Why call a handyman? You've got ME.

This week totally sucks! I'm trying hard not to complain, but jeez Louise, I've got to light a fire under my DH's ass to get him moving. Yesterday he spent 6 (!!) hours cleaning out his HALF of the closet. I finally kicked him out and finished it myself. We were supposed to be painting our bedroom after cleaning the closet. Never happened. Here's what I have done so far this week: Repaired gouges the dog made in the front door. Primed and put 2 coats of paint on the front door. Painted Master bathroom Painted computer room Painted hallway, refinished bathroom cabinets (2 bathrooms) and hallway cabinets Repaired and painted door out to the garage Replaced weather stripping Painted computer room door and trim Washed every friggin' baseboard in the house Painted door frames upstairs. touched up paint in family room, hallway, living room, dining room and breakfast nook and downstairs bathroom Painted windowsills in every room except Ryan's and a zillion other little things Also did every piece of dirty laundry except Ryan's socks---threw them out and bought new ones! In all fairness, I have to say that Rog replaced cracked tiles in the shower, repaired a door frame and bought 2 new doors (which I have to paint). This is an equitable split of tasks?! I still have so much left to do--clean the blinds on 22 windows for one thing. thank God my mom offered to pay to have our windows cleaned! Chores for tomorrow: Move bedroom furniture away from the walls, clean the baseboards, take down the blinds and tape off everything so I can paint the room. Oh yeah--and find homes for all the clean laundry! I don't think we've ever had all the towels and sheets clean at the same time so I hope they all fit in the linen closets. Yeah, I know this is long already, but there's more. Roger has the holiday weekend off so we're cleaning out the garage. I rented a dumpster, so I hope he decides to throw some of his shit away. If we get THAT done, next week I'll clean up the yard, repair the railing on the front porch, do paint touchups on the house and replace my almost dead annuals with some cheap shrubs and throw down bark wherever the yard needs it. OMG, THEN it will be done and we can try to sell this place.

Movin' and groovin'

So here I am, still in Sonoma County instead of the south of France. But hey, Sonoma County bills itself as the "new Provence", right? True. I ended up losing my airfare and the deposit on the house I was renting in Mouries, but we need to put our house on the market by the 15th of September and there's so much that needs to be done.
I have been painting my house all week to the point of exhaustion. Also true. I actually grabbed the wrong can of paint yesterday and painted half my hallway with the semi-gloss bone colored paint meant for my front door. I was just tired and didn't pay attention. So more work I've made for myself. I had to repaint everything in the light khaki color flat paint it was supposed to be.
Today, Noah, my 7 year old grandson was with us, so we didn't get much done, but tomorrow I have to paint my bedroom and a few doors and do about 30 loads of laundry. (My 19 yr. old son finally cleaned his room.) We'll be spending Labor Day Weekend cleaning out the garage and side yard.
If our move in date on the new abode hadn't been moved up a month, I think I would have gone to France, but I just didn't see how I could put the house on the market in 3 weeks if I were gone for 2.
Roger already promised me a trip to Europe or Tahiti in the spring to make up for it, so I'm not totally losing out. I was just looking forward to it so much. Oh well. Onward and upward. Moving forward and all that.

I feel like such a shit

I've been really testy lately. Maybe testy isn't the right word. Bitchy is a little better, but that doesn't quite describe it either. Let's just say I've been extremely hard to live with. So poor Roger has been putting up with some real shit. And God bless him, he hasn't deserved about half of it. (The other half was WELL deserved, but that's a different story). Then I saw wearetheliving's post on the NSBB today about real proof that your DH loves you. I missed out on the original post, so I started it up again tonight cause I just had to share my story. If you missed it, here it is again: My DH is always full of surprises. About 10 yrs. ago I had to go in for a second breast biopsy, and I was really scared. The first one came back inconclusive. I had gone shopping the day before and saw a gold bumblebee pin with an amethyst and a peridot for it's body. My mom's birthstone is peridot and my late sister's favorite gemstone was amethyst and my favorite color combination is green and purple. So I felt like it was my good luck charm, since it had those 3 things going for it. But it cost a few hundred dollars and there was no way I could buy it. So I went home and told my husband about it and I said that just seeing it was sure to bring me luck for my biopsy. He didn't say one word about it. The next morning I woke up really nervous about the biopsy I was having that afternoon, and I told myself I was gonna go get that bumblebee pin and put it on my credit card and I'd just have to find a way to pay for it. So I went to take my shower and get dressed. Then I called the store and asked them to please hold the pin and I'd be right there to pick it up. The salesgirl was really nice and told me she had just sold it 15 minutes before. I got off the phone and burst into tears. Anyhow, I got to the hospital later that day and changed into my gown and when I was laying on the gurney waiting to go to the OR, my DH pulled a little velvet pouch out of his pocket and asked me to close my eyes. Then he pinned the bumblebee pin on my hospital gown. He had run to the store while I was in the shower! And I swear that bumblebee brought me good luck! My MD had told me he expected to find a malignancy, and all he found were some calcifications that he removed. I'll never forget DH's thoughtfulness.

