Today, I have a house full of workers, who are repairing the spiral steps that Hope had fallen through.   They are noisy, with the power tools and stuff, but they promised to be done today.   The cats are all in the basement, cursing my existence.

I honestly love pretty much everything about living here.   I love the fact that there is a lot of storage and therefore I don’t have to look at my clutter.   Living in a 100+ year old house for the last seven years and an apartment before that means that there really isn’t a lot of storage.   In our last house, my clothing was in closets in a different room from the bedroom.  I don’t have that problem now.   When I am out and about, I forget that I have an attached garage and I am expecting to have to haul my stuff through the yard, until I get here and am surprised all over again.

I am not spoiled yet, and I still don’t take the house for granted.  I know how incredibly fortunate I am.  However, I keep reaching for the medicine cabinet in the bath because I am used to having one above the sink and I have to remember that my stuff is in a drawer.  It’s funny … it’s a 40 year habit, and I wonder how long it’ll be before that habit wears off.

My favorite thing about the house though is the privacy and the yard.  We have watched a family of geese … six babies grow up from fluffly little things into the almost adults that they are now.  They look like geese … they have the long necks and dark fur.  They are still fluffier than a full fledged adult.  The other day, I watched them learn diving lessons … one of the babies didn’t want to do it and walked around the side of the dock and walked in the old way.

And now we have baby deer.  Two fawns.  They are so cute when they are out there frolicking.   When they run off, their tails seem too big for their bodies!

The only thing I would change is that I would be able to go for a walk without having to drive to the park. I know its only a mile to the park, but I miss being able to just get up and go without needing the car.

But its a small price to pay.

Enjoy some pictures of the babies:

First born (above)

Splashing in the water in our driveway

They are getting bigger!

This is the newest picture … see how they look like grown ducks now!

Our nephews, Jacob and Joey (cousins) both graduated from kindergarten and had their final t-ball games last weekend.  Here is some cuteness from those events:

Jacob graduating from kindergarten

Joey playing T-ball

Nicholas being shy, and telling me that he is three.

Katelyn was in a good mood and we bonded totally.

Jacob playing T-ball.  That was a good hit!

Till next time!

One day, Matt says to me “I used practically all hot water and the shower still wasn’t hot”.  We both took a few showers like that, until last weekend, Matt went to check the hot water heater.  He came up from checking on it and he says to me “Hey, you turned that down way too much, it was on warm.  I changed it to medium” or whatever.

Um, I never actually did that.  Really.  I know sometimes my memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be, but I can definitely assure you all that I never got around to checking the temperature of the tank.  So tell me … if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Matt and cats don’t have opposable thumbs and therefore cannot do it … who did?

Last Friday, we closed on our new house.   During the inspection, we were told that a GFI switch doesn’t work and we couldn’t figure out the basements heater, but we tried out the doorbell.  And the ring is quite unique … and very long.  So on Friday, my in-laws came with their truck and took us to IKEA for the furniture we wanted.

We were there putting stuff together, when my brother and sister-in-law show up with our nephews (and baby niece).  During the evening, we discovered that the GFI DOES work and Matt figured out how to work the heater.  However, Matt was entertaining our older nephew and told him to check out the doorbell.  Guess what?  The doorbell didn’t work.  And no-one knows why.  We tried turning on all the light switches (there are at least a million in the house) to see if that mattered and it didn’t seem to.

I know its coincidence, but I am blaming the same entity for both pranks.  He or she can stop now.  Thank you.

As far as the move goes, Matt & I are rolling along on the long to-do list. We have selected a painter, bought living room furniture to be delivered the day before move-in day, put a pool table on layaway and picked out the rest of the furniture that we will buy as soon as we close. We did end up picking stuff at IKEA, but our cars won’t hold a lot and there was no sense in having it delivered HERE and then moved again, so we’ll go out at a later time. We also just accepted the fact the we have to build bookcases. I was also quite surprised to see how expensive dining room sets are. I knew they weren’t cheap, but what we saw, besides IKEA was quite heart attack inducing.

There is still a lot to do around here. Still some projects at the house we need to find someone to do. I haven’t made any phone calls this week, except for “one” which turned out to me many to the same place. Yesterday, I spent my whole afternoon with one company. See, there was incorrect information on two of my credit reports. The address I never lived at didn’t bother me much, but the collection charge did. My mistake was trying to have the collection agency take care of it for me. After three, no four, days of talking to different people and talking to about 10 different people and hearing “You know this isn’t your charge, right?” I was ready to explode. YES! I KNOW it’s not mine, but its on my credit report people and holding up my mortgage, grrr. After talking to the very last person yesterday, I was told to call the credit bureau (Experian). Now, this sounds pretty logical right? Well, except that they won’t talk to you unless you have a “report number” and I didn’t have one because I ordered mine online. Finally someone yesterday shows me where to find it. It is deeply buried in the interface. Tell me what sense does that make, considering you need that number just for a general inquiry?

