go prune juice!

synopsis of the week:

• Monday: somewhat-painful but relaxing acupuncture (i really like the acupuncturist & want her to be my friend)
• Tuesday: newbies started @ work. had lots of doubts about one of the guys. he wasn't there for a day & i started getting complaints about laziness, etc. oh good! plus, he makes this bizarro 'click' sound before he says anything. i drives me a little bonkers. i hope he doesn't suck. met the driveway guy in the pm & he was reassuring.
  
• Wednesday: a long day of inspections @ our possible future home... some things were better than we thought (the roof) & some things were worse (the mold in the basement making us all feel sick; cracked sewer line in the basement & lots of roots in it outside).
• Thursday: back to voice lessons after a week off. the teacher is still nutty as all get-out, but i enjoy her. (what does that even mean, "all get-out"? does anyone else use that phrase or is it just my family?)
• Friday: loooooong day at work w/ a meeting that ran an hour longer than i thought. evening of babysitting the finnster @ P&T's. he's pretty adorable & super laid-back. it was a fine time. (though hanging out w/ babies makes it difficult for me to pretend i don't want children.)
• Saturday: mortgage discussion... hopefully we'll get this all squared away on Monday cuz it's making us nutty. gardening. my, do i have lots of peppers - green, a few red and lots of jalapenos. giving a green tomato recipe a whirl. think i f'd it up though. we'll see. D-bone is home!!
  

met with a driveway guy tonight. seemed promising. inspections tomorrow. feeling a little anxious that the plumber isn't going to show...

d's at the U2 concert. we gave the 2nd ticket to one of the new recruits at work. had 2 new folks start today. got some negative comments about one of them & that's no good... ugh. oh well.

i'm looking forward to curling up in bed & reading! no work tomorrow! yippie!

i need to pay my library fine

quick weekend getaway to stl for a family wedding. a good visit. restful and uneventful. tasty greek food w/ gena. the zoo w/ my bro & niece. hangin w/ the folks. cards w/ my grams.

back to the grind today. one new recruit is already having serious issues w/ his supervisor. funny thing is i saw this coming 1000 miles away. i knew there was an ego issue before i offered the position... how do you tell someone who doesn't even make minimum wage to stop being a wanker?? guess i have to figure that out. someone else got canned today. it's been a couple of months & everything seemed to settle down but this'll shake it all back up again i'm sure. i'm afraid part of her work will fall on me & i can't handle it.

everything's feeling a little crazy right now. find a mortgage. find an inspector. apply for a zoning appeal... & yet this doesn't seem any more real. well, maybe a little bit. are we really buying a house?? jeeeeeeeeezus. what the hell are we getting ourselves into??

don't jinx me!

ever since i wrote my super complainy blog post, i've had nothing to complain about. & no it's not because i got it out of my system. the problem has miraculously disappeared. thank you nicotine gum or our landlord or whatever magical faerie descended on our crappy apartment & made things better. i hope that doesn't mean the guy died & the place is about to start smelling like rotting flesh...

it's all about me really. no concern for him or his loved ones - just me & my nasal passages & lungs.

how long will these good times last?

end of week 2

between moving & work & house negotiations, it's been a long crazy stretch. turns out this cute new apartment is the worst hell hole ever. i have avoided writing because i have little positive to say. being in here makes me angry & i expend a lot of energy thinking about how much i want to strangle our downstairs neighbor for filling our apartment & our lungs with his stupid stupid smoke. it's awful. i woke up last night & felt like i couldn't even breathe. it was horrible. i'd like to burn this place down (so we don't have to live here anymore & we don't have to move our stuff anywhere else).

met with our realtor today for what we hope will be our final offer & contract signing. it's been a long stretch of negotiations for this damn place. d & i were at each other's throats today about the zoning variance. do we really need a drive way? do we need to get approval before we buy it? it all boils down to neither one of us wanting to spend one more day in this hell hole apartment. it's hard to stay rational & realistic when you're exhausted & miserable. & so it goes.

my 2 weeks of insanity at work is over & i survived. the new crew has arrived & is undergoing training. one of them was assaulted (mugged & beaten in CV) last week - horrible! they're a laid back crew. i don't feel as pumped about them as the previous crew, but we'll see how they do. i'm always apprehensive in the beginning.