Emily and Matthew--my 2 youngest grandkids

Matthew is mellow and puts up with anything. Good thing, cause Emily is a little girl who spits nails.

Alllll-righty then!

Finally my stomach has settled down a little after all of the condo business. I'm still feeling 80/20 on it. Hopefully the other 20 will kick in soon. It's just so darned depressing to leave the house I've lived in longer than anywhere else and where I've raised my youngest. It's gonna be hard to leave my 2 youngest grandchildren, who live 3 doors down from here, too. I had envisioned them running over on hot summer days to go for a swim or stopping by for cookies and milk after school. Mind you, they are still little--only 4 yrs old and 17 months and THEY won't know the difference. And I will only be 10 minutes away! Somebody slap me. HARD.
My oldest grandchild, Noah, is spending the night tonight for the first time ever. He's 7 and the smartest kid I've ever met! And I don't say this cause he's my grandchild. (He's actually a step-grandson and I'm his bonus grandma, cause he already has 2 others). Anyhow he turned 7 in January and his summer reading included Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park among other stuff. He finished the new Harry Potter in less than a week. We took him out for dinner tonight and he figured out the tip after informing us that it's either 15% or 20% depending on the service.
So we tested him on other percentages and he got them all right. And then recited his multiplication tables up to 12x15. OMG. This is the same kid who moved to San Francisco at the age of not-quite-five and memorized the street maps so he could give his mom directions on how to get everywhere. And knew what parallelegrams and trapezoids were at 18 months. Honestly, I'm NOT bragging---truth be told, he scares me! Besides, he didn't get it from me.
Tomorrow we're off to the air show and then we're going to hunt for the 55 Charlie Brown statues that are hidden all over town. We live in the town where Charles Schulz lived and worked so we are a HUGE Peanuts town. We even have a bronze statue of Charlie Brown and Snoopy in front of the old train depot. And a Peanuts museum and Snoopy's Ice Arena, etc, etc. They ought to call this Cutesy Santa Rosa.

Yowsers!

OMG, this is how computer stupid I am!!! Nikkijedlo was kind enough to create a link to my blog for me, right? Well, I am soooooo stupid, that I did not delete the part of the HTML that had my email addy in it!! Then I posted the link on the NSBB and now everyone who reads that post has access to my email! LOL! All they have to do is click on the link! I did fix it in my profile, so that's okay. And if I remember to sign out of my email, I'm okay. But I guess I have to either get Jeremy to delete that post for me or I need to change my address. Thank God I'm not some weird subversive terrorist with secrets to hide! AAAARGH!
Okay, now I'll PROVE how really computer stupid I am! Donna and Christine both just let me know that no one can read my email. If you click on the first link I posted it takes you to Yahoo mail, but not to MY mail. Thank goodness! Honestly, my mail is pretty darn boring unless you're into all the blue humor I receive from my friend Jackie's husband! Sometimes as many as 155 jokes in one day. No shit.

Town Green Village

The condos are above the shops. Entrances, decks, garages and resident parking are on the back side of the buildings. The park (town Green) is in the center of the village across the street from the buildings in the pics. Our condo will be right around the corner.

I did it!!! I put down the deposit on the condo today!

And now I'm sick to my stomach. Seriously. I have logged more bathroom time today than in the past week total. I am a nervous wreck over this move. See, here's the deal. We live in a close to 3000 sq. ft. 4 bedroom, 3 bath house in a middle class neighborhood. It's worth about $700,000---LOW in an area where all new construction is a million plus. We'd always planned on staying here until retirement, then sell and use the equity to pay cash for a smaller home and not have to make mortgage payments after retirement. The glitch is this--it is no longer possible to do that here! The median price of a resale home is over $600,000 and as stated earlier, new construction is a million plus. And what you get for $600,000 is an 1100 sq. ft. starter home in a less than desirable neighborhood. And that's putting it nicely. So a couple of weeks ago we went up the the Village Green in the next town north of here and while walking around, I said, "gee, I could live in a place like this". And it just snowballed from there. The condos are in a very hip, kinda upscale area called the Town Green Village. It is built to resemble a European or Early American town, built around a park with the condos built over shops. There is an Irish Pub there and some really nice wine country restaurants. It looks almost like something you'd find in Aspen or Telluride. See the pics above of parts of the area. Our condo is not pictured because it's not finished. But it gives you a general idea of what the area looks like. The condos themselves are very cool and very large with an almost Loft type look----no walls downstairs and high ceilings. It's around 2100 sq. ft--3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths and a great kitchen. Almost as nice as the one we put in here when we remodeled. The downside is no backyard, just a large deck and a smaller garage than we have here, 1 less bedroom and a much smaller family room. It is going to be a HUGE transition. I also won't have my pool OR my home gym (which I just finished re-doing a couple of weeks ago!) I know this is very lengthy and I hate to go on and on, but I am scared shitless of doing the wrong thing. I don't know if I'm gonna regret it or if we didn't move, if I'd regret THAT. Please excuse my rambling! It's gonna be a long sleepless night!