Anyway, after I had that number, Experian was most helpful. The person I talked to there asked if she minded if she put me on hold. That was how I spent my entire afternoon. I didn’t care again. She called the collection agency herself and got confirmation that it wasn’t mine and promised it would be removed in 48-72 hours. This morning, I received the e-mail that said the information was deleted! That was even faster than Equifax, who, when I called for the collection account number I needed, asked what was up and filed the dispute and took care of it for me. I received that confirmation on Thursday.

So while I will say that collection agencies are not necessarily evil, and the people working for them are not evil, they are just doing their job, I will say that they just don’t do it very well. If you are ever in this situation, go straight to the credit bureaus. Learn from my mistake.

So this week was crazy. Monday was the first contact with the collection agency and that took the morning and then we went furniture shopping. Tuesday, I had a vet appointment. Wednesday, an appointment with my neurologist/headache specialist and yesterday, the deal above. Running, running, running. I thought I quit running.

The neurologist told me that I have migraines due to chemical imbalances in the brain. Oh lovely. Sometimes they are helped with anti-depressants, but not the one I’m on. But he didn’t change that.

I’m on a new “retrain my brain” to work regimen. I need to take my medicine right away, not wait to see if it goes away. I need to tweak my supplements and exercise (even walking, it doesn’t have to be intense, high impact every day) even on migraine days. On migraine days, keep it to 30 minutes and take it down a notch. So instead of high-speed walking of 1 mile in 15 minutes, I say, do 20 minutes or more per mile. I am to be on a regular sleep schedule … nice one, doc, I’ve been trying to do that for YEARS ha ha … and eating schedule. That I can handle.

This weekend should be nice. I won’t have the collection thing hanging over me anymore. We are going to be home on Saturday, doing things, although Matt will go running. And on Sunday, we are going to see our girl Kayla at college and take her to dinner and a movie. It’s always nice hanging out with Kayla.

I have more to say, but I’ll save that for another post. Thanks for reading!

Procrastination is one of my very best personality traits. Or worst. But I’m also a perfectionist. And so the perfectionist in me procrastinates doing things until I have time to do it perfectly. Or I just procrastinate doing things I dread or don’t enjoy (making phone calls rates highly). So its a vicious cycle.

There have been times when my procrastination has paid off though. I know a few times I’ve put off making certain phone calls to have the situation resolve itself. However, I have a nice recent example that I wanted to share.

When my husband and I were looking at houses a few weekends ago, we had a conversation about games rooms and spaces. One of the houses had a small basement with a pool table already there. He mentioned that there wasn’t enough space for a ping-pong table as well. I said to him “We can just get one of those covers that converts the pool table to a ping-pong table”. He sneered at me. “I don’t want that” or something like that.

Well, as it turns out, I wanted to buy him one of those for this house to put on our dining room table at Christmas. I procrastinated and the one I had wanted was not available until after Christmas, so I had to make other plans and decided it would be his birthday present.

However, his birthday rolls around and I kept forgetting to order it in time to get here. Then I thought of something that would be better. I couldn’t decide between the two and in the end, I got him neither of those.

It worked out that he didn’t like the ping-pong converter idea … but what is an even better ending to this story … the alternate gift? He already had one. And for the curious, it was a San Antonio Spurs DeJuan Blair jersey.

So, next time you want to procrastinate, realize … it CAN work in your favor.

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What?  Getting ex back?  What post talked about that?  LOL.

Anyway, some updates from my life.

Indy continues to improve.  The last ALT value was 131.  He just had another test yesterday, and we are hoping for that magic number of 100 or less.  I predict it will be 100 teens.

Joey turned 20 years old a few weeks ago.  I can’t believe that I have a cat that is 20.  He has been not wanting to eat and I noticed one day that he was having trouble chewing.  It went beyond just being picky.  I had also noticed a few weeks back that his breath really stunk.  Really badly, like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.  It was not the expected uremic smell from the kidney disease.  So I plop him on the counter by the good light, and open his mouth.  He fought me, but I saw what I thought was bleeding.  I called in my husband to help hold him down and I see a mass.  Pretty large, bulbulous and red.  Not bleeding though.  I also noticed excessive tartar on the teeth.

Not sure what to do, I took him to the vet earlier this week.  The vet was very concerned, but since he is so very old with compromised kidneys, we cannot put him under for a thorough evaluation.  The mass could be something really scary or it could be inflammation/infection from the bacteria on the teeth.  He managed to scrape some tartar off the molars and started Joey on antibiotics.  We’ll see if it looks any better when we go back for his acupuncture next week.

Me?  Well, I have only two more sessions of physical therapy left.  It has helped me build up some muscle.  Not sure though if it helped the pain go away or if it was a result of my stopping most intense exercise.  Was it the rest or the strengthening?  Or both?  I guess we’ll never know, but I am feeling a lot better. I still have pain when out in the cold that is probably a result of the arthritis.  I’ve been cleared to do my own lower body routines and cardio … except for running or jumping still.  I started taking a supplement for joint pain.  It’s not glucosamine/condroitin because I am not sure of their efficacy in humans, and they are made of shellfish, so they are not even vegetarian!  The supplement I’m taking is Zyflamend and I really think its helping.