy and rather hyper. 3 miles isn't that much, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do it. I only ever run on a treadmill which is drastically different from running outside. Plus, I haven't been running much. I went Monday evening and jogged for 30 minutes...I hope it goes OK.

Last night, I worked at the yarn shop till 6 PM and then stayed for a class to learn to make socks from 6:30 - 8:30. I didn't get home until 9, which is actually quite late for me. When I walked in the door, it looked like Kevin hadn't been here very long and he was sitting at the table with the Chinese take out menu. He's been so stressed out...I just want his job to get better. Since he's so stressed, I'm trying to keep my house fever under control because I know that will just add one more stress to the mix. He just doesn't seem very happy and I don't know what to do for him.

Anyway, I steered clearing of ordering take out and just had a PB&J sandwich with a bowl of chicken noodle soup (left over from what I made on Monday). By the time I ate dinner and wound down, it was 11:00 PM. This morning definitely came too quick. It's Wednesday - I'll try to stay awake all day but it might be hard.

( Weekend Detais )

The scale says 130! The scale says 130!!! For the first time EVER, the weight on my driver's license is more than my actual. I've lied about my weight on my driver's license since I got it.

Of course, it won't stay that way for long as I'm heading up to Hershey, PA tomorrow and then Hersheypark on Saturday but that's OK...I'm going to enjoy myself on this Labor Day weekend.

2 more hours of regular work then 2.5 hours of pricing yarn and bookkeeping work and then it's the weekend for me. And, I'm not cooking tonight either, I'm relaxing.

My sister e-mails me this morning and asks if I want to do this with her.

Is she kidding me? She says she thinks I could do it (walking for me, she runs these things all the time, in fact, this is a "short" one for her) and it would be really fun. I don't think I'd be able to do it. I thought about it, but I really don't think I could finish it even by just trying to hike it...she tells me..."they give you 11.5 hours to finish it so I'm sure you could do it and I would do it with you, just going at your pace".

This weekend was nice. It flew by again and I got a little hyper because I didn't think I accomplished much but I'm OK now. Friday night was just dinner out and not much else. Saturday, I did a little shopping. I wanted at least one pair of jeans that fit. It seems I am now a size 8 in jeans as well...that makes me happy. No wonder I could barely keep up my size 14 jeans. I got a new outfit and then waited around until my parents showed up. All four of us went to the Eddie from Ohio concert at Wolf Trap. First, we stopped for dinner at Olive Garden, which was slightly disappoiting. I used to love their breadsticks, but they just weren't very good this time. The concert was good. I always love the crowd at Wolf Trap since it is so different from your typical concert. It surprised Kevin for a couple of reasons. First, he's not used to seeing yuppies tailgating out of their Mercedes with wine and a cheese tray and second because he had no idea that many people would show up for an Eddie from Ohio concert. The concert was pretty good and it made for a nice evening. Yesterday, we didn't do a darn thing...met my parents for breakfast (they got a hotel down here) and then accomplished nothing the rest of the day.

This Friday, Kevin and I are going to a Toby Keith concert with his family and then Hershy park the next day. Well, his sister made all of the arrangements and keeps joking about the hotel we're staying in. Any place with the name "The Red Carpet" is probably a really bad mistake. I think it was probably just because there wasn't another hotel room to be found on Labor day weekend. But, Kevin decided to look it up last night to see what we're in for. Well, this is what we're in for. Luckily, Kevin is even more high maintenance than me so I'm sure he'll throw a fit. I suggested just sleeping in his Jeep as that will be a better option.

Only four work days this week. I took Friday off. It's employee appreciation day which means I would have had to go up to Oakland and participate in a bunch of stupid team building exercises. This weekend's trip provided the perfect excuse as we are going to have to leave in the afternoon anyway....Better get back to work!

Click to sign up for the largest pink ribbon

I'm worn out. This week has been fairly stressful. Again, it's that weird time of the month. End of the month isn't here yet but I'm really busy. I don't know why the past few months have been this way. I crawled into bed a little after 8 PM last night, went to sleep a little after 9 and am still tired this morning. I cannot wait for tomorrow, it's Friday. Of course, I have a whole bunch of errands to run, but that'll be OK.