I'm so computer stupid.

It's really getting frustrating working on this thing. I STILL can't get my link to work. I followed everyone's instructions and I'm still not doing something right. Even more frustrating is Jan's comment after my last post, telling me that now she can do it! LOL!!
Thank god this week is almost over. It's been really nuts around here. My son started back at school, Roger and I are still going back and forth on the condo, I met a friend for drinks last night at a restaurant in the Village (where the condo is) and we had a blast. I spoke with a few people who live there and they love it. Every Thursday night in the summer they have the farmers' market followed by old movies shown "on the Green". On Sunday afternoons, they have free concerts. Anyhoo, we have to decide by 8 am tomorrow. And we haven't really discussed it. I always want to go into great depth in discussions. Roger isn't much of a communicator. So there you have it....I don't know how we've stayed married this long! I usually try to drag him into a conversation once he gets into bed. It's the only time he's not glued to the television and I refuse to decide my future over talk of autopsy stuff on CSI: Anywhere. Kinda makes you wonder how we've made so many important decisions about stuff, though. I mean, here we are,down to the deadline, deposit check due by tomorrow and we've barely talked about it. All he says is, "Logistically, it makes sense." WTF does that mean? Basically, it means I can decide, but if he's unhappy in say, 5 years,it will be all my fault. AAARGH!

Okay, so they're looking a little tired!

Rubber Ducky,you're the one!

My package from mmangon (Maureen) arrived UPS today! How FUN! She sent me a box of about a zillion rubber duckies. They are so cute. I had a laugh with(or about) the UPS guy. I asked him to wait while I opened the box, cause I wanted to make sure my VERY IMPORTANT package had arrived undamaged. He just about peed his pants when he saw what was in the box. I don't know if he was pissed that I made him stick around for rubber duckies or if he was just struck speechless, but he sure didn't have much of a sense of humor. I thought it was hilarious. I figured those duckies were hot and tired from their long cross country trip so I put them in the pool for a swim. They are funny. One is dressed like Count Dracula, cape, fangs and Eddie Munster hairdo. If I can figure out how to get another pic on here, I'll post one. We still haven't decided about the condo. My DH will end up taking too much time deciding, so I'm afraid we'll miss out on it and be sorry later. He'd really like to stay in this house after all the work he's put into in--he installed our granite countertops, slate floors, remodeled the bathroom, etc., by himself, redid the floors in most of the rest of the house and just redid our whole side yard. So I don't blame him. It would be nice to enjoy it for a while. I just think it makes more sense financially to move soon. If we stay here for another 5-6 years, we'll have to redo everything we just did! Oh well, whatever happens will be what's meant to be. I just feel that the universe is trying to tell us something and we should listen. We already have some people who want to buy our house. They're friends of a neighbor and have been trying to get into this neighborhood for 4 years and have missed out on every house that's been on the market. Que Sera', Sera'. Still haven't heard from Dianna. I'm worried about her, but I know she's not going to call after last weeks drunken fiasco. No way will she admit to me that she blew it. She goes to court on the 25th. Her sister told me that Dianna thinks she'll get off with just a slap on the wrist. I'd like to go to court to offer her moral support (what, am I nuts?) and to see what happens, but she doesn't know that I know. And she'd figure out that her sister and I have talked and she'd be really pissed. Although I'm not sure why I care if she gets pissed. Like she didn't totally hurt me last fall and not care? I really hope she gets sentenced to something like 30 days in the county jail followed by rehab. She's already done rehab once and obviously it didn't work. Maybe some jail time would be humiliating enough to make her realize she needs help. AAAARGH!

Whoooo-ee!