at the end of the week i make a quick trip to the lou for a cousin's wedding. should be fun (& hopefully relaxing...)

final weekend in CV

the last few months i've often said to myself, "i'll never get to do _____ again..." a while ago it was walking home from work with M. then it was working w/ last year's recruits. now it's everything we do in our apartment & our neighborhood. funny thing - a few months ago i was complaining about how bored i am with Charles Village - i've walked everywhere i can walk from here, been everywhere around, there's nothing new, it's always the same old thing. but those are all things i'll miss a lot. we can't walk to the waverly market or downtown or to work or around guilford or to the book thing or the bank or to the halal meat & grocery. we will no longer be 10 minutes from everywhere (this was never really the case, but it sure felt like it).

we've packed up most of our belongings, moved a good bunch of them to the new place (thanks D for all the heavy lifting). there's still a good amount of stuff in here but it's strangely echoey. feels pretty crappy. i can't wait to get settled into the new place. it's hard to feel unsettled - especially for home bodies like me. it makes me a bit nuts.

side note: i hate bugs. i don't actually hate bugs. i usually do my best to capture & release them outside. but not these annoying little bugs that are suddently all over our apartment. i've never seen them before. they're similar to fruit flies with dark brown bodies. i don't know if they started in the flour or if they found the flour, but that was the first infestation i discovered. i cleaned out our pantry cabinet today & found them in 75% of all the dried grains and beans. gross...

so we finally heard back from the owner of Lino's House with a counter offer of $5k less than the asking price. we offered $20k less, so it's still a bit of a jump. it's not that we can't afford the asking price. i don't happen to believe the house is worth the asking price because of all the "updating" required (i don't consider adding a tub/shower to be updating, but whatever). i also worry about us being able to afford house payments if we were to start a family somewhere down the line & one of us was not working... & when we started this whole house hunting process, we both felt sure we wanted a house that needed a little cosmetic work - definitely nothing that needed this much of an overhaul. but here we are. we both like the place a lot - manageable size, affordable price, lots of character... i guess we'll see how it goes. once we agree on a price, we still have to do the zoning appeal for a driveway. who knows what will happen with that. we may not get approval & the whole thing would fall through & that would seriously suck. cross your fingers that all goes well.

D has now taken to calling me "Mrs. Ed" & telling me i eat like a horse... he's so fun.

the weekend's over already...

sometimes life scares the crap out of me... i can't explain it. it's not about death or anything quite so heavy. it's about choices & am i making the right ones... i don't know.

my parents came for the weekend and it was the first time in a long time that i felt like i needed to entertain visitors. it was a good visit but for some reason, i wanted to do more. i was the grown-up kid dragging all my toys out of the toy box to show off... but it is what it is. now they're gone & i'm sad & i feel very alone - even though i'm no more alone than i was friday before they came. it's just strange - that i feel the need to live far away. i'm not sure why we live here anymore. i mean, over the years, i've had lots of friends but i'm slim on close, local friends these days. all the good people keep moving farther & farther away.

we had dinner w/ the beej & aimee last week - which was great fun & i was belly laughing like a fool - and we discussed slogans for baltimore, deciding on "baltimore, keep moving". but we're not moving. we're trying to buy a house. i have a lot of hopes for said house - whether it's the current one or another one. i want to feel settled. i'm tired of wondering where we should be... because this is where we are.

at the same time, i'm not sure how long we'll stay. what if i don't go to school? what will we do for the next 5 years? i guess we'll figure it out, just like we've figured out the last 7.

sometimes, i wish i could just go home & be taken care of again & not have to make any of these decisions or have any responsibilities. hiding out from real life.

i know that's not what i really want. sounds good when i'm freaked out though.

so, we have to move out of our apartment in 2 weeks. we've got a big stack of rubbermaid tubs & boxes just waiting to be filled. (one tub has become a temporary sink for dishwashing as our kitchen sink remains clogged after 1 week & several plumbers...) i can't believe we have to leave this place. this is the longest i've lived anywhere since i left home for college. this place, as much as it makes me nuts, is home. i don't want to take everything off the walls & pack all of our crap in boxes. but it must be done. moving sucks. good thing i like adventures & new beginnings. hamilton, here we come...