When I get stressed, I still turn to the food. Even though I wasn't going to weigh myself yesterday, I did. The sight of 135 pissed me off because I've been stagnant for close to 2 weeks now. I'm ready for it to go down. This morning, work has been really bad because there are 10 million reports I have to run in addition to updating the two largest databases that service bureau works on...I still don't understand why I have the two largest databases to update on Thursday morning...and I'm supposed to get them finished by 9 AM, if possible. I've already requested for one to be shuffled to somebody else, I'm tired of dealing with it. They're supposed to give it to somebody else in September. Of course, I waited till it was time for the review of that database, which my supervisors run and it proves that it is over 99% accurate, which isn't bad at all, makes me look good. I'm sure nobody understands what in the world I'm talking about.

Anyway, this morning, I got thrown off routine which makes me even more frantic. I went to get a bowl of cereal about a minute after I started the dishwasher only to discover that I had no clean spoons. Instead, I ate some blueberries and then some cottage cheese (with a fork). I saw some chocolate fudge stuck in the back corner of the refrigerator. As a side note, the light went out yesterday but I didn't feel like running to the store to get a new lighttbulb, that's on my list for tomorrow's errands. It's so weird to look in a dark refrigerator. Anyway, I grabbed the container of fudge. It's been in there for a few days and I haven't even been tempted by it. I took a piece and only ate half of it. Now, I feel sick. Eating fudge at 8:30 AM is not a good idea, I don't really like fudge anyway, I just wanted chocolate because I feel stressed. I'm ready for 6 PM already, that way I can come home from the part time job (which is absolutely no stress!) and go to bed early.

The weekend flew by...because it was completely wasted away.

I don't know what happened, but Friday evening flew by, we ordered a pizza and rented a movie (which we didn't watch) and that was the evening. Saturday morning came and before I knew it, it was time for us to leave and head for the wedding. It actually wasn't THAT bad. Imagine that, I made it out to be much worse than it was...though it still wasn't easy for me. The wedding was a catholic wedding, so it wasn't just the 10 minutes and out the door event.

After getting to the reception, I started to get nervous. Well, turns out these people who got married have tons of money (well, their families). At the reception of well over 200 people, there was an open bar all night, and dinner was filet mignon and crab cakes. A bit insane. I went the route of drinking to get through the evening. Not enough to be out of control, but enough to allow me to talk to people and even dancing a little. Not something I'll do unless I'm drinking. There were a few people who referred to me as the "new" girlfriend and a few comments out of place, but that's OK...I'm over it now, those people can't realize how sensitive I am to that stuff. I was a wreck yesterday. On top of not feeling well, sleeping most of the day and feeling like I completely wasted the weekend away, I was a bitch to Kevin and said things I regret and made too big of a deal out of little things that happend the night before. It's all from being so worked up about the stupid wedding, I know and of course, this morning I feel like a complete idiot. The wedding wasn't that bad. Sure, Kevin drank and I saw a different side of him. He told me it was a toned down version, which I assumed. It's just the whole thing of seeing him having fun and seeming so happy and makes me feel very insecure in how happy he is with me. I don't know why I can't just accept that sure, he has fun while there, but it's for that moment and when it's over he has nothing and he realizes that after that moment, there is nothing. The thing is, I even had a few minutes where I was having a good time and was revealing a different side of me. After the night, I ended up in bed around 1 AM. He came up probably half an hour later. We came home yesterday and like I already said, I acted like a bit of an idiot yesterday. Now I realize it. Everything is smoothed over now, but I still feel stupid for acting like such a brat yesterday. Oh well, I can't take it back now. This morning, I went into the bedroom shortly before he woke up (I have to get up before him to start work), curled up beside him to just have a few minutes with him and knew everything was fine. He's forgiven me for acting like a baby with him yesterday. The good news is that I think I acted almost normal on Saturday around all of his friends, yay for me!