This has just been a weird friggin day. Rog may be one of the greatest husbands in the world--he did give me the Harley, after all, and that huge freakin diamond for our 20th anniversary--but he's driving me NUTS. The man is the world's largest pack rat and I can't take it anymore. I'm trying to get the house ready in case we put it on the market soon and I can't believe the stuff I'm finding in the weirdest places. You'd have to see my house, but there are closets everywhere. My upstairs hallway has 2 huge linen closets plus a wall of cabinets. And every one of them is filled with holiday stuff and I don't mean just Christmas stuff. We still have every Halloween costume our 4 kids ever wore. And said kids are now ages 34,33,32 and 19. Nobody's ever gonna be Chip or Dale again. Or Tiger Lily or Capt. Hook. Jeez Louise. The man refuses to get rid of this stuff. Huh? And the garage. OMG. Every box from every small appliance we have ever had is out there. We have boxes for blenders and telephones that broke 10 years ago. We have furniture, tools,a water softener that never got installed (yeah, Roger, THAT was money well spent!) and the old toilet out of the bathroom we remodeled 2 years ago. I guess we could use it as a planter on the deck of the condo we're looking to buy! LOL
And vehicles--We have 3 cars we use, 1 camping trailer, 1 utility trailer, a pick-up truck that was my son's first car--it's a combination 1972/1979 Chevy Luv that is 2 toned--- red under the peeling green paint, a 1965 Mustang that was my son's second car, AND the above mentioned Harley. And not one of them fits in the garage because of my husband's illness---packratitis. AAARGH!
So instead of really getting anything accomplished, I have spent the day sorting out crap. I've felt like I'm in some weird parallel universe all day. I know none of this makes much sense.

I'm thinking about exercise

I'm considering adding an exercise newsletter to my blog. I don't know if anyone will be interested, but I answer so many individual emails, that I thought it might be nice if people can just check here for different info. I'd still answer everyone's emails or questions here as well. Hmmmm. Let me know what you think.

You Are 30% Weird

Not enough to scare other people... But sometimes you scare yourself.

How Weird Are You?

January, 2005--

Moving up?

We've started talking about where we're gonna go when Roger retires. Hmmmm. We were buying property in Baja California, but put it on hold for a while. Can't decide if we want to build a house there or buy a condo and use it for vacations only. Now we're thinking about selling the house we're in and using the equity to buy another home--downsizing, I guess. We looked at a gorgeous condo in an area called Town Green Village. All of the condos are actually over shops and the whole area looks very European or early American-town-square. The facade of each condo is different. some are brick, some stucco, some wood siding. Tall windows, wrought-iron balconies. Very quaint. I could easily give up having a yard to take care of. I'd miss the pool, but not the gardening. Problem is, I have too many pets. You're only allowed 2 and I have 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 birds and a snake. I could lose the birds and snake, but I don't think I could give up my cats and the dogs are going NOWHERE!
Good news on the weight front. Another lb. down today. Whoohoo! I did cancel my gym membership today. I never go there and now that I've finished my home gym, I've been working out here, anyhow. That'll save me $60 a month. Which just happens to be the same amount as my new sewing machine payment. Like I'll use the sewing machine any more than I used the gym! Yeah, right!

Sleep is good

I'm doing this weird sleeping thing lately. My entire body clock is out of whack for some god-only-knows-why reason. Sometimes I'm up at 6 am, ready to face the day, sometimes it's 10:30 before I even open my eyes. The time I go to sleep seems to have nothing to do with it. I think it has more to do with how loudly Roger snores and how much room the dog takes up on my bed. Last night, I must've punched Roger 10 different times and yelled at him to shut up. I swear, his snoring sounds like snot flying backwards in his head at about 200 miles an hour. I've been trying to talk him into seeing the doctor about it, but he says it doesn't bother him. Well, no shit! HE'S ASLEEP. Anyhow, I've been feeling really depressed lately. Which could explain the weird sleep thing, come to think about it. There have been a lot of life changing things going on in the past year, including my brother's death. It didn't really hit me til a few months ago. Kind of a delayed reaction. I've had a lot of losses in the past--my dad, my sister and now my brother. It just kind of hit me a few months ago that I'm the last one left besides my mom. And it just made me really sad. And then my best friend of over 10 years (Dianna) just kind of dumped me last fall when she made a new friend. So that made me sad, too. So I wanted to just sort of cut my losses and move on, but it's easier said than done. Dianna is a major alcoholic who just fell off the wagon again. She called me from work on Friday, totally wasted, about 8 times. During her last call, she was yelling that she had to get off the phone to go get rid of some customer. Next thing I know, her sister is calling me to tell me Dianna got arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. She had to spend the night in jail and ended up with a broken nose and 2 black eyes from fighting the cops. Apparently, getting rid of that customer included physically assaulting him. Her new best friend bailed her out took her home. Of course, Dianna also lost her job--no surprise there--it's the 14th job she's lost in just over 10 years. So THAT made me sad. I need to get over this shit! But to see someone who was a top competitive athlete just go down the tubes, sucks. She had everything going for her and just sabotaged everything good that came her way. On the upside, I'm doing okay with my weight. It's slowly starting to come off. I've lost almost all of the weight I had regained, so I'm feeling optimistic. I thought about asking the doctor for some antidepressants to get me over this hump, but since most of them cause weight gain, I decided against it.